The 1,600°F Fallacy

The trouble started more than a century ago with the absolutely false notion that “searing meat locks in the juices.” 

In restaurant and home kitchens to this day one hears, “If a little searing locks in juices, then a lot of searing will lock in even more!” Or, “If an 800°F broiler sears the outside of the steak decently, a 1,600°F broiler will sear it that much better.”

But anyone who has grilled a steak might well ask, “If searing locks in juices, how come the seared meat weeps juice all over the plate, while the raw meat barely weeps at all?”

The worship of high-temperature cooking has required chefs to invent a host of “damage control” techniques: barding, larding, resting, brining, needling, pounding, tenderizing, marinating…and on and on.

More damage to proteins means more damage control means more steps in recipes means more cooks in the brigade means higher costs means higher prices.

How did we get into this predicament?

Well, there is a saying among marine architects, the people who design boats: “There are four things every client wants in a sailboat: that it be fast, safe, comfortable, and cheap. You can choose any three, but it is impossible to design a boat that gives you all four.”

I was reminded of this bit of wisdom recently while thinking about America’s love affair with steak. It can accurately be said that there are four things every customer wants in a steak: that it be tender, juicy, hot, and cheap.

But here’s the difference. You can have any two. There are ways to trick you into thinking you can get three. It is impossible to give you all four.

Many people would testify that they have been to a chain-type steakhouse and were served a steak that was tender, juicy, hot, and affordable (cheap). But that interpretation ignores the implied premise that the steak (or the yacht) possesses all their particular attributes maximally. 

In general, cuts of protein that are cheap are tough. This is exponentially true of beef. Filet, strip steak, or rib-eye are many times the price of shoulder or shank, Additionally, dry aging—which yields the absolutely greatest tenderness with the least loss of juiciness—is a very, very costly process. One expects to pay more for a dry-aged steak than a wet-aged one.

There is an inverse relationship between juiciness and final internal temperature. In movies today you’ll sometimes see a chef storming out of his kitchen, refusing to cook a steak well-done: “It will be destroyed, dried-out, like wood…” And the chef is right. The hotter you want that steak, the drier it will be, period. 

That much is generally understood. As I mentioned in my last post, it is the relationship between tenderness, juiciness, and cooking temperature that is so misunderstood.  

This was not some sinister, Machiavellian plot.

It arose from that most Western, human foible—credential worship. One hundred and sixty years ago, one of the most celebrated scientists of the day, Justus von Liebig, developed a theory of protein cooking which later seduced the most celebrated chef of his day, Auguste Escoffier.

Although Liebig’s theories turned out to be completely wrong, he made a fortune by giving his name to an American company (Liebig, Inc.) that produced meat extracts from meat byproducts. 

In 1903, Escoffier published his seminal work, Le Guide Culinaire, which contained more than 5,000 recipes, and attempted, successfully, to codify French Haute Cuisine.  It was not the first or only cookbook to anthologize Haute Cuisine.  What set it apart was the inclusion of Escoffier’s derivative of Liebig’s “scientific cooking theories.”

This book quickly became the principal culinary textbook of cooking schools throughout the Western world. More than one hundred years later, despite the disproof of its theories, it is still being used as a primary teaching tool in most of the world’s culinary schools.

Now, I have great admiration for Escoffier. He was not the first chef to attempt to codify the cuisine of his day, but I believe he was the first to attempt to explain why his techniques worked using the science of his day. It is not his fault that the science of his day was completely wrong at the chemical and molecular level. 

Nonetheless, I do consider it a travesty that culinary schools continue to teach his theories eighty years after they have been disproved.

As a result, home cooks block out all evidence before their eyes that contradicted the theory. Butchers do things like barding—wrapping and tying a thin layer of fatback around even the meanest eye roast.

Equipment manufacturers were quick to provide both professional and residential cooks with ever higher-powered stoves and broilers.

Twenty-five years ago, a handful of the world’s best chefs began to argue for a “two-step” approach to protein cookery. First, high heat is used for a very short time to brown the exterior. Then the interior is cooked at a much lower temperature in order to retain the maximum tenderness and juiciness.

Today almost no world-class chef disputes the superiority of low-temperature protein cookery. In spite of their credentials, they have been almost entirely ignored by the rest of the population. 

Next week, I’ll tell you why their wisdom has been so widely ignored.

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