All I Ever Wanted Was A Shepherd's Pie

It was delicious. The vaguely dry ground beef bathed in once-powdered gravy, corn and perhaps some chopped carrots, topped with mashed potato. My first shepherd's pie.

My 13-year-old taste buds still weren't very mature (Pizza Hut rated higher than four star restaurants in Chinatown), but once a sip of syrupy Coke had settled the last of the perfect gravy-con-carrot-beef-potato mixture in my stomach, they recognized a new, wonderful sensation.

As my gastrointestinal tract processed the shepherd's pie the night, I dreamt of green hills and grazing sheep.

Ever since that summer at nerd camp, my taste buds and stomach have been on a quest to re-experience a near-perfectly balanced meal of vegetable, meat and starch in one dish. Specifically, my mission has been to discover and then savor the Platonic form of shepherd's pieness.

Unfortunately, the quest, which has taken me from Virginia to New England to England has failed to deliver an experience which matches my initial foray into shepherd's pie heaven.

I came close to tasting perfection in tenth grade, when after volunteering at a homeless shelter, my friend and I were allowed to help ourselves to some of the pie a church group had donated for dinner. But the guild I felt while swallowing what could have been a poor homeless person's gravy-smothered portion diluted the pleasure.

I thought, perhaps, that New England would provide a better venue for my search. After all, shepherd's pies were invented in England and made for cold weather. Therefore, frigid "New" England would undoubtedly have some appetizing version of the entree. I was wrong.

The shepherd's pies at Mr. and Mrs. Bartley's would more aptly be called beef stew pies--filled with chunks of meat instead of ground beef. At Quincy Market, Kitchens of the Bay State serves gravy-less pies. And the "pie" I bought at a sandwich shop in Kennebunkport, Maine was all smooshed together with peasin a styrofoam cup. Alas.

Last summer, I flew to England to visit a friend who had promised me that she had found an oxford pub that served my favorite dish. She sent me a packet of real British shepherd's pie seasoning mix as a preview of the taste sensations that awaited me in the Royal Kingdom.

Everything in England appeared true to form--the bell towers, the students in gowns bicycling to exams, the green pastures, the lush grass and, a very good sign, the sheep.

We went to the pub where my friend had discovered the shepherd's pie on the menu. Walking past the pink-curtained, glass storefront and through the door, I knew immediately that, even in England, the Perfect Pie would prove elusive. The pie at the pub was forgettably bland.

I decided, then, to put the shepherd's pie quest on hold and expand the search to any perfect meal. My chances of success, I assumed, would be far greater. Consequently, I now look upon every vacation to strange and far-away lands as an opportunity to sample new culinary delights.

On a Spring Break driving tour of South Carolina and Georgia, my single obsession became not to view every historical site and plantation recommended by Fodor's but to stop and taste the offerings of every single restaurant and fast-food joint we sped by on small Southern highways.

I lived from meal to meal. Hours before any "normal" mealtime, my fellow travellers would be bombarded with suggestions for possible mealtime sites.

"Oh. 'Katherine's Kitchen,' let's try that one for lunch..."

"`Mom's'--we have to try that..."

"`Egg Roll Express'--I bet they serve a mean plate of Chicken Lo Mein..."

"`Taco Bell' anyone? Only 49 cents a taco!"

My companions with bird-like appetites laughed and ignored my pleas, satisfied that an appropriate restaurant would cross our path at mealtime.

I got my way in the end, though--we did eat at many of the places I'd been lobbying for all day.

But inevitably the anticipation of sampling exotic Southern menus killed the actual experience. The scallop and crab casserole at the Rice Planters in Myrtle Beach was drowned in Old Bay seasoning, the fried alligator was too chewy and scaly at the snooty Poogan's Porch in Charleston, and the meatloaf and mashed potatoes at Wilson's Soul Food in Athens oozed with orange grease.

There were unexpected moments, however, of culinary joy. The fried chicken and applesauce at Po Folks in Somerville was delicious. But it took an unplanned stop on the road to Athens, Georgia to find the Perfect Meal.

There, in St. George, S.C., my lunch consisted of the perfect combination of starch, meat, and vegetables--perfectly spiced with hot salsa. The meat was tender, the vegetables fresh, and the dough moist. And It was all in the shadow of the golden arches.

They were two chicken fajitas from McDonald's that unlikeliest of sources for gourmet cooking. Julia Child, I suppose, would faint at the thought that chicken fajitas at McDonald's would be more satisfying than medallions of chicken wrapped in ham and covered in an orange cream sauce. But my mission had been accomplished, and my traveling companions were treated to a satisfied silence.

I learned much from my trip south. That the simplest foods are often the best. And that low expectations may lead to surprising results.

By the way, I've since re-narrowed my food quest. A perfect bowl of noodles.