"So I quit my job and went to the New England Culinary Institute for the full two years and worked in the restaurant industry after that until finally I thought I had a grasp on what I needed to do what I do." -- Alton Brown
Alton Crawford Brown (born July 30, 1962) is an American cinematographer, author, actor, and television personality. He is the creator and host of the Food Network television show Good Eats and the miniseries Feasting on Asphalt and Feasting on Waves, and he is the host and main commentator on Iron Chef America. Brown is also the author of several cooking how-to books.
He brings a knowledge and enthusiasm for the science of cooking and food and a humorous approach to his shows. Bon Appétit magazine named him "Cooking Teacher of the Year" in 2004. He was named "Best Food Guru" by Atlanta magazine in 2005.
"A lot of food shows need only to tempt. Some food shows only need to inspire, to empower. And there are a lot of shows that do that.""Although I don't take myself very seriously, I do take my work extraordinarily seriously.""Enough people have now mentioned Bill Nye the Science Guy to me that I now desperately avoid it all costs.""For me, it was kind of like going into the military or something. And anybody - any male - who has ever worked in a French kitchen knows what I am talking about when I say that.""I can't talk about anything or write about anything if I don't understand it. So a lot of the stuff that I go through and a lot of the time that I spend is understanding.""I had kicked around the idea for Good Eats when I was directing commercials.""I have nothing but sympathy for the people who are forced to work with me. I'm better now at picking out those that want to play that game with me, and those that don't.""I kept thinking, 'Somebody has to make a food show that is actually educational and entertaining at the same time... a show that got down to the 'why things happen.' Plus, I hated my job - I didn't think it was very worthwhile.""I like television. I still believe that television is the most powerful form of communication on Earth - I just hate what is being done with it.""I looked for a very long time, knowing that it had to happen, but it took me a long time to find someone with the same background and whatnot and I finally found him.""I love poking fun at myself. I have a rather mean sense of humor.""I love to have battles of the wits with people that can dish fast and dirty - and it leads to problems occasionally, 'cause I can sound mean without attempting to be mean.""I'm going from doing all of the work to having to delegate the work - which is almost harder for me than doing the work myself. I'm a lousy delegator, but I'm learning.""Last year, I made a refrigerator in my basement. And I needed to because I needed to figure how - you know there is no such thing as "cold." There is only less heat.""My college degree was in theater. But the real reason, if I have any success in that milieu, so to speak, is because I spent a lot of years directing, I spent a lot of years behind the camera.""My feeling has always been that 'Good Eats' would have never happened had it been left to a committee.""My first book is really about heat. That book, for me, was an exploration of heat as ingredient. Why we don't talk about heat as an ingredient, I don't quite understand, because it is the common ingredient to all cooking processes.""Recipe writers hate to write about heat. They despise it. Because there aren't proper words for communicating what should be done with it.""Seriously. I'm not very bright, and it takes a lot for me to get a concept - to really get a concept. To get it enough that it becomes part of me. But when it happens I get real excited about it.""Take ice. Ice is fascinating to me. Ice is the one thing in our world that went from an agricultural product to being manufactured.""The problem is I am both a procrastinator and a power junkie, so I am very frustrating to work with."
Brown was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. He received a degree in drama from the University of Georgia. He began his career in cinematography and film production.
Brown was the director of photography on the music video for R.E.M.'s "The One I Love." He also worked as a steadicam operator on the Spike Lee film School Daze.
Brown notes that he was dissatisfied with the quality of cooking shows airing on American television, so he set out to produce his own show. In preparation, he enrolled in the New England Culinary Institute, graduating in 1997. Brown says that he was a poor science student in high school and college, but he focused on the subject to understand the underlying processes of cooking.
Brown was a contributor to the 2005 cookbook Food Network Favorites: Recipes from Our All-Star Chefs. He selected the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International to receive a portion of the royalties.
TV series
Good Eats
The pilot for Good Eats first aired in July 1998 on the PBS member TV station WTTW in Chicago, Illinois. Food Network picked up the show in July 1999 and continues to air new episodes.
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.
Good Eats was nominated for the Best T.V. Food Journalism Award by the James Beard Foundation in 2000. The show was also awarded a 2006 Peabody Award.
Iron Chef America
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 produced for, and aired on, UPN; it 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. When the show became a series, Brown began serving as the play-by-play announcer, with Kevin Brauch as kitchen reporter. Brown also served as the primary host for both seasons of the spin-off The Next Iron Chef, as well as the upcoming third season.
Feasting on Asphalt
Brown's third series, Feasting on Asphalt, explores the history of eating on the move. Brown and his crew crossed the United States via motorcycle in a four-part miniseries about the history of road food. Brown samples food all along his travel route. He includes a "history of food" segment documenting famous road trips and interviews many of the foodies he meets en route.
The series premiered on Food Network on July 29, 2006. The mini-series was picked up for a second run, entitled Feasting on Asphalt 2: The River Run, in 2007. Six episodes were filmed during April and May 2007. The episodes trace the majority of the length of the Mississippi River through Brown's travels. The second run of episodes began airing on Food Network on August 4, 2007.
The third season uses the title Feasting on Waves and has Brown traveling the Caribbean Sea by boat in search of local cuisine.
Other appearances
On November 11, 2007, Brown was the guest programmer on Turner Classic Movies as part of their guest programmer month. The films he selected were What's Up, Tiger Lily?, Closely Watched Trains, Point Blank, and Blowup.
In 2008, he guest starred on Nickelodeon's TV series SpongeBob SquarePants in the show's sixth season episode, "House Fancy".
Commercials
Brown has done commercial work for General Electric (GE) products, including five informercials touting the benefits of GE refrigerators, washers and dryers, water purifiers, Trivection ovens, and dishwashers. The infomercials are produced in the Good Eats style, employing the use of unusual camera angles, informational text, props, visual aids, scientific explanations, and the same method of delivery. These informercials are distributed to wholesale distributors of appliances/plumbing devices.
Brown has also aided GE in developing a new type of oven. He was initially called by GE to help their engineers learn more about the effects of heat on food; that grew into an active cooperation to develop GE's Trivection oven.
Brown has also done promotion for Dannon yogurt, Welch's grape juice, Shun knives, and most recently for Heifer International.
In 2010, he endorsed salt use in a campaign for Cargill.
Brown lives in Marietta, Georgia, with his wife DeAnna, his daughter Zoey (born in 1999), two Cardigan corgis, and a green iguana named Spike, although he claims to have disposed of a nasty lizard in a Good Eats episode. A few members of his extended family have appeared on Good Eats (such as his late grandmother, Ma Mae, his mother, and daughter, Zoey, who is known on the show as "Alton's Spawn"), but most of his "family" portrayed on the series is made up of actors and the show's production crew. DeAnna Brown is the co-executive producer of Good Eats but only appears on the tenth anniversary episode along with Zoey. Brown also portrays his frequently arrested evil twin brother "B.A." On the DVD release of the episode "American Pickle", Brown notes that many viewers ask him what his brother does for a living, suggesting that they are unaware that B.A. is simply the result of clever editing.
Brown is a born-again Christian and a member of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia.
Brown is a motorcycling enthusiast, owning a BMW R1150RT. Brown is also a budding aviator completing his first solo on June 25, 2007 towards his private pilot certificate. He earned his private pilot certificate on June 5, 2008, and was featured in the aviation magazine AOPA Flight Training.
Brown has at least two tattoos, a honeybee on his left shoulder (shown on Iron Chef America), and a skull with a crossed knife and fork with the inscription "MMVII" (Roman numerals for the year 2007) that he got during the filming of Feasting on Asphalt.
Brown changed his eating habits in 2009 in order to lose weight and become healthier, losing 50 pounds over the course of nine months. He announced his weight loss and described the details of eating from the four basic lists without going on a typical diet on the January 4, 2010 episode "Live and Let Diet" of Good Eats. His first list he eats from daily include: fruits, whole grains, leafy greens, nuts, carrots, and green tea. His second list he eats from at least 3 times a week include: oily fish, yogurt, broccoli, sweet potato, and avocado. His third list he eats from no more than 1 time a week includes: red meat, pasta, dessert, and alcohol. His fourth list includes foods he avoids which includes fast food, soda, processed meals (such as TV dinners), canned soups (salt), and anything labeled "diet" because this was not a diet.
