“First look at the colour. The outer rim, slightly raised should be a golden tan. Then as we move to the center it fades to a soft uniform cream or ecru tone…”
It felt like we were in an operating theatre… and the learned Professor was instructing a young student in the basics.
“Look at the top surface. Perfectly even. Undisturbed by a single imperfection. Study it. Its secrets lie below…”
I met Abel when I was just a kid. He was a friend of my parents’ and he and his wife Merle were occasional weekend guests. Even to a kid it was easy to see that Abel didn’t talk. He expounded. But it wasn’t in a bumptious or braggy way. The key was his voice. Rich, low and slightly scratchy… a tell tale of years of cigarettes and good whisky. You wanted to listen to that voice. Somewhat patrician; but at the same time endearing and enveloping.
I think I was all of 12 when he elaborated at length on the attributes of Single Malt Scotch Whisky. I listened mesmerized. Booze meant nothing to me (then); but he made it sound as if every other beverage was completely unnecessary.
“Now a slow pivot. Let’s look at the exposed cut. It’s important. This will be the first confirmation of the texture. Be alert. A pure smoothness here is a fault. We want to see tiny nooks and crannies in what appears a smooth surface to a less discerning eye. It’s the nooks and crannies that are the repositories of flavour & it is an indication of the rich texture we seek.”
I must have been 18 or 19 at this time, and this was not the first time I was going to eat a piece of cheesecake. But it was the first time when I had its qualities fully explained. You know… I liked cheesecake before Abel broke it down for me. He just took me to a different level of appreciation.
“You need a good fork. Silver, of course. Long tines. Thank God your Mother has good silverware.”
He inspected the fork with the same respect that a Samurai shows a sword. He felt the fork’s heft, its balance and then brought his plate closer and had me do the same. It was mid-afternoon and we were the only ones sitting in our breakfast room. Mommie Soph had put a slice before each of us, and then retired to attend to other matters.
“Using the side of your fork cut directly down a half inch off the apex of the slice… don’t hurry here… look for a firmness & a small amount of resistance. That is our second indication of its texture. If the fork cuts thru too quickly it will mean a softer consistency and the texture will be lacking.”
I ask my first impertinent question, “Should we be having this with a glass of milk or something?”
He paused from his procedure and looked at me thru his tinted glasses that he always wore, day or night… “I was going to address that later; but since you ask. Tea. A cup of tea would be fine.”
He continued. “You see these tiny crumbs that my cut has produced? This is the third indication that we have good texture. And now comes the best part…”
He carefully placed a forkful of cheesecake into his mouth and slowly chewed, pausing to focus his senses… he was on the verge of saying something; but raised a finger… a sign that I would have to wait a moment longer while he considered the results of the tasting. He nodded his head. What I took to be an endorsement of the quality.
He smiled.
“Yes. I would say that was good. Very, very good. As I expected, the texture is near perfect. Rich, moist with a modest dryness that causes it to cling lightly to the roof of the mouth… but without the sensation that a finger is needed to scrape off a remaining morsel the way you would with peanut butter. Perfect density. Not so dense as to feel like a piece of fudge, but properly rich with hidden molecules of air that resonate the flavour.”
Having evaluated the texture, he cut himself another piece, somewhat bigger than the first… “now it’s time to examine the taste…“
This was chewed even more slowly… I couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed behind his tinted lenses; but I suspected that they were. I instinctively knew that when it comes to taste; vision acts as an anchor… it stops the movement of our senses.
“Oh my… cheesy, vanilla, a hint of lemon peel. Classically done. Simple. Delicious. I would say that your Mother has picked this up at Juniors, maybe Lindy’s or The Eclair in Grand Central.”
He has another forkful. “Eclair… definitely it’s Eclair’s cheesecake.”
Pretty impressive. I am thinking that he had to see the box from The Eclair sitting on the kitchen counter. 18 year olds are always suspicious… it’s our nature.
I ask impertinent question number 2. “I bet this would be great with strawberries. Mr. Greenburg, do you like strawberry cheesecake?”
He put his fork down. You would have thought that I had asked him if cheesecake would be good topped with chicken gizzards. He took off his glasses, breathed a layer of fog on each lense, took out his handkerchief and polished his lenses. Satisfied that they were clean. He took another small portion of cheesecake.
“That would be gilding a lilly.” He savoured a mouthful. “Jimmy, that would be a distraction from the essence of the cheescake… it obscures both the flavour and the texture. It would be like putting a hat on the Mona Lisa.“
Well… I’m not sure what that had to do with eating cheesecake. But even I could see that if Da Vinci had wanted Mona Lisa to be wearing a hat, he would have painted her wearing one.
Try as I might, there was no way that I was going to eat my slice of cheesecake with the patient care that Abel employed. After giving thought to the very intitial taste and examination… I scarfed down the rest, hopeful that if I ate it quickly I would have time and room for an additional slice before “class let out”. When you’re 18 or 19 you can do these things.
I was set to ask him another impertinent question. He must of sensed it coming… or he was a mind reader.
“You’re still thinking about other styles of cheesecake? Well… let’s make this easy. This is the ‘Real McCoy’. Everything else is a ‘pretender’. This is New York Cheesecake… and its single most important ingredient is Philadelphia brand cream cheese. Italian Cheesecake is also quite good… it uses riocotta cheese which gives it a ‘drier’ finish and texture. And I’ve had some excellent Italian Cheesecake. But it’s just not the same. New York Cheesecake, plain and unadorned reigns supreme.”
He cleans the crumbs from his plate collecting them in the tines of the fork and presses them together before dispatching them in a quick bite.
“My, that was good. Jimmy, it’s all about the texture…”
It was a lucky day. I was able to enjoy a second slice before we left the table. And also a third for a pre-bedtime snack. And I learned the hidden secret of Cheesecake… it’s in the texture…