Alton Brown Answers, At Last

We knew this was going to take a while -- it turned out to be just about one month since the question post -- due to some show-taping problems Alton had. He was kind enough to warn us about the delay, a warning regular Slashdot Interview readers picked up. Anyway, here we go. (Warning: Reading this interview may cause hunger.)

1) My question
by mofolotopo
Something I've found as a newbie chef is that a good 75.32% of good cooking is good shopping. What tips do you have for finding good, fresh ingredients? Where the heck do you get fresh herbs etc. in a smallish town?

Alton: First off, you need to decentralize your shopping. Don't try to get everything in one place. Even if you don't have a farmers market in the area, I'm willing to bet there's a co-op or health food store that will open up your options. Ditto a butcher. As for fresh herbs, if they're really a problem to find in your area, try growing your own when and where climate allows. The rest of the time, buy dry herbs and spices over the internet from someone like Penzeys or The Spice House. Above all, do not drive yourself crazy. Learn to work with what you have. Oh, and don't forget ethnic markets; they often have the best produce as well as meat.

2) Why are some people better Cooks?
by kallistiblue
I've noticed that some people seem to be naturally better cooks than others. I've know several people that follow a recipe very exactly. The food they create just doesn't turn out very good. Personally, I'll use a recipe as a guideline and use rough estimates. Most of the time, my meals turn out pretty well. It's as if an intuitive sense is needed.

How does someone learn/teach this skill?

Alton: First, you need to become a good recipe follower. Most people who think they can't cook aren't really taking time to properly read the recipes they're working from or they don't really understand what they're being asked to do. For instance, there are plenty of recipes out there that call for "searing" a piece of meat. If you don't know what "searing" really is, you're doomed. Unfortunately most recipes are written for people that already know how to cook. So start by really paying attention to a recipe and make sure you understand it. Then cook it a few times keeping detailed notes about the process and your feelings about the final dish. Keep notebooks?write down as much as you can and slowly you'll begin to learn what you're doing. As long as you're willing to think and taste as you go, you can become a cook?I promise.

3) Vegetarians
by sammy.lost-angel.com
As a vegetarian, I'm compelled to ask this: Have you seen a trend in recent years of more vegetarians, or more dishes made without meat? Time magazine had a recent cover story about this, and my feeling is it's becoming a more important part of everyone's lives, yet whenever I catch a cooking show on TV it lacks making many vegetarian dishes.

Alton: Americans don't eat near enough vegetables. I'm not a vegetarian, though I do respect anyone who makes a hard and fast decision about what he or she is going to live on. All you have to do is look at the health statistics from countries whose cuisines are lighter on meat and heavy on veggies and fish?They live, longer. It's as simple as that. What I would hate to see is a radical swing away from meat. I think we evolved as omnivores for a reason. And that's all I have to say about that.

4) Lower Fat and Cholesterol?
by cporter
Mr. Brown, I love your recipes. In the last few weeks, I've prepared Chocolate Mousse, Party Mayonnaise, Chimney Tuna, and Baba Ganoush from "Good Eats" and Chicken Piccata from "I'm Just Here for the Food." Not all at one meal, of course.

I applaud episodes like "Good Milk Gone Bad" and "The Other Red Meat" that focus on lower fat and cholesterol foods. But many of your recipes call for butter, oil, cream, and other less than healthful foods (even bacon grease!). What do you think about some of the substitutes out there, or using ingredients like applesauce to replace butter?

Alton: There are no bad foods, only bad food habits. I eat cream, butter, and bacon; I just don't eat pounds of it at a time. I use these things when they are needed in recipes and leave them out when they're not needed. As for substitutes, I only agree with them if they really don't change a person's response to a dish. Take mashed potatoes for instance. I recently saw a recipe that suggested that the fat we all know that mashers need could be replaced with vegetable broth. Hogwash. All that does is lead to dissatisfaction and I think that dissatisfaction results in overeating. We like fats because fats satisfy. They break down in the digestive track very slowly so they keep us fuller longer. Now if I find a way to replace a fatty ingredient without missing it (I do this a lot with yogurt) then you bet I'm going to do it. But I repeat: there are no bad foods

5) Art vs. Science
by Susskins
A lot of your show is dedicated to the Science of cooking, and to the underlying physics of food. Your Grandmother (in a really cool episode about biscuits) demonstrated a wicked amount of Artistic Skill, the "look and feel" of food preparation. Do you have any thoughts about the balance of Art and Science in cooking?

Alton: No matter how much creativity goes into it, cooking is an art?or perhaps I should say a craft. It abides by absolute rules, physics, chemistry, etc. and that means that unless you understand the science you cannot reach the art. We're not talking about painting here?cooking's more like engineering. I happen to think that there is great beauty in great engineering (the wing of a Boeing 777, a suspension bridge) but they are not works of art, they are works of science. To my mind art is a matter of personal expression and the exchange of ideas; food is in the end, fuel?a means to an end. Sorry for rambling.

6) Iron Chef
by FortKnox
Seeing that all geeks love Iron Chef, I have to ask, would you be willing to go against an Iron Chef? If so, which would you pick??

Alton: I don't care about the chefs I want a shot at the goofball in the Palomino Jacket. He needs to be taken down. And the judges, oh please let me at them!

7) Elements of cooking
by SWroclawski
Mr. Brown,

I think that the most interesting part of your show to this audience is your emphasis on the science of cooking, from discussion of protein (such as in your angel food cake episode and your recent soufflé episode).

But the other difference in Good Eats is the great emphasis you place on the parts of cooking, that is the elements at a more abstract level, such as use of heat, individual ingredients (which is the topic of many of the shows) and methods of cooking (such as the right way to mix and fold). This all makes Good Eats interesting for us geeks out there who want to understand the science, but also helps us non-cooking geeks become literate in the supermarket and kitchen.

What gave you the idea to present cooking in this way and do you have any suggestions for other resources that present food and food preparation in the same way?

Alton: I approach cooking from a science angle because I need to understand how things work. If I understand the egg, I can scramble it better?it's a simple as that. There are some great food science texts out there?well, a few. Check out the bibliography in my book. (If you don't want to buy it you can just copy stuff out at the bookstore.)

8) Technical questions
by TheJerkstoreCalled
Hello! I actually watched your very first show about steak here on PBS; it was the first thing in my life that made me interested in cooking. Every time I watch an episode of Good Eats, I always end it wanting to go cook something.

I had a technical question; we always see these shots coming out of refrigerators and ovens. Do you actually have little windows in the back of your appliances or are those props built up for the shows? I always assumed they were props but you never know. Also, is that really your house you shoot in? I love the Magritte hat with chicken painting.

Alton: No windows... We actually have cameras now that are small enough to rig inside appliances. It's not easy mind you, but it's doable. That is not my house, but it is a real house. The Magritte rip was commissioned especially for Good Eats.

9) Cooking In Lava
by MrIcee
Mr. Brown. First, thank you for a wonderful television show and an excellent book. I enjoy both continually and look forward to all your new work.

Now... on to, perhaps, one of the more unusual questions you might receive. This question deals directly with how heat affects food.

Specifically... I live on the slopes of an active volcano. One of the things we like to do for fun is cook game hen and pork loins in the hot lava itself. First, let me describe our process, and then our question.

To cook a game hen we first season and then wrap the hen in about 10 Ti (or banana) leaves. These protect the hen from actually burning.

Next we find an active surface breakout of lava. We use a shovel (we also are wearing kevlar gloves that can withstand 2000 degrees of heat) and get a good shovel full of red lava. We place this on the ground a distance from the flow. We then position the Ti-wrapped hen in the middle of the blob of lava and cover it with another shovel full of lava. We try to leave a small opening to the Ti leaves, for steam to escape (or we can potentially have a steam explosion).

Now, the question. The lava is initially at 2000 degrees when we start cooking. After about 15 minutes it has cooled to around 850 degrees (outside of the rock - we read this using an infrared pyrometer). After about 45 minutes the outside is about 450 degrees. At that point we hit the rock with the shovel to open it. Only a few of the Ti leaves will remain uncharred. We remove those and the hen is then very moist and delicious.

How is it possible, using a heat source at 2000 degrees (that granted, gets cooler over time) that it still takes 45 minutes to cook the game hen? We would have thought that the cooking would have been near instantaneous - but repeated experiments at various lengths of time reveal that it takes exactly as long in the lava, as in an oven.

Alton: It's not possible. I can cook a game hen under a broiler in 15 minutes. Tell me, are there any small brown mushrooms growing around your property, and if so have you been using them in salads or pasta dishes?

10) Safe Cooking Temps
by dmaxwell
The wife and I are huge fans of your show but there is one thing we notice from time to time that we've always wondered about. For instance, your country ham recipe specifies that the ham is done when the interior temp hits 140 degrees.

However, fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/ham.htm states that "cook-before-eating hams must reach 160 F to be safely cooked before serving." I know those bad boys have been salt cured but I would still be worried about trichinosis. Your "done" temperatures for meat are often lower than what the food safety people would have them be. This is a long winded way of asking "What is your approach to food safety?" You look pretty healthy to me so I'll assume you know something those government fussbudgets don't but I'd feel better about trying out some of your recipes if I knew what that was.

Alton: I do not always agree with the government and in this case I think they're way off base. For one thing, Trichinella spiralis die at 137 degrees. Of course in this case they would have had to survive the curing process which is highly doubtful. The water activity level of a country ham is simply too low to support that kind of life. Also, T spriralis have been nearly eradicated from the American hog population through the use of better feeds. As far as I know, the only instances of trichinosis in recent years involved wild game such as bear and puma.

Comments

Volcano question

[Ratface]

Shame about the answer to the volcano question - the original poster should have sent the link to their site which has pictures showing this. I couldn't find the original site I have seen which describes this, but here's another which shows that it is indeed possible to cook a chicken atop molten lava!

http://juggle5.50megs.com/travel/Hawaii2000/Cookin g.html

Re:Volcano question

[DJerman]

The real answer to the question is: because you're steaming it.

You may think you're roasting a chicken in lava but:
1) you wrapped it in leaves, which buffer the heat and provide moisture (for steam)
2) you've insulated it from the heat source (to prevent charring, yes)
3) the inside of the lava will cool much faster than the outside because it's in contact with water (212 degrees).

Yes you'll get some superheating at the beginning, but basically that's just searing the chicken and the leaves before the steaming process takes over. If it were continuously superheated, you'd be dodging the chicken-powered missile as it scoots around your lawn :) And the chicken would flash-fry as you expected.

BTW -- I wanna try that!

Re:Volcano question

[schon]

Is it possible to lavaify rock in a convection oven?

No. Convection ovens just don't get hot enough.

here in Iowa, there's not much lava. Can I make my own?

If this story is correct, then you just might be able to, using a microwave oven.

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Ratface]

http://www.dolphinbayhilo.com/cook.html

That was the one!

Trichinosis

[The Ape With No Name]

Hog feed has little to do with it. Cooking the hog feed does. Societies where hogs are fed uncooked slop experience higher rates of trichinosis, while those that boil hog slop do not see trichinosis at all. Break a link in the parasite's path to a host and incidence of the parasite diminishes. Pretty simple and exactly what cooking the pork to at least 137F does.

Re:Trichinosis

[corey_lawson]

commercially raised pigs in the US and Canada are not fed "slop" in the US any more, but grain-based feeds. Any animal-based protein in it has probably been "hydrolized" (steamed), because it's animal byproduct. Also, because their food tends to be so concentrated, their poop is also more concentrated (smells like shit and is pretty acidic. Yes, there is "good" shit, too, but it's all relative. If you live in dairy country, where the cows get to spend a lot of time in pastures, not California feed lots, their manure is less hostile to the nose. It's still shit, but I'd take living near a dairy farm than a hog or chicken farm. Oh, wait. I already have done that).

Can't say about your typical small pig operation, though.

Re:Trichinosis

[Slime-dogg]

So... Essentially it is a quality of feed issue.

Cooking the feed will cause the feed to be of a higher quality, because it does not contain the parasite. Also possible is that the feed never did contain the parasite.

I'll bet that there is little, if any, parasitic presence in the uncooked slop, and then it's probably cooked for good measure.

There is only one rule in good cooking...

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

Use the timings on the instructions as a guide only.

THE PERFORMANCE OF MICROWAVE OVENS REALLY DOES VARY.

Learn how your equipment compares to the average. I have a 750 WATT microwave oven, but I know that it packs a punch like an 850 WATT microwave oven, so I follow the instructions for category "E", even though my oven is a category "D".

To many cooks, bless them, will cook something at gas mark whatever it says, for as long as it says, and not a minute less, not a minute more. They will not learn (accumulate over time / through experience) how the performance of their oven compares to the "average" (i.e. that on which the recipient was based).

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[JabberWokky]

Funny - I learned that from a chef who cooks them that way at the Breakers, a rather fine dining locale. Note that I did not say 'a microwave', but rather a 'commercial microwave' with adjustable power, even heat distribution and a thermometer jack in the top of the oven that trails down to a spike that goes into the meat. My parents have one. The chef learned his technique from a fine restaurant in France.

It's hardly simply 'nuking' the primerib - you do it to raise the internal temerature to an even medium high temperature *without* cooking it, and then place it in the oven to cook. Having the meat be very warm throughout means it cooks differently - more evenly. It's an especially good way if you really like good rare prime rib (the only way to eat meat, imo). The slightly more traditional way, incidently, is to leave the meat out in the sun, but that's frowned upon nowadays.

Incidently, talking about good aged beef and the proper starting temperature to cook meat at, there are still places in the south where you can find part of a side of beef lying across above the cooking area. When somebody orders, they hack a steak off, trim the smoke and edges, and cook it. No refrigeration. And damn fine, melt in your mouth steak it is.

Yes - aged beef is far far better for roasting. And traditonal steaks (not the uber thin ones that are in some supermarkets) should be seared, then roasted. Or, like my dad occasionally does, you can smoke them (but then, my dad smokes damn near everything - turkey, fish, duck... slow cooked and truly good eats).

--
Evan (no reference, and I'll keep 'nuking' my prime rib, but thanks for the concern)

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[schon]

all geeks love Iron Chef

Are you talking about Alton, or FortKnox?

I *hate* Iron Chef. Next to Emeril, it's the worst show on Food Network.

Seems to me that speaking on behalf of "all geeks" would be MUCH more arrogant than Alton making a joke of the answer (and it was a joke - perhaps you need to check the permissions on your /dev/senseofhumor )

Re:Wise Words

[Kintanon]

Here's the deal on eatting, sleeping, and how your metabolism reacts to combinations of the above.

If you eat 2-3 large meals (most people eat a big lunch and a big dinner/supper and nothing much else) then your metabolism will start to operate slower. It will store more food for periods between meals and you won't burn calories as quickly as if you eat many small meals.

If you eat 5-6 small meals (200-300 calories each) over the day your metabolism never stops. You continue burning calories almost non-stop. If you want to lose weight, this is the best way to do it, reduce your calorie intake by eatting more small meals. And ALWAYS eat a snack before bed. that keeps your metabolism going while you are asleep and helps you burn more calories. You can really live just fine on 1800 calories per day and lose weight until you balance out. If you build muscle, you'll need more calories. And if you want to build muscle you'll need to eat more protein. But that's a whole different subject.
The bottom line is, if you want to lose weight, eat 5-6 small meals each day, make sure you eat as soon as you wake up, then every 3 hours or so until you go to bed. Make sure the snacks are relatively healthy (granola bars, etc...) avoid foods with simple sugars like soda and candy. And do 20-30 minutes of light aerobic excersise everyday, walking is fine. If you do more intense aerobics you can do 5-10 minutes per day instead. (jogging on a treadmill at 7mph for 5-10 minutes, doing jumping jacks for 5-10 minutes, jumping rope, and most excersise machines fit under this category) I don't know of any body types that don't respond to this particular treatment IF they stick to it. And I've worked with a lot of people to help them get in shape and lose weight.

Kintanon

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Zinho]

I hope a website with color pictures of the process would be proof enough for you... If you don't want to keep an open mind, at least keep it well ventilated. ;)

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[rolofft]

Another good cook book for beginner's is Elaine Corn's "Now You're Cooking". It has the basic information that a beginner needs to get comfortable with the essentials of cooking. It's very user friendly and has lots of good tips that would take a novice a lot of trial and error to learn otherwise.

Hog Feed

[Nit Picker]

It's a little more complicated than this. When I was in elementary school in the rural south, after lunch we were supposed to dump leftover food into a barrel. One of the perks of the janitor's job was that he took the barrel home to fed to his hogs, probably without cooking. If the garbabe contained uncooked pork scraps from pigs with trichinosis, the pigs that ate it could get trichinosis.

Nowdays, most hogs are fed a factory blended food containing corn and soy meal with no garbage. Therefore, they cannot get trichinosis from their food.

In those instances where pigs are fed gargabe, I understand that the law now requires it to be cooked. (I am told that this was done to protect the pigs from some disease other than trichinosis, and the benefit to humans is accidental.)

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[bmwm3nut]

you also have to remember that lava (once hardened on the outside) is a very poor conductor of heat. so even though the temperature may be quite high (compared to a conventional oven) the rate of heat flow may be quite low. incidentally that's why you can walk barefoot over hot coals...it just takes too long for the heat to flow from the coals to your foot.

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[Lovejoy]

I treasure Joy, but I like How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman, even better. We have given it as a gift innumerable times and everyone just loves it. It's all scratch recipes which focus on enhancing a relatively small number ingredients, not using a million ingredients and fancy techniques.

It assumes almost zero cooking knowledge and goes from there. My wife and I both love it. Bittman says "Everyone can cook, and most people should."

basic physics of phase changes

[rhombic]

You have your own nuclear power plant? Man I'm jealous. Of course, your 1000 degree steam is under pressure, isn't it? Unvented, that is.

In a vented system (like this) with a reservoir of liquid water (the leaves) that is likewise under no pressure (like in this case) the temperature of the water in the leaves cannot exceed 212F/100C. That's why the outer several leaves char-- once all the water is gone, the temperature goes up and the cellulose and lignin convert to charcoal and then burn off, leaving the inorganic ash-- sodium and potassium nitrates & etc. As long as there are a couple of leaves left uncharred, the temperature the meat is exposed to isn't going to exceed 100C. Which is why you'll get a perfectly roasted but not browned piece of meat-- you need to evaporate off all of the water in the outer layer of meat to get some nice browning. I'd rather have it grilled on my Weber.

Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen

[Anonymous Coward]

do you have any suggestions for other resources that present food and food preparation in the same way?

I started watching America's Test Kitchen (created by the people at Cook's Illustrated ) because I was intrigued by their almost obsessive approach to cooking (which sounded a lot like the approach of many good QA engineers): they try out several recipes for a particular food (over 80 versions of chocolate chip cookies); discover the pros and cons of each; and dissect techniques and ingredients to develop "foolproof" recipes for really good food (their recipes are fairly uncomplicated).

The tv show and the articles in the magazines/books are great fun b/c they include a great deal of commentary about the whys of cooking, explaining the difference between various techniques and ingredients (e.g. overbeating cake batter will overly develop the gluten in the flour, making it tough with an open crumb like bread, not moist with a closed crumb like cake). Most people on this site would probably love their science guy Doc Willoughby; he has a short segment in each tv episode (and sometimes articles in the magazine) explaining things like why you should slightly underbake chocolate (you'll get hit by a login request that will go away if you reload the page).

Cook's Illustrated has a bi-monthly magazine and several cookbooks. America's Test Kitchen is on PBS weekly. Their websites have some articles you can browse through. The other neat thing about the magazine is that it accepts no advertising. They do this so that you know that their reviews are fairly impartial.

Re:water (212 degrees)???

[drDugan]

Do you seriously believe that steam does not exceed this temperature?

there are two uses for the word water here... one is all H20 in all phases, the other is just the liquid form of H2O. When you talk about water as just the liquid phase -- then the above poster's comment makes sense. Once you raise the temp of water above 212, you no longer have water, you have steam.

Re:Stop the "Low Fat" and "No Meat" Lies!

[twisted_pickle]

Here's a concept that works: RUN. Sweat.

Hell yes, I agree!

Exercise is the key, it's as simple as that. I'm talking about the kind that gets your blood pumping and gets you breating a little bit. Ever tried to run a mile when you're out of shape? How about 1/4 mile? How do you feel afterwards?

Like you're going to throw up. Or maybe you are already throwing up. Sedentariness is an illness, and obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes etc. are the side effects.

By exercising every day, and pushing yourself a little every day, you turn your body into the lean mean machine that it was meant to be. It seems to me that, if one exercises and makes it a priority, then all that cake and excessive shit isn't going to look good anymore. The body will start regulating what you eat, and everything will fall into place. Those salads, whole grains, and lean meats are going to look very tasty, and you're not going to want to overeat because you know you'll pay the next day.

Exercise is so good. I'm saddened that so many people haven't discovered it and made it a part of their daily lives. It boosts your health, gives you more energy, more endurance, sculpts your body, and makes you better in the sack. Where is the disadvantage here?

Re:Good Reading

[i give up there are]

CI also has a TV show, America's Test Kitchen on PBS. It's not as goofy as GE, but very good.

There's another worthwhile magazine, Fine Cooking. It does accept ads, and isn't as good as CI, but better than Bon Appetit or Gormet, or any of the other "lifestyle" cooking magazines.

Re:Has anybody else noticed . . .

[Morgalyn]

He answered this question in an interview he did for his internet fan group Alton Brown Interview.. (go to page 5)

ALTON No. [chuckles] Although I did have Golden Age of Wireless when it first came out, but I didn't look anything like Thomas Dolby. I don't think I look anything like Thomas Dolby now. We both have bad haircuts and glasses. Although I often wonder about Thomas, you know. Where did he go? What did he do? He made a lot money there for a few minutes. But, no. No. I am not Thomas Dolby; I'm not related to Thomas Dolby; never met Thomas Dolby. But there are several Blinded Me With Science references in upcoming episodes.

Re:water (212 degrees)???

[SirTreveyan]

Water vapor will not exceed 100 degrees C in an system with constant pressure. Remember there is an opening left to allow steam to vent off, so the system maintains atmospheric pressure. Thermodynamics dictate that if pressure is constant and additional heat is added to the system the volume of the system must increase.

Nuclear plants utilize systems in which the volume of the system is constant. Pressure is maintained at a constant level by regulating the heat source.

GOD HELP US IF YOU WORK AT A NUCLEAR PLANT!

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[smoondog]

Actually there was a misunderstanding. I suspect that Alton mistook a cornish game hen with hawaiian game hens. Cornish game hens are small and can be cooked in 15 minutes. Hawaiian game hens are big like chickens (they really are just free range chickens) and cannot be cooked in 15 minutes.

=Sean