Alton Brown...
Alton Brown's interest in cooking budded early with guidance from his mother
and grandmother. He admits that his culinary talents were used to get dates in college.
After college he spent many years working as a video director and cinematographer but,
he realized that most of his down time was spent watching cooking shows but they s
seemed to be on the dull side. He was convinced that he could do better- so he left the
film business and decided to study at the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont.
He blended his film knowledge and food knowledge together to
create the show "Good Eats", an entertaining food show that gives quite interesting facts,
thrown in with experience, wisdom, wit and history of the food, techniques and ingredients.
I always find it interesting to learn where food or anything for that matter came from
or how or why it was started. Alton has wrote several food reference books
that have won awards for all of them. Alton is the food historian and commentator
on Food Network's Iron Chef America as well as his show "Good Eats"
along with commercials like the one for Welch's Grape Juice.
Alton Brown was most recently recognized for winning the James Beard award
for TV Food Personality and Host for Good Eats. Alton lives in Georgia with
his wife and their daughter.
Alton Brown is a great cultivator because he is so into learning/teaching all
about the food not just- here's a recipe... do this and then when it's done, eat it.
It really helps to know different things about food so we can stay healthy and
learn what's good and not good. Here are a few Good Eats trivia facts that
have been on the show.
---- Cows that graze in pastures (grass) tend to produce cream-colored
milk whereas grain-fed cows produce a white milk.
---- Milk is good for putting out the fire in your tongue when you have eaten
something too spicy for you thanks to "casein".... casein being a protein found in
milk from mammals that cleanses our taste buds along in being used as a
binding agent as well... (it is typically found in tempera paint)
----More than 130 distinct chemical compounds have been identified
in TRUE vanilla extract... is that why it tastes so good and is so rich...?
----Cocoa butter and avocados are used to make many different cosmetic products.
---- Distilled water is usually boiled into steam and then condensed
back into liquid form and collected to make it truly pure.
