Alton Brown

Prior to considering cooking as a career, he received a degree in drama from the University of Georgia. He then worked in cinematography and film production. In that field, he is probably best known for his work on a music video for R.E.M. At that point, he decided he wanted to have his own cooking show, so he attended the New England Culinary Institute, from which he graduated in 1995. Brown states that he had been a poor science student in high school and college. He finally began to study the subject as he took cooking training and felt the need to understand the underlying processes of cooking.

The pilot for Good Eats first aired on the Chicago, Illinois PBS affiliate WTTW in July 1998. The show was picked up by the Food Network in July 1999, and as of 2005, new episodes are still airing on that network. A self-professed nerd, he's quickly warmed his way into the hearts of food and nerd lovers alike.

Many of the "Good Eats" episodes feature Brown building makeshift cooking devices in order to point out that many of the devices sold at conventional "cooking" stores are simply fancified hardware store items that are sold at grossly inflated prices, and are not as effective as his "homemade" gizmos. For example, in an episode devoted to pizza, Brown uses a flat concrete stone purchased at a hardware store as a substitute for a much more expensive "pizza stone" sold at a cooking specialty store. In an episode devoted to coleslaw, Brown makes a more convenient shredding device by attaching a cheese grater to a folded cardboard pizza box.

"Good Eats" is also characterized by Brown's near-fanatical attraction to kosher salt. Nearly every episode of "Good Eats" involves Brown, at some point in the show, adding a "heavy pinch" of kosher salt to whatever he happens to be cooking, including in one episode, caramel. This recurring feature has lead to college campus drinking games that require the participants to imbibe every time Brown adds kosher salt to a concoction. In 2003, Brown's appreciation for salt culminated his producing a one-hour Food Network special devoted to salt.

On May 5, 2003, his first book, I'm Just Here for the Food, won a James Beard Foundation/Kitchenaid Book Award in the Reference category.

In 2004, Brown appeared on Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters, the second attempt to adapt the Japanese cooking show Iron Chef to American television (a previous adaptation featured William Shatner and was not well received). Brown served as the expert commentator, a modified version of the role played by Dr. Yukio Hattori in the original show. The show was extended with ten new episodes scheduled to air in 2005, and Brown continues to serve as commentator.

Currently, Alton Brown lives in Athens, Georgia with his wife DeAnna, daughter Zoey, a hound dog Matilda, and an iguana. A few members of his extended family have appeared in Good Eats (such as his grandmother, Ma Mae), but most of his "family" portrayed on the series is made up of actors and the show's production crew.

Brown loves apples — not only the fruit, but also the computer company, Apple, as he wrote an article for Macworld magazine. He is also a connoisseur of cheese and a motorcycling enthusiast.

Other cooks and authors who use a similar science-based approach to cooking include Shirley Corriher (who sometimes appears on Good Eats) and Russ Parsons. They, along with Brown, all owe a debt of inspiration to Harold McGee.

Books