ahh Clare - I see you side with Pontius Pilate (and imo some of the truest words spoken in the good book...).
I think the thing about Evans is his work wasn't about the truth, but a truth. Really, the truth is generally a big fat red herring - does god exist, did the Israelis or Hezbollah start it, what is the meaning of life - pick you truth - they are all essentially pointless quests.
Photographers like Evans remind us of or call our attention to just one, small truth - a truth - what the essay describes as "Not all truth, just the limited subset of it he could show" - that he saw this sign (or this families, or this person, or this building) and it meant something when he saw it and it simply looked like this.
The right photograph would say exactly the same for your souffles
"Walker Evans's photographs strike me a lot like Tom McCarthy's essay: beautiful, as long as you understand that beautiful is the wrong word. Evans was always trying to get at truth. Not all truth, just the limited subset of it he could show".