Talking Turkey

The Food Network’s Alton Brown, host of ‘Good Eats,’ discusses entertainment, food and education.

By: Amy Brummer

The Food Network’s Alton Brown, host of ‘Good Eats,’ discusses entertainment, food and education.

   In a matter of weeks, the bird will be in the oven and cooks across America will be engaged in the annual challenge of producing a juicy roast. Theories abound on methods and preparations, but if you want a scientifically proven technique to achieve a fool-proof fowl, Alton Brown, host of the Food Network show Good Eats, will tell you to brine the bird, toss the baster and keep the oven door shut.
   "Basting a turkey is no better than waving a black cat over it," Mr. Brown says. "Of course, there is a ritual aspect of it, we want to open that door, we want to smell it, we want to look at it, we want to do something to it because we feel that our action is an important thing. But the truth is that the best thing for the bird is to leave it the hell alone."
   The man should know. His turkey recipe, which appeared in the Nov. 2003 issue of Bon Appetit magazine, was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2004, and his book, I’m Just Here for the Food, was the recipient of the James Beard Foundation Award for best reference cookbook in 2003. Mr. Brown’s new book, I’m Just Here for More Food (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $32.50), hit bookstores this month, and in conjunction with the publication’s arrival, he will be on hand at Food Network’s "Great Big Cooking Show" at the Fort Washington (Pa.) Expo Center Nov. 5-7.
   The event will feature live demonstrations and seminars by Mr. Brown and his Food Network colleagues — Bobby Flay, host of Food Nation; Paula Deen, host of Paula’s Home Cooking; and Marc Summers, host of Unwrapped — as well as a marketplace offering food, drinks and accessories for sampling and for sale.
   The wonders of eggnog will be revealed in Mr. Brown’s demonstration, as he attempts to shed light on the "fascinating" properties of the holiday beverage, which he says most people don’t find particularly fascinating. That will probably change once he opens their eyes to the molecular properties of eggs, cream and sugar that fuse to create a silken elixir, and he will surely have them hooked when he takes it to the next level by turning it into ice cream.
   In his new book, Mr. Brown takes the opportunity to plumb the science of baked goods and sweets, showing readers how different desserts are simply a matter of recombining a few basic building blocks. He explains that just as chimpanzees and humans share 99 percent of the same genetic material, so do biscuits and cake. Once a cook understands the essential properties of elements like butter, flour and baking soda, it is simply a matter of putting them together differently by using a variety of techniques.
   Always looking to find the logical and efficient innovations for his recipes, Mr. Brown even applies that standard to the design of the book. The chapters are broken into different mixing techniques and the first page of each employs a half flap that sums up the method, which the reader can fold over a recipe to use as a quick reference guide.
   "The main thing in baking," he says, "is understanding the commonality between different items, and it seemed to me the best way to do that was this flap that would unify all these different foods. It is an organizational tool and the more I can categorize and get things organized in my head, the more I can understand them."
   Mr. Brown’s mission to demystify the world of cooking lured him from his job directing commercials and corporate films to the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vt. Driven by the conviction that cooking shows were uninformative and fairly dull, he approached his education with an eye toward building a better one.
   "On a lot of the cooking shows, it looks like a magic trick," he says. "There are some people who don’t want to know how the magic works, and they want to keep thinking that it is magic, because if they do, that removes from them the responsibility of having to do it. I think that some people actually watch cooking shows to avoid cooking."
   But in Good Eats, in its fifth season, audiences have no excuses as they come away with more than enough knowledge on how to make anything from a crispy pie crust to classic coq au vin. As writer, director and star of the show, Mr. Brown approaches each episode with a sense of purpose, but mixes it with a healthy dose of history, pop culture and humor. He keeps it accessible by relating information in a straightforward, unassuming manner and gives it an off-beat sensibility by following through with a theme, like having a vampire over to the house for his segment on garlic.
   "(The staff) looks at every recipe as a mathematical proof that is going to prove a theorem or an idea," Mr. Brown says. "Then we backward engineer that recipe to serve that end. But the shows actually have to serve a much bigger master in that they have to prove themselves as story elements. It is not enough to have a good recipe, it has to prove a point."
   That formula balances out against the operations of the show, which the quirky host explains is always shifting to fit the needs of the episode, making each production day a new adventure. The ability to emerge unruffled against the backdrop of controlled chaos has served Mr. Brown well in his other Food Network pursuit, providing commentary for Iron Chef America, which debuted on the channel last winter. A spin-off of the Japanese culinary competition that also airs on the network, Iron Chef America pits top chefs from the U.S. against the Japanese Iron Chefs, challenging them to create innovative dishes that highlight the qualities of a singular, "secret" ingredient.
   Not only does Mr. Brown have to be informed about the often obscure delicacies the chefs use during the competition, he needs to follow the activity with the quick-witted savvy of a sports commentator, all the while postulating on what the end product may be. In a shift from the format of the original, Japanese production, Mr. Brown offers short tutorials how to use ingredients American audiences are less familiar with, like on how to cook with different kinds of kelp or kombu.
   "I think that is kind of a hallmark of where Food Network has gone in the last few years," Mr. Brown says. "We are about entertainment, we are about food, but we are also about education. So everything that we do, and certainly everything I do, we try to mix those elements in proper proportions."
Food Network’s Great Big Food Show takes place at the Fort Washington Expo Center, 1100 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, Pa., Nov. 5-6, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., and Nov. 7, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mr. Brown will appear on the Food Network Celebrity Stage Nov. 6, 1:15 and 6:15 p.m., and Nov. 7, noon and 3:45 p.m. Tickets cost $22, $19 in advance. For information, call (800) 766-6048. On the Web: www.greatbigfoodshow.com