I'm Just Here for the Food (55 page)

Alton Brown’s
interest in the kitchen developed along with his more pronounced interest in eating, a skill that Brown, now 44, pretty much has down pat. Although he worked in restaurants through high school and college, he never considered pursuing the dark arts professionally. Noooo, he wanted to be a big-time film director who made millions and got to boss a bunch of people around. Although he never actually made it to the movies, he did work as a cinematographer and commercial director for the better part of a decade. Then one fateful day he got it in his head to make a cooking show—a show that would blend wit with wisdom, history with pop culture, and science with common cooking sense. But of course, no one was interested because he really didn’t know how to cook. At the urging of his wife DeAnna, he attended New England Culinary Institute and actually managed to graduate. After working in the restaurant trade for a short while, his wife, having grown weary of living on 20K a year, suggested that he get to writing that TV show he’d been talking about. He did.

Good Eats is now in its eighth year on Food Network. TIME magazine recently named
Good Eats
as one of the “6 Food Shows Worth Their Salt.” It should be noted that the other Food Network show mentioned in the list was
Iron Chef America
, on which Brown serves as host and commentator. Coincidence? Probably.

Brown’s first book,
I’m Just Here For The Food
, won the James Beard Foundation award for best reference book in 2003, although the Nobel committee ignored the significance of the work. Ditto
Alton Brown’s Gear For Your Kitchen
, which was nominated for a Beard and an IACP Cookbook award in 2004. Certain that neither award would come through, Brown booked work on the west coast so as to not face the shame head-on.

But 2004 wasn’t all bad.
Bon Appétit
named him “cooking teacher of the year” in May and his article for that publication called “Thanksgiving Starts Here” was nominated for a 2004 National Magazine Award, which isn’t shabby when you consider the fact it was his first article. Brown’s third book,
I’m Just Here for More Food
, was published. And of course 2004 was the year when Food Network began production of
Iron Chef America
. Brown has emceed and served as lead commentator since the Food Network began production on their reincarnation of the much-loved Japanese game show in 2004. It’s a sweet gig, if he does say so himself.

Then came
Feasting On Asphalt
, Brown’s 4-hour love letter to the American road…and food…and motorcycles. Although short, the show was Food Network’s huge, smash hit of the summer of 2006. (Although Brown doesn’t actually have any data to back this he feels pretty confident on the point.)

Let’s see, what else…oh, while Be Square Productions (which Brown co-owns with the aforementioned wife) continues making
Good Eats
, which Brown’s mother has called “the best little half hour of food on television,” their other company, Food Simple, is starting to produce equally educational and entertaining media projects for the corporate sector.

The Browns reside in Georgia, have a daughter in first grade, one dog, one cat, and three motorcycles. I could go on and on about motorcycles, the one thing that I . . . I mean, Brown loves even more than food, but that’s another show . . . I mean, book.

For more information on Alton Brown,
visit
www.altonbrown.com
and
www.foodtv.com
.

Published in 2006 by

Stewart, Tabori & Chang

An imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Copyright © 2002, 2006 Be Square Productions

All illustrations are based on sketches by Alton Brown. Illustrations on pages 14-15, 18-19, 26, 29, 46-47, 58-59, 88, 97, 108-109, and 240-245 copyright © 2002 Campbell Laird. Illustrations on pages 19 (right), 39, 47 (bottom), 137, 169 (right), 173, 202, 256 -267 by Eric Cole. All other illustrations by Allyson C. McFarlane, Branda E. Rasmussen, Galen Smith, Paul G. Wagner, and Jed Weinstein.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Edited by Marisa Bulzone and Trudi Bartow

Designed by Galen Smith, Allyson C. McFarlane, and Nancy Leonard

Graphic Production by Anet Sirna-Bruder

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Alton, 1962—

I’m just here for the food : food + heat = cooking / Alton Brown.—Version 2.0.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58479-559-9
ISBN-10: 1-58479-559-X

1. Cookery. I. Title.

TX651.B728 2006

641.5—dc22

2006052584

The text of this book was composed in New Century Schoolbook and Avenir

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6

ABRAMS

THE ART OF BOOKS SINCE 949

115 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011

www.hnabooks.com

1

Followers of Horace Fletcher (1849-1919), American businessman and mastication promoter who believed that the secret to health lay in chewing each bite of food until no discernable mass remained. Fletcher himself claimed to chew every bite thirty-two times.

2

Nineteenth-century foodie/philosopher whose 1822
The Spirit of Cookery
kicks the pants off anything Brillat “you-are-what-you-eat” Savarin ever wrote.

3

a fancy French way of saying “good to go.”

4

Rock is a very slow conductor but it does get the job done. Several years ago, I was doing a poolside grilling demo at a nice home in Atlanta. I looked around for a place to fire up my chimney starter and settled on the middle of a wide gravel path that ran around the yard. So confident was I in the wisdom of my placement that I was quite shocked to return half an hour later to find that the heat radiated through 4 feet of gravel, melted a sprinkler line and set a railroad tie on fire. While I stood there marveling at the sight of thermodynamics at work, the soles of my sneakers melted.

5

“With a grain of salt.”—Pliny the Elder

6

The life expectancy of the average Japanese female is eighty-three years; male, seventy-seven.

7

Since the handles on cast-iron pans get almost as hot as the rest of the vessel, I strongly suggest turning the handle away from the edge of the stove, especially if children are about. (I’ve burned myself on the handle of a cast-iron pan half an hour after it came off the heat.) The density of iron at 293k = 7.86 g/mc3.

8

Almost 85 percent of American families own a grill.

9

If wood actually burned, there wouldn’t be anything left after combustion—which there is.

10

I’m not trying to imply that chimney starters are dangerous, but I think that anytime you’re holding, moving, and pouring something that’s glowing red, there’s a potential for trouble.

11

Grate temp doesn’t matter very much with a wire-style grate like those that come standard with Weber kettles. But I already knew that dense, heavy iron grates did a much better job of searing the meat, so I use an iron grate.

12

I also took the opportunity to try another experiment at the same time. I had always thought that a thin sheen of oil on the meat was necessary for a good char and to ensure a stick-free grilling experience. But I was suspicious: If meat proteins brown so well, why not rely on them alone? By heavily salting the meat several minutes before cooking, water-soluble proteins had a chance to gather at the surface of the steak. As it turned out, they were all I needed to produce great color, nice grill marks, and no sticking. I won’t be oiling my steaks anymore.

13

When a fully lit charcoal fire develops wisps of transparent flame, it’s hot—really hot.

14

Industry word for the little plastic boxes that berries are often packaged in for sale in the produce department.

15

These nuggets were indeed broiling but since the chicken fat was acting as the heat conduit, the end product was more fried than anything else.

16

The only problem I’ve encountered is that my oven (like most) has an automatic door lock that won’t let me in while the oven’s in this mode even if I turn the oven off. So since my oven’s usually a mess anyway, I add the bricks and run the shortest clean cycle possible, three hours. When the lock disengages, the bricks are still as hot as a space shuttle belly during reentry.

17

I don’t quite trust my oven, so when it beeps at me to say that it’s heated, I always give it at least 5 minutes more.

18

Yes, holding chicken in the zone can promote bacterial growth, but if you cook the chicken properly you’ll nuke every one of the little nasties. This doesn’t mean it’s okay to leave raw meat lying around the house, but it does mean you can take the time to do what’s right for the food, as long as you keep it isolated from any work surfaces and/or other raw or cooked foods.

19

Whenever I work with poultry, I keep a latex glove on one hand for handling the bird and a clean hand free for messing with salt and the like.

20

Since the cooking fat is added to the pan immediately before the food, the issue here isn’t the smoke point as much as flavor. Flavor-rich oils like extra-virgin olive oil and walnut oil lose most of their flavor when they reach high temperatures, so to use them for sautéing is a waste of money. I usually sauté in canola oil because its flavor is neutral. However, if you want to get some of the health benefits of olive oil, do your sautéing with “pure” olive oil rather than with extra virgin.

21

As long as the butter’s foaming you know that it still has water in it, and as long as it has water in it it can’t get hotter than 212° F.

22

Why
off
the heat? Because if the pan is hot enough, when the water-based vinegar hits the pan a good bit of it is going to vaporize and exit the pan, taking microscopic droplets of the fat with it. If you’re cooking over a gas flame, some of these droplets will ignite. Then, for a few seconds the whole pan will seem to be on fire. Such a sight can be exciting when viewed at one’s favorite restaurant, but it can be a bit disconcerting when witnessed at home.

23

Typically, when these foods are added directly to boiling water the temperature immediately drops, giving the food time to catch up, temperature-wise. In steaming, the food rarely touches the boiling water below, so no reduction of heat occurs. For starchy foods such a thermal onslaught would immediately gelatinize the outer layer of the food, rendering it hopelessly gummy. Also, starchy foods need water to wash away excess starch—something steam just can’t do.

24

The way I see it, if the liquid is thickened by solids or stock, it’s a sauce. If it’s thickened by starch, it’s gravy.

25

Chili powder usually includes oregano, coriander, cloves, dried chiles, garlic powder, and cumin. Chile powder contains nothing but dried ground chiles. The two are not interchangeable so always check that final vowel.

26

Chipotles are nothing more than smoked jalapeños. Pound for pound, they bring more flavor to the party than any other chiles. Adobo is like Mexican barbecue sauce: herbs and ground chiles with vinegar.

27

As noted in Searing, zillions of recipes include this step. Why? Because browning via caramelization and the Mailliard reaction produces myriad flavors. So, if it’s so darned good why doesn’t someone simply manufacture this stuff and bottle it so we can pour it on everything? Darned good question. But personally, I’m glad there’s still something you can’t buy.

28

This does not mean I condone the thieving of chips and salsa from restaurants, but you get the point.

29

Remember when you were a kid and you went to the doctor and they pricked your finger and while you were bawling the nurse held a little tube to the drop of blood and all of a sudden it jumped up the tube, and that shut you up because it kinda seemed like magic? That was capillary action and that’s the same thing that happens when you marinate a piece of meat.

30

If you find the analogy a bit overwrought, you’ve never messed up a consommé an hour before service in a French restaurant.