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

I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[veddermatic]

Maybe it was the questions, but I was really looking forward to a good, long read....

I'm being selfish, but damnit, I wanted PAGES of answers!!!! =)

9) Cooking In Lava

[scaramush]

I thought this guy's claim to cooking fame was that he used a scientific approach? What's wrong with this picture?

Scientist 1: I have a phenomenon I don't understand and I want your opinion on it.

Scientist 2: Your data doesn't match up with mine. Therefore I will discredit you by suggesting you take drugs.

Scientist 1: But I have reproducible results!

Scientist 2: Nope, sorry. Talk to the hand, crack smoker.

I understand a lot of /.'ers respect this guy, but I'm not too impressed with this answer.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Reality Master 101]

Well, while the answer was a bit abrupt, but I think it was like a physicist trying to answer: "Why is it I can hold a hot steel ball that is 2000 degrees without getting burned?" The answer is "You can't".

In other words, the problem isn't with the laws of physics, the problem is with the questioner's data. Obviously the internal temperature of his make-shift oven isn't 2000 degrees.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Anne_Nonymous]

He thinks the poster is pulling his leg.

Wise Words

[Copperhead]

"All [replacing of fat] does is lead to dissatisfaction and I think that dissatisfaction results in overeating."

Very wise words. I remember hearing Julia Child saying that the reason obesity is becoming such a problem is because of fat has become taboo in cooking. It's the fat in foods that make us feel full and keep us full longer. Generally, people who eat excusively low fat foods at their main meals are those who have the most trouble keeping from snacking between meals.

I've gone from eating low fat meals and snacks to eating "sensibly", and I really am a lot less hungry, even though I'm eating less.

My rules to live by... if you're hungry, drink a glass of water, avoid eating after dinner, and never, ever eat before bed.

Re:Wise Words

[jamesoutlaw]

I've found it's better to eat 6 (or more) small meals throughout the day- each meal totalling 300 to 600 calories. I eat a little something every 2 or 3 hours throughout the day and never get hungry- of course, it annoys my cubicle neighbors, who think I eat all the time and wonder why I am not the size of a whale :)

I think that your quote from Julia Child is right on track. I remember when low fat "snack foods" became really really popular in the early 90's- snackwells, baked potato chips, etc People would think that because it was low fat, they could eat all they wanted... I remember a friend of mine holding up a bag of Baked Tostito's Tortilla chips and exclaiming gleefully that there was only "1.5 grams of fat in the whoooooole" bag... then she promptly proceeded to eat the entire bag- completely ignoring the fact that it still contained about 1,000 (or more) calories.

It's ok to include a little fat in your diet, but as long as you don't over do it, you'll be just fine.

I eat a lot of low fat meals, but the majority of the fat I consume comes from olive oil or "fatty" fish like salmon.... the so-called "good fats".

Re:Wise Words

[jdreed1024]

Amen to that. The fact that the person who asked the question included an exclamation point next to "bacon grease" shows that they're just another victim of cuilinary brainwashing. The FDA, Surgeon General, and all these other people can't make up their minds as to what's good and what's bad. All they need to do is use common sense.

Yes, bacon grease is bad for you, if you chug a whole 20 oz bottle of it every day. However, it's the only way to get fried eggs crispy on the outside and still soft on the inside. Heck, I still use lard to prepare some dishes, but there is no subsitute for it. However, if you use a tablespoon of it, it won't kill you.

Substitutes are a waste of time. I'd venture that if you drank nothing but skim milk, and ate nothing but margarine, and snacked on nothing but aspartame, you'd probably die an early death too. If you want a desert dish, but don't want the cream and sugar that's in chocolate mousse, than don't make chocolate mousse. Have an apple instead or something.

Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[fetta]

"Unfortunately most recipes are written for people that already know how to cook."

A good resource to deal with this is to keep a copy of "The Joy of Cooking" handy. I think the recipes in there are just okay, but it's the Rosetta Stone for cooking recipes.

Unfortunately, his statement is true of a lot of computer "recipes" as well. I always try to identify a "Rosetta Stone" book for every technology I dive into. For example, I was lost in the Linux Documentation Project until after I read Mark Sobell's A Practical Guide to Linux.

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Wanker]

From Alton's response, I think that he thought the poster was completely immersing the chicken in the Lava. Pouring hot lava over a leaf-coated chicken should work since:

a) The lava cools off fairly quickly, meaning that the bird isn't exposed to 2000degF for 45 minutes
b) All those leaves release a lot of steam which both moderates the temperature and steams the chicken. Boiling water to make steam, as any high-school chemist knows, takes a lot of extra heat energy.

The above link also explains that the lava cools to 450degF within a reasonable amount of time, which is a great temperature for cooking chicken. ;-) The original poster explained that it cooled to 850degF, still too hot for chicken.

So, in short, the poster presented an impossible situation, and Alton, like any good literalist, told them so. What he could have done was ask some counter-questions to get a better idea of what was going on before answering.

Cooking In Lava

[SirTreveyan]

I am really surprised at Alton's response to this question. Although IANAP I would think this is really a simple matter of the thermodynamics of state changes of matter.

An example might be in order here to explain for those who never took chemistry. Take an ice cube with a thermometer frozen within. The temperature of the ice cube will rise 0 degrees C is reached. At this point the state of the ice changes to water. However the temperature of both the water and ice remains at 0 degrees C untils ALL the ice is melted. The same holds true at the boiling point, only if the steam is allowed to maintain constant pressure. When the water boils it remains at 100 degrees C until all the water has turned to steam. If the steam had been collected at constant pressure, once the water is all gone the temperature of the steam will begin to rise.

Now how does this apply to cooking chincken in lava?

"...wrap the hen in about 10 Ti (or banana) leaves. These protect the hen from actually burning" The banana leaves im sure are rather large and contain signicant amounts of water.

"...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..." The water in the leaves is boiling off. The opening maintains constant pressure which results in a fairly constant temperature. As long as the steam is escaping the temperature of the hen is being regulated at a level way below the lava temperature.

If Alton would wrap his hen in banana leaves ( or even wet paper towels ) before placing it under that broiler I will gaurentee it will take longer than 15 minutes to cook.

Re:Cooking In Lava

[petepac]

Don't forget the properties of insulation. You can boil water in a paper cup because the water pervents the paper from reaching it's kindling point which is above 100C.

The leaves (10 of them in fact) traps air next to the chicken which acts like an insulator. Remember all that itchy fiberglass in you actic. Same thing, less itchy. The two properties together keep the chicken ad a comfy 100C for 45 Min. There are only a few leaves left after the process since most gave their lives up for the chicken. The lava also helps since it's made up of trapped bubbles (More Insulation!)

The last part is the hole to let steam escape. Can we all say "Pressure Cooker". This get the job done in no time. Alton, you had a show on pressure cooking to make broth. The pressure get the water above 100C. Hence faster cooking.

Cooking in lava is possible with a scienific explanation. Now if I can only find one in Delaware.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Fastball]

When I go to a Safeway or Wegman's and see every tenth person over 300 pounds and pushing a shopping cart loaded with milk, cheeses, beef, etc. it makes me wince when I hear this "no bad foods" kind of thinking.

No. These folks are more likely OD'ing on simple carbs late in the day or at night. Plus, they probably have to break out mutliplication tables to figure out how many calories/serving sizes their shoveling down their craws.

Steam stupid!!

[TheLoneCabbage]

The important part of the question was that he let's the steam escape (to prevent explosions).

Water boils at 212F (sea level, but I suspect if he's on a volcano, he may be cooking way above sea level).

Water is also one hell of a coolant. As long as steam is escaping, and the lava doesn't directly come in contact with the bird (conduction), then the chicken is only being steamed. Max temperature (for most any place but the Dead Sea) 212F.

Broiling is a dry heat cooking method. And temperatures GREATLY exceed 212F.

It's the same reason you can put pasta on a red hot stove, and it doesn't burn... untill you run out of water.

Ain't science grand?

Re:Vegetarian...

[dasmegabyte]

Oh, and if you're a vegetarian inviting your non-vegetarian friends to a potluck/buffet, make sure to cook up something with meat in it for us.

"Gross," you say? Not I. My wedding was meatless to appease my poseur vegetarian wife (a poseur vegetarian being someone who looks down a menu past all the delicious meat dishes and orders a boring vegetarian entree, despite not being a vegetarian. Or one who says "Ew, bacon!" and then eats it anyway. Or any "vegetarian" who eats chicken wings / fried catfish / filet mignon because they "miss it sometimes"). I invited four other vegetarians, all of whom really enjoyed themselves on some fantastic cusisine the caterers pulled out (frankly, I think they were excited to to have something to cook besides bland swedish meatballs and little wieners in shells). I thought the food was fantastic, but hardly anybody ate any of it. Of some 100 portions, nearly 60 were left at the end. My dad & some of my friends snuck out to a burger place midway through the reception.

Talk about embarrassing! Furthermore, people ate a lot more cake than they usually do -- meaning that there was only one slice left to save for the aniversary.

Meat satisfies, people, as much as I hate to admit it. If you can't stand cooking it, get somebody else to do it.