Good Eats

I’m actually not a big fan of cooking shows… I do have fond memories of Julia Child appearing on Letterman and throwing eggs at Bill Murray, but other than that, my reaction to such shows has generally wavered between apathy and severe annoyance (I particularly hate shows that encourage the use of obscure or heinously expensive ingredients… saffron, shaved truffle, and most types of vanity salts fall into this category).

Alton Brown and Iron Chef are the two cooking shows I really appreciate (despite the latter’s violation of my expensive ingredient complaint above): Both of them have a common element, which seems to be a deep interest in the essence of the food targeted by that particular episode. Iron Chef’s “theme ingredient” interests me because it’s almost the equivalent of a survey course in a particular ingredient… as a show, it gives me lots of “why didn’t I think of that” moments as the chefs combine the ingredient in new and creative ways. The commentary on the cooking is also good (in both the original Japanese and new American versions… the latter of which is done by Alton Brown, who I turn to now).

On his own show, Brown takes this process to another level: His cooking show only spends about half its time cooking. The rest is devoted to what is the equivalent of a lecture: a really, really GOOD lecture, with extensive research, great visuals and metaphors, delivered in an exceptionally entertaining and accessible style (often through elaborate dramatic scenes or parodies of entertainment programs). I actually watch episodes devoted to foods I don’t like to eat because his style is so engaging and informative. And he’s a good cook: His recipes focus on accessible, sensible, and good-tasting recipes that you really want to try… and he provides you with enough of a theoretical foundation for the cooking that you can generalize the techniques and apply them elsewhere (see his shows related to brining, for example, which have influenced the way I do Thanksgiving turkeys).