on Good Eats

There is a show on the Food Network, hosted by Alton Brown, called Good Eats. Alton Brown is a very clever guy, and I have learned a lot from him. In each episode of his show he gives a humorous and detailed treatise on a particular topic. He has sent up Junkyard Wars with his discussion of smoking bacon. He has gone into the chemistry of fats and proteins in his discussion of mayonnaise (ie. why oil and eggs go together in that special way). He has helped me understand why my pie crust was such a struggle (although my real break through required my own perseverance). In addition to the theoretical discussions and practical demonstrations he spends time shopping for food and equipment.

My geeky side gets a kick out of the theory, but Alton and I differ on some key elements of aesthetics. For instance, Sunday morning I made pancakes. I mix from scratch and do a basic pancake from Joy of Cooking (more on Joy later) where Alton works from an an instant mix that is set up for buttermilk.

Putting aside difference in recipes, where we really depart is in the cooking. With just me and my daughter these days, I put the cast iron griddle on the big burner and get it heating with the dial set to what I think I remember worked well last time. When the batter is ready, I start cooking and adjust the heat as I go. Alton cooks his on an electric griddle that keeps the cooking surface at just the right temperature (350 degrees F). He doesn't start cooking until water dances on the griddle (or the red light comes on).

For Brown the cooking aesthetic is in the production of uniformly high quality pancakes time after time. For me the cooking aesthetic is in figuring out how to get and keep a slab of cast iron uniformly heated at the right temperature. Don't get me wrong, I am trying to get a batch of pancakes with high quality and low variance, but the trade off between variance and an electric griddle is too high for me.