Alton Brown - Good Eats (Text-Only Edition): The Early Years

La mejor salsa del mundo es la hambre.

Hunger is the best sauce in the world.

CERVANTES

SEASON 1

SEASON 2

SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

SEASON 6

ALTON BROWN: So, how did this phenomenal success come into being?

ALTON BROWN: Well, one day in 1991 I was sitting in my office staring at a pad of paper. Back then I directed TV commercials for a living, and I was supposed to be crafting a presentation that would hopefully convince some advertising exec somewhere that I was the director to take his precious snowflake of an idea and kindle it into high art. Diapers, tires, insurancedont remember what it was for, but I knew didnt want to do it. I was thinking instead about cooking and specifically about cooking shows, most of which I thought were pretty dull, and uninformative and... did I mention dull? I wanted someone to make a show for my generation. I jotted down three names: Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, and Monty Python.

AB: Amazing. You do know, of course, that Monty Python isnt actually a person.

AB: I said I jotted down three names, not three names of people.

AB: Good point. I am sorry. Go on.

AB: Well, now I dont remember what I was talking about.

AB:Good Eats.

AB: Ah, yes. I thought if I could combine all these styles into one show, viewers could actually learn something about cooking, what makes food tick, rather than simply being hit over the head with recipes. And they would hopefully be so entertained in the process theyd never know they were being educated. If my high school years taught me anything its that people dont like to be educated to.

AB: What about a host?

AB: Well, the show would have to have a smart host with lots of knowledge, a slightly snarky attitude, and dead-on comedic timing. I was thinking we would probably get someone out of the Actors Studio or maybe the Royal Academy.

AB: When did you become the host?

AB: That was a money thing. We raised enough money to make two pilot episodes, but it was only going to be enough money if we paid the host absolutely nothing and nothings tough to sell to most actors.

AB: So you just fell into the job.

AB: And through it and around it and over it. Im still the weak link. I think one of the reasons people keep watching is to see if I ever improve. I will say I get some joy out of the fact that my family always told me the only thing a theater degree would get me is a job in a restaurant. But I think they might have meant waiting tables.

AB: What happened after you made the pilots?

AB: Nothing. You have to remember we knew how to shoot stuff, but we knew absolutely nothing about the television business. We thought if we sent people tapes that theyd watch them. But they dont. What they do is set beverages on them.

AB: Is it true that early VHS versions of the pilots recently sold on Ebay for five thousand dollars apiece?

AB: Thats so wrong. Those tapes belong in a museum. Anyway, in 1998 Food Network calledfinallyand in a couple of months we had a deal. We went to work on Season One, thirteen shows at the time, and on July 7, 1999, at 9 pm Eastern Time, Good Eats made its national debut.

AB: And now its July 7, 2009.

AB: Ten years and two hundred and thirty-something episodes are history. Most of my crew is still with me.

AB: It is just a cooking show, you know.

AB: (long pause) Sure, its just a cooking show, but we like to think its the best darned cooking show ever.

AB:Good Eats recently won a coveted Peabody award. The only other food personality to ever win one is...

AB:... Julia Child. Yeah, thats pretty cool. Totally makes up for being shunned by the Emmys... every year for, you know... the last ten years.

AB: So, why the book? Why now? And what can fans expect?

AB: Actually this first book is just Volume One of a three-volume set. So its, you know, like, the trilogy.

AB: You mean... like Lord of the Rings.

AB: Sure, only without the funny names and invisibility rings and dragons and stuff. Its an epic, only with cool pictures and graphs and stuff. And its heavy, so you know its important.

AB: Heavy?

AB: We add depleted uranium to the ink for added heft.

AB: So what can readers expect from Good Eats: The Early Years? Besides of course, weight.

AB: Each of the first eighty episodes has its own mini chapter, containing the basic knowledge of the showwe call that the Knowledge Concentrateand remastered applications.

AB: Whats an application?

AB: We dont have recipes, we have applications. We call them that because we like to think that they are applied knowledge. Wed call them proofs, you know, like mathematic proofs, but math kind of scares me. Anyway, weve reworked most of them and just adjusted others.

AB: Which leads one to wonder what was wrong with them in the first place.

AB: No. No, its... Let me ask you something. Is there anything wrong with Astral Weeks?

AB: You mean the 1968 Van Morrison album?

AB: Thats the one. Is there anything wrong with it?

AB: Well no. Its generally considered to be a masterpiece.

AB: Darned tootin it is. And yet just this year ol Van re-recorded the whole thing, tune for tune, live. Does that mean that there was something wrong with it in the first place?

AB: No. But as musical artists mature they often return to their early work in order to inject it with new...

(At this point Brown simply stares at the interviewer and raises his eyebrows.)

AB: Exactly. Weve enhanced some dishes, added new flavors, and, yes, weve made a few small repairs based upon input from fans. Weve also converted most of the baking applications to weights because weights are more precise and thats what baking is all about. There are also brand new applications, for dishes we would have included in the shows if wed been given an hour slot instead of just thirty minutes. There are hundreds of images from the shows and lots of anecdotes, you know, for the fans. But its not a fan book, per se.

AB: Why not?

AB: Im saving that stuff for my autobiography. Ive got a ghost writer working on it now.

AB: And it even looks like your daughter got involved. These are her illustrations, I assume.