Yeah. Is that pay dirt? Of course it is. But it's not even the primary goal. I mean, it's icing. The main thing is to make an entertaining show. And hopefully one that is educational. Even if they learn it without realizing they're learning, and even if they don't get consciously interested in food, I'm happy to just have them watch. And sure, in the end, if I can inspire somebody to get up and go do, that's sweet. Q: So, when it comes to the other shows that make them want to eat, you've mentioned in other interviews that you're unhappy with the state of how other cooking shows, they intimidate the viewer, or -- A: I think they used to. I think that's changing. And I'd love to think I had something to do with changing that, but I doubt it. I think that we're just swinging away from the big chef-driven food industry where we're made to feel that we'd better just sit down and shut up and watch because we couldn't possibly do this. And there's still some of that intimidation, certainly, in the press, and in books and in magazines and things. But I think that TV has come a long way to reduce that. Certainly Food Network has. And I think part of what has made Food Network so popular is the admission that, one, the audience is intelligent, and two, that food doesn't have to be frightening. That it's not about the great artistry, it's not about the great chefs, it is accessible. It's food, for gosh sakes! And nobody needs to be left out of it. Q: I know that Food Network has been doing more reality-food shows, game shows where people have to cook, or dating shows where people have to cook. A: I don't think that's the same thing. I mean, I think it's the personality-driven shows that I'm talking about. I think that people like Mario Batali do make food more accessible, even if you can't always get his ingredients. Because it's about the attitude, and about the transfer of knowledge, not just the handing over of instructions. Q: You've mentioned that you decided to learn how to cook because you realized that you weren't naturally good at it. Was there a particular experience that you remember that made you realize that? A: No, it wasn't anything tangible. It was just that I didn't, and I continue to not have a great creative mind. I am not the guy that's going to say, "I am going to create ... monkfish liver tureen with kumquat compote truffled with..." I just don't think that way. I'm not hungry for new things. I'm hungry for good versions of things I've already had! I don't feel I need that many more new food experiences, I guess. Me, I'm about, "Man, let's get a better hamburger. Let's have a better slice of pizza. Let's have better bread. Better coffee." I don't create -- I mean, I do okay. I'm a decent cook. I make up some things that are interesting and new sometimes. But that's not my talent. Q: Well, you innovate in the engineering of these things. A: Well, yeah, getting it made, but not inventing whole new things. I'm a hacker. I'm not an inventor. [I mention Neal Stephenson and Brown eventually recognizes the author's name.] Q: Are there any shows that you've thought about and said, "no, I won't do that." Not, "I can't figure out a way to do that," but "I won't do that." A: Hmmm. No. I can't think of anything that I said I wouldn't write. Q: It's always just a matter of "oh, let's see if I can find a way in"? A: There are things that I haven't been able to figure out how to do. Q: Can I ask, like what? A: I tried to write a show about avocado once. And I couldn't make it work. Q: Do you like avocado? A: Yes. The problem is, by and large, we don't cook them. Q: And you're all about the application of heat to things. A: And it was about, what are you going to do with it? Okay, so you get to guacamole, and then where do you go? Q: There's no technique that you can apply to avocado, that avocado illustrates well, that you can't illustrate equally well with other, more interesting, more versatile fruits. A: Yeah. It's a great food, but it's never been enough on -- I'm also a big William Gibson fan, by the way. -- But that's not enough. Never, on "Good Eats," do we say, and today, on Good Eats, we cook asparagus." No, so what? There has to be a take-away well beyond that. There has to be application beyond that. The food is the conduit to the real stuff. It would never be enough -- and, I mean, sometimes we've dabbled in that if an ingredient's really, really interesting, but the best shows we do aren't that way. The best shows, the take-away is significantly beyond the ingredient, or even the dish. Q: It's technique, it's attitudes. A: Yes. Q: If I may ask about a question that's been tickling my mind since I started watching "Good Eats," about meat. Obviously you're not a vegetarian; you mentioned in an interview last year that "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." But then you say, "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." (link: http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/02/09/12/1241242.shtml ) Is it still all you have to say? A: Is that still all I have to say? That's a really good question. The world's changing. I'm not giving up meat. I'm more respectful of those that have decided to, if they're deciding to for the right reasons. I'm still not a vegetarian, doubt I'm ever gonna be. But I've come to appreciate something of the lifestyle that comes with being a vegetarian because you have to be kind of crafty with your food, and you have to kind of know about food to live healthy as a vegetarian. You've gotta pay attention. And I appreciate that. Good vegetarians know a great deal about food, because they have to in order to get their nutrition right. So I can respect that. I wish we were all, maybe, that way. And I don't know many vegetarians who eat poorly, or treat themselves poorly. So I have to have a lot of respect for that too. I've often wondered...I'd like to think that I apply a vegetarian's thoughtfulness to food and eating; only, I have the meat too. And maybe that's a copout. Maybe that's just me being stubborn and not wanting to give up what I want. But I think I respect vegetarianism a lot more than I used to. Q: And you've certainly mentioned that, I mean, you worked at a slaughterhouse. You eat humanely slaughtered meat. A: Well, I can't say what I eat, now, can I? I mean, I don't know if the meat that I'm gonna have today was handled correctly or humanely. We've got a lot of trouble in our food supply system, not just in meat but in other things. I think there are probably more animals that get badly in the pharmaceutical end of things than they do even in the meat industry. Do I wish I lived in a world where I could, if I wanted to eat meat, I had to go hunt for it? Maybe, and maybe I should go do that for a while, should have to do that for a while. Could we certainly do without some meat? Well, yes and no. There's a lot of good stuff in beef. What I do worry about is, I think we eat way too much chicken. Q: Too much chicken? A: We eat too much chicken. I worry about that. Q: In a nutritional sense, in an environmental sense? A: Both. Q: What is it about chicken, then? A: It's not that nutritionally great. It's not that great of a food. There are a lot of things that are actually better for you than chicken. It's become, it's kind of like Soylent Green for our generation, for where we are right now. And chickens aren't even really treated as living things anymore. They're living cogs and that kind of bugs me. I don't like what I see in the poultry industry. As the organic market grows, I'm gonna feel better about chicken. Because the truth is, in organic meat, the only way you can survive is to treat animals well. Q: Because you don't have the crutches? A: Because you can't. Because you don't have the hormone crutches, you don't have the antibiotic crutches. You have to actually feed the animals and take care of them. So I've switched over to organic, certainly. Q: Over in California, here, we have the Niman Ranch. A: Niman Ranch, pretty good stuff, yeah. Q: What do you have over there in Georgia? A: Well, we get Niman Ranch here too. There are a few other brands, some East Coast brands, but we get Niman Ranch. Q: What would you recommend? A: I wouldn't. I don't want to mention a brand. I will support any local -- the nearest local organically grown product that I can get my hands on. And I do, I am a strong believer in organics. Q: What restaurants have made you say, "I didn't know food could do that"? Or what cooks have done that for you? A: Any cook that manages to get dinner on the table surprises me. Q: Making order out of chaos... A: Yeah. It's always a hard thing to do...There has been a recent example. There's an Italian restaurant connected to the Monaco Hotel in Denver. [note: Panzano (link: http://www.monaco-denver.com/html/dining.htm )] And I ate there on my tour, and I did an interview there, and the food was simply astounding. I couldn't figure out how things were done. It was utterly simple and completely complex at the same time. It was was real Zen. [now-obsolete mention of his then-infrequently-updated weblog at http://www.altonbrown.com/pages/rants.html; Brown decries the self-absorption of most weblogs, and says he's not that good a writer] I'm not terribly bright, which is why I'm relatively decent at what I do, actually. Q: Because you can identify with the people who have a lot to learn? A: No, because I put a lot of energy into understanding things, and because I don't take any understanding for granted. Once I do understand something, I'm relatively good at communicating it. And that is all borne out of, essentially, not being very bright. [silly and far-too-long discussion of junk email] Q: Do you have people writing you or asking you to do, like, an aphrodisiac show? A: No, nobody's ever asked that. You're the first person to mention it. Q: Hey, I'm not mentioning it, I'm meta-mentioning it. I'm not actually mentioning it. Far be it from me... A: All food is an aphrodisiac. I could turn a jar of Mott's applesauce into an aphrodisiac. In the right hands, McDonald's french fries could be an aphrodisiac. The act of taking something into one's body is, in and of itself, erotic. You just have to do it right.
There's only one food that is universally unsexy. Q: What's that? A: Vienna sausages. There's absolutely, positively, nothing sexy, nor can there ever be anything sexy, about Vienna sausages. Q: It's antisexy? If you collide a Vienna sausage with some other food, they will burst -- A: No, but I actually think that a high diet of Vienna sausages should be fed to sex offenders, to calm down, you know... Q: Ah, it's the saltpeter -- A: It is. The saltpeter of the modern age. It is for me at least! Q: This is how your wife controls you? A: Actually, I don't think there are any Vienna sausages in the house, that I know of. Q: Oh, I see, you've taken a pre-emptive strike.
Can you speak to a theme in some [of your] interviews about the death of hospitality? A: Not only am I happy to talk about the death of hospitality, I know who killed it. Q: Point out the murderer to me now! A: It's Martha! Martha killed hospitality! By making it about impressing people instead of welcoming people, about being perfect instead of being yourself. Martha Stewart killed hospitality. She didn't empower anybody to be more hospitable. She only empowered people to intimidate other people with their little arts and crafts and their nasty little handcrafted things. I think the whole status of entertaining that came with that age killed hospitality.
When I was growing up, I remember my parents having people over for a bowl of chili. Now, we very rarely do that. Yes, we have certain people we'll have over for the hot dogs and hamburger thing, but by and large, we have to impress people. We have to pull out all the jams when we entertain. And I think that that's a terrible thing. It's not about just welcoming people at your table. Very rarely do people ask people over just to have dinner, to share the dinner they were already going to eat. Very rare. And that's sad. Q: You live in the South, the last bastion of hospitality, right? A: No, I don't even know if I could say that. I don't even know if it's left here. I don't know if this is the last bastion. I feel confident there is a last bastion, but I'm not sure where it is. Q: Maybe it's in India. A: I don't know. It's wherever people appreciate the simple act of sharing the table. Not sharing the cleverness of the placekeepers, or the vinaigrette on the appetizer. Just sharing the food. And also, it helped to kill conversation, which is also a complete lost art in this country now. That died when Johnny Carson retired. I think. Witty conversation and hospitality are in meager supply, and I mourn them. Q: And you try to keep them alive? A: No, I don't have a talk show! And I wish I did. I just like to talk, and I like to hear interesting people talk. And I like to listen. I think there's nothing more ... nothing is better than conversation. No other form of human interaction is as mesmerizing to me, as good conversation. Not pretentious conversation. Or idle conversation. But lively conversation. Q: I worry that you are providing me with an incredibly ready-made segue into the, "and thank you for this conversation, Alton Brown." A: Oh, I am? I certainly didn't mean to. Q: Well, just to ruin it, I'll ask you a completely non-closure question, and then we can end. So I saw a review in the New York Times of Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade Baking book, and she encourages use of sort of your brand-name goods as ingredients; instead of cooking from scratch, you sort of cook from half-scratch. And the New York Times didn't like it. Could you comment, Mr. Brown? A: I haven't read the piece, and I haven't read the book, but I sure do like the idea. I'm all for it. Scratch? So what? Cooking in and of itself -- you know, I use prepared stuff all of the time. I have a freezer full of frozen vegetables, and I'm proud of it. I say, use whatever tool -- my favorite quote of all time is from Theodore Roosevelt. "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." And if that means using something that's prepared to make something of your own, then that's a beautiful thing. That's acquisition and redeployment. That's still using your mind, and it's still cooking.
Is it going to replace cooking from scratch? Will we forget how to make biscuits without Bisquick? Well, heck no! Of course we shouldn't. But every day? I don't cook spectacular meals from scratch every day. I got a daughter to feed, you know, and dinnertime's at 6:30, and by golly, I'll do whatever it takes to get the meal on the table. And I think anything that keeps us from simply going and buying meal replacements at the grocery store is a good thing. And I think it's pretentious of the New York Times to pooh-pooh that idea. How dare they? Especially in New York. Of all places. Shame on them. If they just don't like the book, that's one thing, but as a concept, it's sound, and needed. I'm working on a baking book right now, and you can bet there's stuff in there that's on American shelves. Those are all tools. Except for Cheez Whiz. Q: Except for Cheez Whiz. How about Velveeta? A: Velveeta has its place. Q: Velveeta has its place? A: Not as cheese, mind you. But as an emulsifier. Q: I was thinking of insulation or something. A: Well, you know, everything's got a place. It's just how you apply it. Q: Even the Vienna sausage. A: Hmmm. Not the Vienna sausages. Anything but the Vienna sausages.