Ask Alton Brown How Food+Heat=Cooking

This week's Slashdot interview guest is Alton Brown, host of the popular cable TV show Good Eats. This is a "reader request" interview in the wake of the surprisingly popular Slashdot review of Alton's book, I'm Just Here for the Food. Please post your questions below. we'll send 10 of the highest-moderated to Alton, and post his answers when we get them back.

Comments

Re:Where do you get all the cool gadgets...

[acl993]

The Good Eats Fan page (www.goodeatsfanpage.com) has a lot of information about the show, including the equipment Alton uses on the show. The url for the page is http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/References/TheEquip ment.htm

From there there are different pages for various types of items, including cook/bake ware, everyday equip., etc.

Since www.goodeatsfanpage.com is going slow right now, you might try using this google search url (http://www.google.com/search?query=equipment%20si te%3Awww.goodeatsfanpage.com&num=10) and what you are looking for are the first few links.

Re:Why are some people better Cooks?

[twoshortplanks]

It's the same thing with coding - some people are better coders than others, and just showing them the rules and syntax won't help them. They need to learn how to problem solve.

Basically what you're attempting to do is called cognative skills transfer. It's no good transfering the rules of what to cook, you want to transfer the understanding of how you can combine various things, and how to anticipate what effect applying previously unknown combinations of ingredents and techniques work. Again, problem solving.

There's lots of literature on this subject about teaching people this - it's called "Cogantive Transfer". I recommend looking at some of the stuff by Richard E. Mayer - very interesting.

Re:Small kitchen - what tools?

[gallen1234]

A list of Alton's Essentials can be found on his website in a typically quirky format.

Many of the questions so far can be found at...

[IvyMike]

Many of the answers to some of the questions asked so far can be found at www.altonbrown.com and also at (especially check the FAQS on this site).

I mention this because I'd like to see slashdot add to the internet's collective pool of Alton Brown knowledge, not repeat stuff that we already known.

Already online! Re:10 Most Essential Cooking Tools

[IvyMike]

You should check out "Alton's Essential Elements" from his web page, which is his top 25 kitchen tools. It includes a lot of the ever-famous tools from the show, including the Lodge cast iron skillet and the probe thermometer.

I'm not Alton, but...

[BlackGriffen]

I took a neuroscience class last fall and I can answer your question. There are definitely G-protein coupled receptors in the mouth for detecting more than just "salt, sweet, sour, and bitter." In fact, IIRC, sweet and bitter both rely on similar (GPC) receptors, whilst sour and salt rely on ion channels. The name of this taste is called "umami." What you're tasting is the neurotrasmitter glutamate. The dangerous part of MSG is the sodium ion, because sodium is necessary (neurons cannot fire without it) but people generally get too much of it anyway.

IIRC, neuroscientists haven't yet figured out all of the different receptors in our mouths. The basic idea is that each one provides a benefit to survival: sweet = high carb, sour = citrus (?), bitter = poisonous, salt = need salt, umami = good protein source (?), etc.

BlackGriffen

Food technology

[ruiner13]

Mr. Brown,

seeing as this is a science and technology related site, I figured I'd try to relate my questions to this topic. Ok, so here goes.

1. What do you feel are the most important inventions/advancements in food preparation/service technology in the last 25 years, and which do you use the most in your cooking (i've seen you use just about anything not nailed down on Good Eats!).
2. What areas of food perparation/service do you feel can still be benefited more by future technology?

I know that's technically two questions, but they're kinda related. Also, thanks for having such a great show, I have learned a lot from you, and look forward to reading your book!