0:00

This is the reason interview with

0:02

Nicholasby. My guest today is Alton

0:04

Brown, who for years hosted Good

0:06

Eats on the Food Network and

0:09

married his interest in science to

0:11

the making of dinner. He's currently

0:13

touring the country and he's also

0:15

just published Food for Thought, a

0:18

fantastic collection of essays about food

0:20

culture and his life on and

0:22

off the screen. I talked with

0:24

him about how food transcends politics,

0:27

why fusion cooking isn't cultural preparation,

0:29

and why there's always room

0:31

for Jello salad on

0:33

his menu. Here is

0:36

the reason interview with

0:38

Alton Brown. Alton

0:40

Brown, thanks for

0:42

talking to Reason. Happy to be

0:44

here. Thanks for having me. So you

0:47

are on a farewell tour, and yeah,

0:49

and you also have a new book

0:51

ad. I want to ask, based on

0:53

some research I did, is this a

0:56

real farewell tour, or is this like

0:58

the Ramones and the Who, you know, at

1:00

various stages? No, no, I'm going to

1:03

stick the landing on this one. No,

1:05

this will be my last national tour,

1:07

for sure. This whole thing about living

1:09

on a bus for 13 weeks, it's

1:12

not nearly as glamorous issue, I think.

1:14

I you know I yeah I think

1:16

it would be but I guess a

1:18

little bit no it actually really isn't

1:21

if you could if you could take

1:23

a train like a you know your

1:25

own coach like Yeah, I was going

1:27

to say President Garfield in Wild Wild

1:30

West or something, right? Yeah, that would

1:32

be a different matter entirely. But then you wouldn't get

1:34

anywhere, right? You would be stopping in the middle of

1:36

nowhere half the time. I kind of like the idea

1:38

of that, though. If you had a train with a

1:40

couple of extra cars that could open up and you

1:43

would just do your show out in the middle of

1:45

a field on a site in some place and then

1:47

close it up and then close it up and go

1:49

to you know. That would be, you know, that might

1:51

heal the country, that might heal the country as well,

1:53

that might heal the country as well, that might heal

1:56

the country as well. So your book, Food for Thought,

1:58

I want to start, you open it, you... were

2:00

born in 1962, so you're towards

2:02

the end of the baby boom,

2:04

and you open talking about watching

2:07

TV and eating Captain Crunch. I

2:09

have two sons, I was born

2:11

in 1963, so I'm right there

2:13

with you. I reading that, it

2:15

was like reading Pruss talking about

2:17

a Madeline, I started having internal

2:19

bleeding on my mouth. What is

2:22

it about Captain Crunch? watching, you

2:24

know, in front of TV on

2:26

Saturday mornings. Why is that so

2:28

important? Well, I think that, you

2:30

know, no kid today, no child

2:32

today can understand the magic of

2:35

Saturdays. You know, it was... literally

2:37

a magical day. And you know,

2:39

if you were good, at least

2:41

in my household, you got complete

2:43

control of one of the TVs

2:45

for several hours. And so number

2:47

one, it was your first real

2:50

exposure to choice. It was also

2:52

first exposure to a form of

2:54

media that was completely out of

2:56

control as far as trying to

2:58

manipulate your young mind, which you

3:00

did. And Captain Crunch was just

3:02

a flavor. And as you pointed

3:05

out a moment ago when you

3:07

mentioned internal bleeding. The sense memory

3:09

of these hard little pillows shredding

3:11

the roof of your mouth, which

3:13

I enjoyed, I think I've always

3:15

liked a little pain with my

3:18

pleasure. And so I think that's

3:20

what makes that memory so potent.

3:22

That in the folding tray table.

3:24

Or is in the particular story

3:26

that I tell, also another shocking

3:28

element. Yeah, talk about the, I

3:30

think you said that it had

3:33

flowers on it and things like

3:35

that. Explain what a folding tray

3:37

table was. And in your household,

3:39

was it considered a break with

3:41

decorum to eat somewhere other than

3:43

the kitchen or dining table? Yes,

3:45

yes. It was a break with

3:48

decorum. It was special. It was

3:50

something that had to be kind

3:52

of, you had. apply for it

3:54

in advance like a passport. And

3:56

the only time that it was

3:58

unilaterally allowed in my house was

4:01

when either the Saturday morning or

4:03

if a Jacques Cousteau special was

4:05

on TV in the evenings, in

4:07

which case it was also allowed.

4:09

Yeah, it did seem like you

4:11

were kind of giving up as

4:13

a family in the late 60s,

4:16

early 70s, if your parents were

4:18

like, fuck it, we're eating in

4:20

front of the TV. No, we

4:22

had a little kitchenette, a little

4:24

dinette. area in our kitchen that

4:26

was really, you know, that is

4:28

where most meals were taken. And

4:31

we didn't break from that. You,

4:33

so describe a little bit, I

4:35

mean, you talk about the powerful

4:37

sensation of the way the milk,

4:39

and at one point you use

4:41

buttermilk in your. No, the whole

4:44

story is about the accidental grabbing

4:46

of buttermilk. That's the story. That's

4:48

the entire story. Is that. I

4:50

accidentally shoved it in my job

4:52

and it was buttermilk. And one

4:54

bottle had a blue label and

4:56

one bottle had a blue label

4:59

and one bottle had a blue

5:01

label and one bottle had a

5:03

blue label and one bottle had

5:05

a green label and one bottle

5:07

had a green label and I

5:09

thought the green was prettier. I

5:11

didn't for a moment at my

5:14

age considered that there would be

5:16

a differentiation of the product, which

5:18

of course there would be. And

5:20

so you know I poured on

5:22

my cereal and I poured on

5:24

my cereal and I poured on

5:27

my cereal. of that flavor. That

5:29

flavor. I didn't know there was

5:31

such a thing as buttermilk. I

5:33

mean, why would there be? How

5:35

could that exist? Why would it?

5:37

What was buttermilk used for other,

5:40

I mean, I guess you make

5:42

biscuits with it. I know it

5:44

was water on my household, but

5:46

my mother drank it. My mother

5:48

drank it. My mother was raised

5:51

on the stuff in the South

5:53

and enjoyed just consuming it. It

5:55

was a very different product back

5:57

then. You know, today's butterm buttermilk

5:59

is is far more like horrible

6:01

yogurt than it. actually better about,

6:04

but back then it was quite

6:06

sour. It wasn't viscous enough to

6:08

where I recognized it as a

6:10

different product, but the memory, he's

6:12

like the first time that I

6:15

was surprised by anything in a

6:17

negative way in life in such

6:19

a powerful way. But I think

6:21

the telling part of the story

6:23

is that revolting. as it was,

6:26

as shockingly revolting at it was,

6:28

after a few minutes I did

6:30

go back and taste it again.

6:32

And I think that that's what

6:34

kind of sets the pattern for

6:36

my own culinary life, is that

6:39

I will go back after the

6:41

strange flavor. And that was certainly

6:43

typical of my childhood. Is that

6:45

temperamental or is that something that

6:47

can be taught? Because you put,

6:50

I mean, throughout your entire body

6:52

of work, you put a lot

6:54

of... emphasis on things like curiosity

6:56

and trying things or seeking things

6:58

out. I think that I do

7:01

talk a lot about curiosity, which

7:03

I think is the most powerful

7:05

and most kind of positive human

7:07

emotion, so to speak. I don't.

7:09

I don't think that one needs

7:11

to delve into strange things for

7:14

the sake of strange things, but

7:16

there is a real value in

7:18

the brain being out of its

7:20

comfort zone, your sense is being

7:22

out of their comfort zone, your

7:25

body being out of its comfort

7:27

zone, in a thoughtful, exploratory manner.

7:29

I'm not suggesting that we eat

7:31

really strange foods for shock factor,

7:33

but I think that, you know,

7:36

especially as you grow older and

7:38

you get used to so many

7:40

things. 99% of what we put

7:42

in our mouths, adults, we know

7:44

what it's gonna taste like when

7:47

it gets to us. I mean,

7:49

we just do from experience. I

7:51

think that stepping outside of that

7:53

in a thoughtful manner, really thinking

7:55

about what's going on, the input

7:57

that we're getting, is something I

8:00

certainly want to. I'm not going

8:02

to say that it's critical to

8:04

be a good person or anything,

8:06

but I do think that it

8:08

makes life a hell of a

8:11

lot more interesting. How you would

8:13

mention before that, you know, in

8:15

the 60s, and this was partly

8:17

actually in response to early, or

8:19

very early in the 60s when

8:22

the then head of the FCC

8:24

declared that television was a vast

8:26

wasteland we started getting more kind

8:28

of educational television although it certainly

8:30

it was not educating us in

8:32

the way that maybe the government

8:35

wanted us to but you you

8:37

talked about how you know we

8:39

were being sold a ton of

8:41

stuff a ton of products there

8:43

were tie-ins between the cartoons and

8:46

the products that were being sold

8:48

how much how much of the

8:50

captain crunch experience and I Don't

8:52

think that 25-year-old me would ever

8:54

have imagined that, you know, 61-year-old

8:57

me would be asking a question

8:59

like this to somebody like you.

9:01

How much of the Captain Crunch

9:03

experience was the packaging and the

9:05

commercials and him swash buckling? Like,

9:07

how does that factor into that?

9:10

First off, let's step back from

9:12

the captain and look at the

9:14

world of cereals, of sugary cereals

9:16

in the 60's. What's significant, and

9:18

I don't know if anybody's ever

9:21

written a study on this, hell

9:23

I might, is that this is

9:25

really the first time that children

9:27

were being directly marketed to by

9:29

very smart people, right, who were

9:32

designing products and designing advertising specifically

9:34

to pump us full of, look,

9:36

it doesn't matter that it was

9:38

crap. Right. Which it was and

9:40

still is. What matters is that

9:42

kids all of a sudden, we've

9:45

felt seen by a bigger world.

9:47

And there was something, you know,

9:49

I remember sending in box tops

9:51

for whatever the price was promised.

9:53

But I'll tell you something that

9:56

was really worthwhile is like you

9:58

would save up like three. Cheerios,

10:00

I wasn't usually Cheerios, but some

10:02

other. Cheerios were kind of a

10:04

punishment, right? Well Cheerios, you know,

10:07

it was like, time out. You're

10:09

like, you're in life magazine, like

10:11

you're really in trouble, but in

10:13

great nuts. Although I really love

10:15

it. I'm a texture guy. So

10:17

this, this the anticipation of like,

10:20

of going through all this cereal,

10:22

getting the box tops, sending the

10:24

box tops in by mail, and

10:26

then waiting. waiting for the thing

10:28

to come, which was usually weeks,

10:31

right? And so the anticipation, I

10:33

mean, it was very, I'm not

10:35

gonna say empowering, but powerful in

10:37

a way, that whole experience was

10:39

instructive. Instructive, right? I think so.

10:42

It certainly taught you how to

10:44

be a consumer. And, you know,

10:46

and that's that's a valuable lesson

10:48

in and of itself. But I

10:50

don't think that people, people that

10:52

didn't live during that time, right,

10:55

do not know what this feels

10:57

like. And I will say that,

10:59

like, I was the last year

11:01

of the baby boomers, so I'm

11:03

practically Gen X, but I think

11:06

that once Gen X is over,

11:08

no one knows what that feels

11:10

like anymore. And I think it

11:12

informed us in more ways than

11:14

a lot of people think. Yeah

11:17

and it can be seen as

11:19

being cynical but it's also being

11:21

realistic and just being you know

11:23

kind of out there in the

11:25

world because as that same you

11:27

know we were being marketed to

11:30

the results of things like wacky

11:32

packages and you know critiques that

11:34

were being mass marketed to us

11:36

but that were critiques of mass

11:38

marketing. You know and we can

11:41

be we can be critical about

11:43

that because you know a lot

11:45

of companies were we're selling kids

11:47

really crap nutrition but let me

11:49

tell you something the world has

11:52

not changed one iota. In fact,

11:54

it's just taken that model and

11:56

perfected it more and more and

11:58

more and more as we break

12:00

into micro tribes. It's the same

12:02

thing. Only really now the product

12:05

is... us. Yeah. I want to,

12:07

you know, Captain Crunch, Madeline Moment,

12:09

is one of the, in the

12:11

book, it's one of the meals

12:13

that you say that made you.

12:16

Another one is a pizza that

12:18

you had in Tuscany. Describe that

12:20

and I was born in Brooklyn.

12:22

I grew up in New Jersey.

12:24

You know, pizza. But I also,

12:27

what it reminded me of is

12:29

when I went to college, 25

12:31

miles from my hometown, and I

12:33

had a white pizza for the

12:35

first time, and I was like,

12:37

like, I have never experienced something

12:40

so sophisticated, so delicious, my taste

12:42

buds are exploding, just thinking about

12:44

it. The way you describe this

12:46

pizza is, you know, it's one

12:48

of the best pieces of writing

12:51

I've read in forever. What was

12:53

going on with that pizza that

12:55

it blew your mind? Well, first

12:57

off. I'm not from New York

12:59

or New Jersey, so I had

13:02

not ever, this happened in college,

13:04

so I had never been exposed

13:06

to what I would call great

13:08

or even authentic pizza. Pizza for

13:10

me was pizza, hot pizza. Well,

13:12

that's not entirely true, because I

13:15

actually worked in a pizzeria during

13:17

college that they made better than

13:19

average pizza, but still, it was

13:21

deck pizza at best. It was

13:23

New York's lifestyle pizza. And like

13:26

most of the, it's funny. All

13:28

three of the stories in the

13:30

book that are meals that made

13:32

me, I realize in retrospect having

13:34

written about them is that they,

13:37

one of the greatest elements is

13:39

surprise, not knowing that this is

13:41

coming. I was lucky enough to

13:43

spend a semester of college in

13:45

a small town in Tuscany and

13:47

Italy doing theater there with the

13:50

University of Georgia and I literally.

13:52

as the story unfolded, it was

13:54

just an accident. I just got

13:56

invited by this old man and

13:58

his couple of kids and his

14:01

grandchildren to go up in the

14:03

hills. I would never be able

14:05

to find it again in 100

14:07

years. I don't even know if

14:09

it exists. To this shack. you

14:12

know, literally a pizza hot that

14:14

this guy, you know, was making

14:16

pizza and the pizza was utterly

14:18

alien when delivered to me. It

14:20

was like an amoeba of flat

14:22

cracker burnt on the bottom dough

14:25

with a little oil, a little

14:27

cheese and shaved artichokes, which I'd

14:29

never had before, shaved baby artichokes

14:31

and some peppers, like all that

14:33

was on it. And yet when

14:36

I ate it, and look, I'm

14:38

not saying it's the best pizza

14:40

I ever had. pizza I ever

14:42

had. But it summed up a

14:44

lot of things that I had

14:47

never had before in that kind

14:49

of way. That is the Gestalt

14:51

of the whole thing being very

14:53

very powerful. And I've never been

14:55

able to completely get my head

14:57

around why that was so important.

15:00

But I will also say that

15:02

the place itself was very important.

15:04

This strange kind of mysterious place

15:06

that I went, it was almost

15:08

like something out of the Odyssey,

15:11

to be honest, which of course

15:13

I never went back to again.

15:15

It's become now in my mind

15:17

over decades epic. At the time,

15:19

I probably thought, oh this is

15:22

really great, but it wasn't revelatory

15:24

then. It was only revelatory as

15:26

the years went by that that

15:28

moment. that one pizza stood out

15:30

as such an important thing and

15:32

hearing that old man say to

15:35

me and an Italian you remember

15:37

this which yeah darn right mister

15:39

oh that is like the Odyssey

15:41

or something like in my in

15:43

my mythology and let's face it

15:46

when you get into your 60s

15:48

if you're not building mythology out

15:50

of your past you're really missing

15:52

out because yeah one of the

15:54

great pleasures of divity is being

15:57

able to create something a little

15:59

more epic of your history than

16:01

perhaps the events that actually took

16:03

place. Yes, I say in the

16:05

author's statement on the book, you

16:07

know, most of this happened and

16:10

if it didn't, it should have.

16:12

Because I'm not about to pretend

16:14

for a moment. that my memory

16:16

is a documentary filmmaker. Yes, everything

16:18

in that book happened in my,

16:21

if it didn't, if it didn't,

16:23

I remember it that way. But

16:25

who's to say, you know, who's

16:27

to say how good memories? But

16:29

that pizza, yes, it was the

16:32

best pizza in the world, absolutely

16:34

not. Life changing for me, totally.

16:36

The third meal is at a

16:38

roadside restaurant that served Indian food.

16:40

No, it was a motel. It

16:42

was a motel in South Carolina

16:45

being managed by an Indian family

16:47

who were living on the premises.

16:49

And it was them sharing part

16:51

of their dinner. And there's, by

16:53

the way, just to be clear,

16:56

it's South Asian Indians. Yes. And

16:58

you were told that there was

17:00

going to be. Curry, explain what

17:02

happened there and why this has

17:04

stayed with you. Well, it turned

17:07

out to be kati, which is

17:09

a different thing altogether, but I

17:11

didn't know that. It's basically a

17:13

relatively simple yogurt-based soup that is

17:15

heavily spiced, and I had never

17:18

had it. It watched it being

17:20

made, helped a little bit, could

17:22

not have been more humble. And

17:24

yet it conveyed an entire continent

17:26

of flavors. But then also, I

17:28

can't remove the incredibly generous hospitality

17:31

and openness with which it was

17:33

given to us. These were really

17:35

humble people living at a very

17:37

humble little apartment in the back

17:39

of a motel, and they opened

17:42

that home up to us without

17:44

reserve. And I think that flavors

17:46

meal. in a very powerful way.

17:48

Yes, the soup was amazing. It

17:50

was redolent of all these spice.

17:53

It was literally like somebody had

17:55

put southern India into a juicer

17:57

and squeezed it, extracted how everything

17:59

of it. and then put it

18:01

in this little cup and given

18:03

it to me. So that was

18:06

a powerful sense memory kind of

18:08

thing, but also I don't think

18:10

that I had ever experienced that

18:12

level of open hospitality, of just

18:14

the simple act of people giving

18:17

me strangers feeding me, which I

18:19

think you get about. You still,

18:21

you try to recreate or you've

18:23

tried to recreate that meal and

18:25

you get close, but not quite

18:28

there. So

18:30

you're like chasing the drag? It's

18:32

not in my bones. It's not

18:34

in my bones. I can scratch

18:36

the edge, but the edge never

18:38

goes away. And it won't ever.

18:40

Probably because, you know, that woman

18:43

learned that recipe from her mother-in-law.

18:45

A time after time, every time

18:47

of making it in India. I

18:49

don't have that in my bones.

18:51

I'm not going to be able

18:53

to replicate that. I can get

18:56

close enough to just miss it

18:58

worse. You, in the book and

19:00

throughout your career, you've talked a

19:02

lot about questions about cultural appropriation

19:04

and the use of things. And

19:06

can you talk a little bit

19:08

about this because, you know, one

19:11

of the things that is fascinating

19:13

about food in an era where

19:15

you said, you know, we're breaking

19:17

down into micro tribes and things

19:19

like that. And that is kind

19:21

of true and there's good parts

19:24

to that and bad parts to

19:26

it. But one of the things

19:28

that has flourished. certainly over our

19:30

lifetimes is, you know, this profusion,

19:32

I don't want to say world

19:34

cuisine, but you know, people growing

19:37

up in a small town in

19:39

Georgia or in a cosmopolitan, you

19:41

know, in Atlanta or New York

19:43

or Bombay or whatever, Mumbai. You

19:45

know, everybody is mixing. You know,

19:47

what's the positive case for cultural

19:50

appropriation in an era where oftentimes

19:52

people are like, hey, you know

19:54

what? You know, you shouldn't be

19:56

making that food. Maybe you shouldn't

19:58

even be eating it. I do

20:00

have an essay in the book

20:02

about this because of something. think

20:05

about a lot. And I, you

20:07

know, this, the American ideal, you

20:09

know, so many foods are not

20:11

actually where you think they're from.

20:13

You know, I talk about the

20:15

fact that, you know, fish and

20:18

chips in England, you know, that's,

20:20

that's, that's a, that's a Jewish

20:22

diaspora dish. That, that was created

20:24

by, by, by, by Jesus after,

20:26

after Cromwell, as time, or... Right.

20:28

And it's, because I found that

20:31

interesting, it was actually... Jews from

20:33

Portugal, right, who eventually got kicked

20:35

out and end up back in

20:37

England, where the Jews have been

20:39

kicked out by Edward the first

20:41

in the 1300s. So it's like

20:44

we're already in a real worldly

20:46

bird of, you know, a lot

20:48

of national dishes are that way,

20:50

you know, Shachuka and Israel, you

20:52

know, it's North African, you know,

20:54

nothing is, everything's fluid, right, as

20:57

people move around the planet. And

20:59

I think that the appropriation part

21:01

becomes an issue or what we

21:03

call appropriation. I call it plagiarism

21:05

is when you claim something without

21:07

appreciating and kind of clearly stating

21:09

where it's from and what it

21:12

is. You know, if you if

21:14

you are and it doesn't matter

21:16

who you are where you're from,

21:18

it's like. I talk in the

21:20

book about, you know, if a

21:22

Greek family starts a pizzeria, if

21:25

a Chinese family straight from Beijing

21:27

opens a hot dog shop, are

21:29

they appropriating? Are they just smart?

21:31

If I put Siracha, you know,

21:33

on my scrambled eggs, am I

21:35

appropriating? Or is that just a

21:38

culinary sense? I think it's all

21:40

a matter of how you do

21:42

it. You know, my thing has

21:44

always been, hey, this is America,

21:46

you buy the groceries, the food

21:48

chairs. And I think that there's,

21:51

there's something about that. In this

21:53

day and age, we can learn

21:55

where things are from. We can

21:57

if we put in the mental

21:59

rigor, the intellectual rigor. learn where

22:01

things are from and something of

22:03

their history. I think that makes

22:06

food taste better. I do that

22:08

not because I feel beholden to

22:10

give credit to someone like, oh,

22:12

the people of Alhaka make this,

22:14

they're the ones, you know, and

22:16

point to them. Is that that

22:19

should be part of the rigor

22:21

of simply figuring out where your

22:23

food's from. Right. So what we

22:25

don't get to do is we

22:27

don't get to just pick up

22:29

things along the way and then

22:32

kind of claim them. and start

22:34

businesses about them and blogs about

22:36

them. But if you really love

22:38

something and you spend time learning

22:40

about it, appreciating it and give

22:42

credit where credit is due, I

22:45

don't think it's appropriation. I don't.

22:47

When I say it's celebration or...

22:49

I think if it's done right,

22:51

it's celebration, absolutely. And if I

22:53

take, you know, something from the

22:55

Hmong culture and working into my

22:57

food, as long as I talk

23:00

about it, and I'm aware of

23:02

it, then I don't think, I

23:04

don't personally think there's anything wrong

23:06

with it. This whole thing, if

23:08

you shouldn't even be eating it.

23:10

What? I'll eat whatever I freaking

23:13

want, if I can afford it,

23:15

and it's for sale, I'm gonna

23:17

eat it. No one's gonna tell

23:19

me not to eat it. Do

23:21

I have the right to then

23:23

start a blog about it? Depends.

23:26

That simply a matter of respect,

23:28

perhaps. Yeah, I'm still I always

23:30

go back to I I'm not

23:32

sure exactly You know who what

23:34

army general so belong to but

23:36

you know It's an interesting circuit

23:39

right like and he may have

23:41

been in the same military that

23:43

captain crunch was you know It's

23:45

kind of like you know a

23:47

chicken chicken catch Tories not not

23:49

Italian it's American right You know,

23:51

there's so many dishes from so

23:54

many places that originated in America

23:56

that happened because of the melting

23:58

pot, which we're very fortunate to

24:00

have. very fortunate to be part

24:02

of. So talk, yeah, I mean,

24:04

you would agree, right, that I

24:07

mean, this is, it seems inarguable

24:09

that food cuisine, or I guess

24:11

there is only food cuisine, but

24:13

cuisine in America has just gotten,

24:15

you know, astronomically better and more

24:17

interesting, or at least more varied

24:20

over the past 60 years. Why

24:22

did that happen? And is it

24:24

a good thing? Or, you know,

24:26

what are the limits to that

24:28

kind of explosion? Well,

24:31

it happened because of food media.

24:33

Above all. Because, you know, if

24:36

a Laoshan family opens a small

24:38

restaurant in Buffalo, New York, and

24:41

no one but Laoshans go to

24:43

it, then it doesn't blow up.

24:45

Instagram and the internet in general

24:48

changed that exposure level, which is

24:50

good. because then more people learn

24:52

about it. The world becomes more

24:55

intimate, you know, in its way.

24:57

There's a great amount of appreciation.

25:00

I think the flip side is

25:02

unfortunately, I think that America's cooking

25:04

skills at home are decaying. do

25:07

not think. And I think that

25:09

part of that is because now

25:11

so many young people consume so

25:14

much culinary content in places like

25:16

TikTok where food videos are more

25:19

freak shows than they are representation

25:21

of food that you would want

25:23

to make and eat and are

25:26

there to kind of thrill the

25:28

eyes and be. they sometimes just

25:30

disgusting or you know sometimes look

25:33

amazing that that's not how you

25:35

make. So this is like the

25:38

you know where you're eating hot

25:40

wings that you need to wear

25:42

a gas mask in order to

25:45

you know consume. There's always that

25:47

been that level of extremism in

25:49

food ever since we started having

25:52

eating contests you know which is

25:54

taking food out of context of

25:57

what it actually is. and turning

25:59

into something else. You know, and

26:01

I think that one of the

26:04

reasons food remains such a hot

26:06

subject is that we still haven't

26:09

figured out how to convey taste

26:11

and smell through technology. And hopefully

26:13

we won't ever figure out how

26:16

to do that. Because then we

26:18

have to do it in real

26:20

life, right? Well, once AI is

26:23

figure out taste and flavor, we

26:25

will. I think that that will

26:28

be the last stroke of humanity.

26:30

You know, we are distinctly human

26:32

because things we smell and things

26:35

we eat form memories via our

26:37

limbic system. That makes us really

26:39

special. And the animal world, you

26:42

know, in general, certainly primates all

26:44

do that. Dogs do that. But

26:47

I think that it keeps us

26:49

still special from the AI. Do

26:51

you, when you say that kind

26:54

of culinary skills are declining or

26:56

degrading in America, is that something,

26:58

you know, you talk about your

27:01

mother as well as especially your

27:03

grandmother in the book? Did you

27:06

learn directly from them or was

27:08

it something where in the same

27:10

way I was just talking about

27:13

this with somebody the other day,

27:15

you know, up through probably about

27:17

1970, it was common that most

27:20

women knew how to sew using

27:22

a sewing machine and they would

27:25

be able to churn out Halloween

27:27

costumes and at least simple clothing.

27:29

They also knew how to cook,

27:32

you know, my mother was not

27:34

a particularly good cook, but she

27:36

was in the kitchen every day.

27:39

I mean, has that? you know,

27:41

has, is the transmission of culinary

27:44

skills gone down because we don't

27:46

do that anymore? Or is it

27:48

that we are, you know, we're

27:51

chasing a very high cuisine rather

27:53

than a kind of basic. Well,

27:55

I'm not going to say that

27:58

we're chasing an Instagram. derived cuisine.

28:00

And we can't look to our

28:03

mothers to say, you know, can

28:05

you make me pat tie tonight?

28:07

You don't let your mother happens

28:09

to be tie. You know, so that what

28:11

I would call the base cuisine

28:13

of what a family used to

28:16

eat. And by the way, when

28:18

I was a kid, it was

28:20

not. at all uncommon for like

28:22

Monday night is this night, Tuesday

28:24

night is this night, Thursday night

28:27

is that night, Friday night is

28:29

fish sticks. You've got, you're either

28:31

Catholic or you've got Catholic

28:34

friends. So a mother, and I'm

28:36

going to use that, a, a,

28:39

a, a, a, the, whatever adult

28:41

supported this, yes, whether it was

28:43

a male or female, could get

28:45

by on 20 dishes, a couple

28:47

of special holiday meals and a

28:49

couple of desserts. So the recipe

28:51

box was not deep nor wide,

28:53

nor did it have to be.

28:55

And the great benefit of that

28:57

is that if you paid any

28:59

attention at all, after a few years

29:02

of Mondays, you'd have that pot

29:04

roast down or pot roast, which

29:06

is usually on Sundays, you would

29:08

learn those dishes as a foundation.

29:10

And we don't have that anymore.

29:12

We don't. Now for one thing,

29:15

during our childhood, mother started

29:17

working and then it became, or the

29:19

rule, then the exception. And then we

29:21

had kind of, I look at the

29:23

80s and 90s, as kind of just

29:25

a wasteland, a culinary wasteland

29:27

in a lot of ways because

29:30

people weren't learning how to cook

29:32

from families. They were learning to

29:34

cook from cookbooks. and magazines. That

29:37

was the great area of,

29:39

you know, like, Ormay magazine,

29:41

the Time Life series, to

29:43

read books. Then, in the

29:45

late 90s, it all changed

29:47

and became television. And for

29:49

a decade, almost, almost two

29:52

decades, I think people

29:54

learned primarily from food shows.

29:56

And food network, certainly,

29:58

what was there. cooking shows just

30:01

turned into competition shows. And now

30:03

I think back, we're back a

30:05

drift again. Yeah, and you're down

30:07

on the competition shows at this

30:10

point, right? I am not, I

30:12

don't want to do any more

30:14

of them. I did my share.

30:16

Hopefully there were some good ones.

30:19

I did them because I had

30:21

a contract and I had to

30:23

do the work. I am, I

30:25

think they have a place, but

30:27

that's all there is any. And

30:30

so I think that young people

30:32

now see food as simply something

30:34

you used to beat somebody else

30:36

for something. I think that it

30:39

is, other than Martha Stewart's whole

30:41

perfection thing, which I despise almost

30:43

beyond my words of description. Why

30:45

do you, why is, why is,

30:48

why does that rank? Well, I

30:50

have a, I have a whole

30:52

essay about the whole affection thing.

30:54

I know a lot more people

30:57

that stopped entertaining after the rise

30:59

of Martha Stewart than those that

31:01

started entertaining because they suddenly became

31:03

self-aware of their own lack of

31:05

perfection. And I know a lot

31:08

of people that used to have

31:10

really good times, that their houses

31:12

eating a bowl of chili or

31:14

whatever, simply stopped because they became

31:17

so aware of the fact that

31:19

they didn't have the right pots

31:21

and pans, and they didn't have

31:23

the tableclaws, and they didn't have

31:26

this. So I hate that. I

31:28

absolutely hate that. I think that

31:30

that whole perfection thing drug us

31:32

into dark ages of home entertainment,

31:35

where no one really cooked for

31:37

friends and family, because we're all

31:39

too scared to do. And if

31:41

we did do it, it was

31:43

because we were competing. And now

31:46

with culinary shows, it was competing.

31:48

It is frustrating. Yeah, when you

31:50

go to, you know, when you

31:52

reach a certain level, I guess,

31:55

in your life and possibly career

31:57

or whatnot, where you're going to

31:59

friends' houses for dinners and everybody

32:01

is out doing themselves, and whether

32:04

the food is good or not,

32:06

you kind of feel compelled to

32:08

be like, this is truly delicious.

32:10

I rather small quality food. You

32:13

know, make a big pot of

32:15

soup and invite a bunch of

32:17

people over and have a good

32:19

time. That used to be what

32:21

hospitality was about. It wasn't about

32:24

impressing, it was about sharing. And

32:26

I think we had a lot

32:28

more fun than. Your inspirations, as

32:30

you listed in the book, include

32:33

Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, and Monty

32:35

Python. Those are the inspirations for

32:37

the show Good Eat's, yeah. They

32:39

obviously, you know, I think everybody

32:42

would agree with that, but focus

32:44

a little bit on Julia Child.

32:46

I mean, she is a fascinating.

32:48

change agent in American society and

32:51

certainly in post-war culture, what grabbed

32:53

you and stays with you about

32:55

Julia Child? Multiple things. And multiple

32:57

things that I don't think have

32:59

ever been replicated in another food

33:02

personality. One, sheer unmitigated joy. She

33:04

loved what she was talking about.

33:06

She loved what she was cooking.

33:08

She loved what she was cooking.

33:11

her openness to share that joy,

33:13

whether things were going right or

33:15

not going right, which she didn't

33:17

mind showing. She's kind of the

33:20

anti-Martha Stewart. The turkey balls on

33:22

the floor, pick up the turkey,

33:24

laugh about it. And that wonderful

33:26

sharing of joy made you want

33:29

to be in there in that

33:31

kitchen with her. Number two. You

33:33

know, she wasn't an expert. She

33:35

became one. But she really wasn't.

33:37

She was constantly in the process

33:40

of discovery herself. I mean, when

33:42

you look at her history, she

33:44

had experience. She wasn't much of

33:46

an expert. I mean, she went

33:49

to court on below. Okay, great.

33:51

But what I think that really,

33:53

there's a class of teacher that

33:55

is great while they are in

33:58

the process of discovery themselves. Great

34:00

teachers are always constantly learning. They

34:02

may not be constantly learning in

34:04

their teaching you. but they are

34:07

constantly learning and that keeps a

34:09

spark going. I would like to

34:11

think that if I followed her

34:13

down any path, at least with

34:15

the show Good Eats, is that

34:18

Good Eats was always fun because

34:20

I was constantly in the state

34:22

of discovery. And when you're discovering

34:24

things, you want to share things

34:27

in a natural way that is

34:29

very catching. And I think that

34:31

the other thing about Julia was

34:33

just her humanity, her absolute humanity,

34:36

that I think carried across through

34:38

everything that she did. And I

34:40

think it's so interesting when people

34:42

do talk about cultural appropriation. Well,

34:45

what the hell do you think

34:47

she was doing it? Right. Yeah,

34:49

yeah. She was, probably she was

34:51

a close appropriating other white people

34:53

being the French. But deciphering, and

34:56

then the last thing is her

34:58

ability to decipher and demistify, you

35:00

know, you take a cuisine like

35:02

French, which is highly organized and

35:05

very rigorous, which I'm actually glad

35:07

of because... It gives us form

35:09

and function for that whole cuisine,

35:11

is that she was able to

35:14

demystify that and make not as

35:16

scary for people, which allowed a

35:18

lot of home cooks in America

35:20

during her reign to feel that

35:23

they weren't just low-class Americans anymore.

35:25

We can make French food, which

35:27

at the time was considered the

35:29

world standard. Right. Mr. Wizard might

35:31

be unfamiliar to people. You know,

35:34

maybe more and after 1907. The,

35:36

the, the, the, the, Bill Nigh,

35:38

you know, Mr. Richard, there were

35:40

a lot of shows. He was

35:43

really the first to try to

35:45

demystify fully or, or, make science,

35:47

higher ideas of science, understandable through

35:49

kind of models and storytelling. Bill

35:52

Nigh certainly would be the, the

35:54

equivalent today, I, I, I would

35:56

say. And for me, the science

35:58

part of cooking has always been

36:01

critical because... I can't cook well

36:03

just walking in the kitchen and

36:05

doing it. I really do need

36:07

to understand what's going on in

36:09

order to be a better cook.

36:12

And that understanding, for me at

36:14

least, almost always comes out of

36:16

science. It either comes out of

36:18

historical understanding of why and how

36:21

an ingredient or a food way

36:23

got someplace or the science of

36:25

what the food actually is doing

36:27

and needing. How did you come

36:30

up with, you know, in good

36:32

eats? I mean, you were constantly

36:34

coming up with new ways to

36:36

illustrate the science of gluten or,

36:39

you know, how different molecules mix?

36:41

Was that all just kind of,

36:43

you know, trial and experimentation to

36:45

figure out what would represent something?

36:47

I'm going to say that probably

36:50

50% of the time that I

36:52

spent researching and writing that show

36:54

was about coming up with workable...

36:56

visual, entertaining, and yet accurate models.

36:59

What I did not let myself

37:01

get caught up in was a

37:03

level of exactitude that would have

37:05

resulted in no one understanding any

37:08

of it at all. This is

37:10

a complaint that scientists had about

37:12

the show, especially in the early

37:14

days, when they would say, well,

37:17

that's not really how gluten works.

37:19

And I'm like, well, look, if

37:21

there's a scale of understanding about

37:23

gluten from, I don't know which

37:26

side of the screen you're looking

37:28

at, I'm going to do that

37:30

because the rest of it, I

37:32

don't care about. I just don't

37:34

care. And I would rather have

37:37

70 than nothing. And I think

37:39

that a lot of teaching that's

37:41

done by scientists in both high

37:43

school and college level ends up

37:46

not working because they go for

37:48

100% or nothing. They go for

37:50

brooch. If you don't get it

37:52

100% right, then you end up

37:55

not getting any of it. And

37:57

I rather have people get 70%.

37:59

And doing that in a way

38:01

that's entertaining. Which is absolutely critical

38:04

if you aren't entertaining people. They

38:06

are not paying attention So with

38:08

models whether it's like a skit

38:10

or it's a whatever it is

38:12

or puppets, you know, which We

38:15

used a locked and out puppets

38:17

because people will watch them and

38:19

people will be entertained. And it

38:21

may be days before they realize

38:24

they learned something. Hell, they may

38:26

never realize that they learned something,

38:28

but they did. But they did.

38:30

And then how did Monty Python

38:33

round out this? I mean, it's

38:35

an influence and it's apparent through

38:37

what you're doing. But what was

38:39

the essence of Monty Python that

38:42

you really loved? We lost David

38:44

Lynch recently, one of my favorite

38:46

filmmakers and artists, who staunchly believe

38:48

that you don't need to explain

38:50

it. You don't need to explain

38:53

a lot of things. And I

38:55

think that is what makes Money

38:57

Python humor very often still to

38:59

this day so wickedly our point

39:02

is that it doesn't. very often

39:04

explain itself at all, which opens

39:06

us up to understanding the things

39:08

that human beings think are funny

39:11

are not always explicable. Unlike something

39:13

like Saturday Night Live, which I

39:15

also riffed on from time to

39:17

time, nothing is cringe-worthy about Monty

39:20

Python humor now. There's actually, there's

39:22

nothing politically incorrect, there's nothing sexist.

39:24

It simply still works. you know,

39:26

the absurdism of having, you know,

39:28

the Spanish Inquisition bust into the

39:31

room. Why is that funny? I

39:33

don't know. I don't know why

39:35

it's funny. There's certainly nothing funny

39:37

about the Spanish Inquisition and yet

39:40

there it is. And we used

39:42

it. I stole it because I

39:44

could and used it very often

39:46

in good eats as a celebration

39:49

of that. But I do believe

39:51

the laughing brains are more absorbent.

39:53

And I still look to Python

39:55

as... the absolute model of what

39:58

skit humor can do without explaining

40:00

itself. Yeah, it seems like you

40:02

respond to and are mirroring I

40:04

think larger trend in American cultures

40:06

in the post-war era where it

40:09

became more participatory or rather I

40:11

mean you know people like Julia

40:13

Child and Mr. Wizard certainly demystified

40:15

things and then so like you

40:18

know and maybe you can do

40:20

this too. Is that is that

40:22

a big I mean obviously the

40:24

good eats is part of that

40:27

the cooking shows and they have

40:29

their excesses they you know suddenly

40:31

you're like oh you know what

40:33

I'm gonna try something different. Certainly

40:36

with good eats. We saw a

40:38

whole, not generation, but a whole

40:40

person type, get off the sofa

40:42

for the first time. And that

40:44

was the engineer-minded American male who

40:47

was, a lot of them were

40:49

motivated by either the devices that

40:51

we kind of hacked on good

40:53

eats like smoking a fish in

40:56

a cardboard box or the sudden

40:58

understanding how something worked. Got a

41:00

lot of people the mechanics of

41:02

that and the mechanic mindedness of

41:05

that got a lot of people

41:07

into the kitchen who had not

41:09

been in the kitchen So I

41:11

can only speak to that population.

41:14

Yeah, because they were the population

41:16

that that talks to me the

41:18

most and and His voice their

41:20

appreciation for that that approach You

41:22

have a great essay titled Howl

41:25

of the Husky for Younger, I

41:27

think, certainly people born after the

41:29

baby boomer, Gen X, might not

41:31

realize that Husky was a category

41:34

of youth clothing, or at least

41:36

for boys. I don't know if

41:38

there were Husky girls as well.

41:40

I don't think there were. Husky.

41:43

Yeah. Husky was, you can't fit

41:45

in the regular clothes. And it

41:47

was a sub, you know, it

41:49

said over the aisle. Husky. And

41:52

if you entered that aisle. wherever

41:54

was you were buying clothes, you

41:56

know, you're, you're, you now have

41:58

a label, you're husky. And it

42:00

wasn't like we're not saying you're...

42:03

fat, you're aske. And I wonder,

42:05

I've never been able to find

42:07

out who decided that was the

42:09

word. Aske. You know, we're, we're,

42:12

what? Why? Why? Why? Why is

42:14

that? Why not? We're not slightly

42:16

balloon-like. You know, I, one of

42:18

these days, I'll figure out a

42:21

little thick. You're like plus size

42:23

kind of but not a piece

42:25

but I would I would dare

42:27

you to walk into a women's

42:30

wear store and look for an

42:32

aisle that says plus size yeah

42:34

it might be the whole store

42:36

is is kind of gauged in

42:38

that too rich but no husky

42:41

and it's gone now we don't

42:43

I don't think we see yeah

42:45

and you became husky because you

42:47

were eating too much right after

42:50

the loss of your father and

42:52

yes It wasn't just eating too

42:54

much, it was what I was

42:56

eating, which was massive amounts of

42:59

crap. A lot of crap. Can

43:01

you talk about what snapped you

43:03

out of that? Because you also

43:05

have, you know, it's a fascinating,

43:08

you know, if, you know, more

43:10

complex, sophisticated, wider ranging food as

43:12

part of the post-war experience, so

43:14

is dieting and, you know, both

43:16

getting fat and skinny and you

43:19

talk about how... you decided yeah

43:21

you were not going to be

43:23

husky you were husky no more

43:25

would talk about your dieting issues

43:28

and what you know I didn't

43:30

food consumption I think through most

43:32

of most of college I was

43:34

relatively fit because I delivered pizzas

43:37

for a living so it's a

43:39

huge amount of running up and

43:41

downstairs so I didn't try to

43:43

to not be husky it just

43:46

I It was just

43:48

part of life, my life is

43:50

that my body didn't do that.

43:52

But then I got husky again

43:55

later, you know, certainly after the

43:57

birth of my child, after the

43:59

birth of my daughter. I did,

44:02

I would total dad, but plus.

44:04

although I don't really appreciate that

44:06

term, but when I did finally

44:08

realize that something had to change,

44:11

when I did finally realize that

44:13

something had to change, I decided

44:15

to base, create a diet that

44:18

was based on what I had

44:20

to have, not what I couldn't.

44:22

The couldn't list was relatively small,

44:25

and some things were only allowed

44:27

once a week, but mostly I

44:29

had to focus on what I

44:32

needed from a good nutrition level.

44:34

And that I allowed me. to

44:36

lose a great deal of weight.

44:39

The problem was that I had

44:41

not set a goal and kind

44:43

of lost my mind after I

44:46

lost about 50 pounds because after

44:48

I lost about 50 pounds, I

44:50

kind of became another person. I

44:52

looked like another person. I didn't

44:55

recognize myself anymore and I ended

44:57

up going through a really traumatic

44:59

psychological period after I'd lost the

45:02

weight. Not before. I wasn't, you

45:04

know, and you know, you could

45:06

be you could be too thin,

45:09

right? Well, look, everybody will tell

45:11

you that you can be too

45:13

thin, you know, it's why we

45:16

have an erectia problems. For me,

45:18

it was simply a matter of,

45:20

you know, personal identity. You know,

45:23

who are you? You know, who

45:25

is this person looking back at

45:27

me in the mirror? And by

45:30

the way, I never saw a

45:32

thin person. I just saw someone

45:34

else that wasn't me. When you

45:37

lose your visual identity with yourself,

45:39

you can go a little crazy.

45:41

That's what the Invisible Man is

45:43

about. You know, once you can't

45:46

really be seen, you know, what

45:48

are you? And I think the

45:50

more people should probably talk about

45:53

that. So I am, I'm back

45:55

to Husky. I am. I'm Husky.

45:57

It's who I am. I'm Husky.

46:00

I try to stay fit. I

46:02

try to eat well. But I'm

46:04

Husky. And I mostly Husky because

46:07

I like alcohol. And I'm not

46:09

willing to give up alcohol to

46:11

not be husky. Is you invoked

46:14

the concept of dad by... is...

46:16

I hate that expression very much,

46:18

but it is... Yeah, and I

46:21

mean, is it good now? We

46:23

seem to have a wider range

46:25

of, you know, kind of positive

46:27

body types. And, you know, you

46:30

can be gigantically fat and obese

46:32

where you need, you know, a

46:34

motor scooter and things like that.

46:37

I think most people would agree

46:39

that's bad, but... Are we more

46:41

forgiving of body types now than

46:44

we used to be? And if

46:46

so, is that a good thing?

46:48

I think we say that we

46:51

are. I think we say that

46:53

we are. I don't think we

46:55

actually are. Yeah. We're animals. Yeah.

46:58

We're still animals. And we still...

47:00

We say that we are. Yeah.

47:02

And I think that... The important

47:05

part of that is that, you

47:07

know, media is what's what got

47:09

us in doing a lot of

47:11

trouble. The media around fashion certainly

47:14

has. It has become more accepting.

47:16

I think it's interesting that more

47:18

body types are considered acceptable and

47:21

beautiful and in when it's women

47:23

than men. I think that dad

47:25

bought is almost universally looked down

47:28

on as weak as as, no,

47:30

I, I, I, so I think

47:32

there's a bit of a contradiction

47:35

going on there that, that I

47:37

hope work out. But I think

47:39

that what we need to focus

47:42

on, you know, by and large

47:44

is simply being healthy and to

47:46

understand you can be healthy and

47:49

have different sizes and shapes and

47:51

shapes. That's culture. Right. Yeah, that's

47:53

genetics. You know, my genetics want

47:55

me almost universally to stay at

47:58

exactly the same weight. My weight

48:00

hasn't changed a pound in the

48:02

last three years. It's a husky,

48:05

but I've never had. a cavity.

48:07

Genetics. You know? Can I go

48:09

out every morning and run five

48:12

miles and work out and blah

48:14

blah blah and be lighter? Yes.

48:16

Am I going to? Odds are

48:19

no. I'm not gonna. I'm not

48:21

gonna do it because I don't

48:23

like it. So there... What's your

48:26

take on drugs like Ozempec and

48:28

other... you know, other things that

48:30

make, you know, there has always

48:33

been such a moral equation of,

48:35

you know, that if you're fit,

48:37

you are morally superior. And now

48:40

we seem to be in an

48:42

era where, maybe you can look

48:44

good in a pair of jeans,

48:46

you don't have to go husky,

48:49

and it's not because you've really

48:51

changed anything in your moral character.

48:55

A lot of these drugs are,

48:57

for some we can just look

48:59

at them as weight loss drugs

49:01

because a lot of these drugs

49:03

are proving to have a lot

49:05

of effect in other areas. A

49:07

lot of other areas of health,

49:09

I am not a doctor, do

49:11

not play one on TV, I

49:13

read a lot, but I'm not

49:15

about to get into the discussions

49:17

of certain rare cases of diabetes

49:19

or any of these other things.

49:21

I will say this. Medicine

49:24

should cure things, right? And then

49:27

allow you to go on your

49:29

way without it. If you break

49:31

your leg, you get a crutch.

49:34

The crutch lets you walk until

49:36

your leg heals. There's nothing wrong

49:38

with a crutch. Do you want

49:41

to walk on it for the

49:43

rest of your life? I personally

49:45

wouldn't. I wouldn't want to be,

49:47

I would strive to live my

49:50

life to not be in a

49:52

mobility scooter all my life, because

49:54

I don't like to take it.

49:57

technology. Whatever it is, I think

49:59

the goal is to get yourself

50:01

to where you don't need it

50:04

anymore. What I'm afraid of is

50:06

that that is not going to

50:08

be what happens with these drugs.

50:10

People realize I can eat the

50:13

family bag of Cheetos and still

50:15

look like this, which is kind

50:17

of a weird kind of bait

50:20

and switch when you think about

50:22

it. So I hope, but I

50:24

have no faith that these drugs

50:27

will be used with restraint to

50:29

get people where they need to

50:31

go because there are a lot

50:33

of folks that don't, I mean,

50:36

look, I've asked myself when I

50:38

take it. I see myself, I'm

50:40

realistic. No, no, because I earned

50:43

this. I don't have a medical

50:45

problem. I earned looking like this.

50:47

You know why? I put things

50:49

in here. You play like martinis

50:52

and things. So no, I'm not

50:54

going to, but I do think

50:56

that for people that do use

50:59

these, if it is really radically

51:01

changing their health and obviously for

51:03

the better, they should do it.

51:06

I would look to, you know,

51:08

six months down the line. Is

51:10

there a way to not live

51:12

your life with this? Is there

51:15

a way to live sustainably? But

51:17

I don't think that is what's

51:19

going to happen. You have been,

51:22

you've been outspoken in talking about

51:24

how the U.S. Department of Agriculture

51:26

and the Food and Drug Administration

51:29

are not particularly good, who are

51:31

involved in these kinds of drugs

51:33

as well as, you know, various

51:35

kinds of food pyramids or portions

51:38

on. Which have almost always been

51:40

designed for industry. Yeah. Not to

51:42

protect consumers. The great protector of

51:45

our health. Look, organizations like the

51:47

USDA should absolutely have hard and

51:49

fast labeling rules, quality rules. You

51:52

shouldn't be able to say one

51:54

thing when it's another. I don't

51:56

even think you should be able

51:58

to take a container of corn

52:01

oil and put the label gluten-free.

52:03

on top of it. Okay, yeah,

52:05

it is. But there's no gluten

52:08

and corn. You know, so I

52:10

think that we need better controls

52:12

on what goes into food. I

52:14

think we need warning labels. I

52:17

think that a bag of cheetahs

52:19

should be labeled like a pack

52:21

of cigarettes. Because in the end,

52:24

the level of damage is, I

52:26

would say, close to the same.

52:28

If not, worse. I mean, we

52:31

need education. We need education. We

52:33

need, I used to say that

52:35

culinary and nutritional education should be

52:37

in the home. It's not realistic

52:40

anymore. I don't know any parents

52:42

that can fight phones and iPadsats

52:44

and social media. No, we need

52:47

to be like the Japanese. We

52:49

need to have home act in

52:51

school from about age six to

52:54

graduation. Absolutely, we need that. Discuss

52:56

the Japanese experience then. How does

52:58

that work in a way that

53:00

they have a homec course that

53:03

does everything from teaching how to

53:05

balance a bank book through nutritional

53:07

training. And of course they put

53:10

a lot of good nutrition on

53:12

the table in the restaurant. So

53:14

granted, we're talking about a country

53:17

that has a very homogenous. cuisine,

53:19

right? Japanese cuisine. Now there's a

53:21

lot of different types of Japanese

53:23

cuisine. The point is, they put

53:26

a lot of emphasis on the

53:28

fact that if you teach someone

53:30

about nutrition, a child about nutrition,

53:33

and empower them, whether it's shelling

53:35

the peas or draining the tofu,

53:37

whatever it is, they then go

53:39

home and engage in their families

53:42

in a more team-like way. which

53:44

is the probably the most important

53:46

part of the model is that

53:49

it makes them better family members.

53:51

Now you're talking about families that

53:53

have, you know, are preparing meals

53:56

together the way that perhaps American

53:58

families don't anymore. But by doing

54:00

that and by getting the child

54:02

engaged and empowering them with knowledge

54:05

and skills, they eat better and

54:07

they tend to be better family

54:09

members, which eventually is going to

54:12

make a better societal member. If

54:14

we don't get culinary nutritional training

54:16

in two schools, I don't know

54:19

what will happen. Because obesity, you

54:21

know, people don't want to admit

54:23

what a problem of obesity actually

54:25

is. There's two industries thrive on

54:28

it. The food industry and the

54:30

medical industry thrive on it. So

54:32

I think we're being farmed, basically.

54:35

We're being farmed. Are you, what's

54:37

your sense of the Make America

54:39

Healthy movement that has really kind

54:42

of emerged with the appointment of

54:44

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Health

54:46

and Human Services? Is that something

54:48

you applaud? Do you think it's

54:51

BS or what's your sense of

54:53

it? I have not read a

54:55

piece of news since the election.

54:58

don't know enough to talk about

55:00

this. I needed to disengage from

55:02

all of that. They're all going

55:04

to do whatever it is that

55:07

they're going to do. We'll all

55:09

live with it, I guess. So

55:11

I'm not going to say whether

55:14

I agree or not, because I

55:16

don't know. I don't know. I

55:18

know one thing. School, education, or

55:21

it won't matter. Or it won't

55:23

matter. I guess I want to

55:25

end on two points. One, you

55:27

talk about a family recipe Christmas

55:30

jello salad, which seems, I don't

55:32

know if that would pass muster

55:34

in a Japanese home act class,

55:37

but can you talk a little

55:39

bit about why you love that

55:41

and how that kind of exemplifies

55:44

on a certain level the southern

55:46

culture, broadly speaking that you come

55:48

out? We like our congealed salads.

55:50

We do. Jello Bay salads are

55:53

a big thing in the South.

55:55

I love them and always have

55:57

and I always will. You mix

56:00

up a couple of different jellows

56:02

and put a bunch of stuff.

56:04

in there and I'm just, I'm

56:07

hooked. My grandmother's and my mouthwater's

56:09

thinking about it is lemon and

56:11

orange jello with pecans and chunks

56:13

of pineapple and whole cranberry sauce.

56:16

There is something texturally very satisfying

56:18

to me about that. I don't

56:20

think it's the worst thing you

56:23

can eat. You know, it's fat

56:25

free. Yeah, there's sugar. And

56:28

I think that for the southern

56:30

sensibility, there's a very very special

56:32

place for that. But what's more

56:34

important is the generational connectivity, you

56:36

know. And the fact that when

56:38

I talk about, you know, Jello

56:40

mold stuff, people go, oh, right.

56:42

It's interesting. So I'm going to

56:44

stick it. Is that, I mean,

56:46

is it partly because now we're

56:48

all, we're sophisticated and Jello. you

56:50

know, is kind of a post-war

56:52

product. I mean, it pre-exists, but

56:54

it's like, oh, it's day class,

56:56

say, anybody can each other. Talk

56:58

a bit about what is the

57:00

power of coming from a broadly

57:02

southern background. You used to be

57:04

a southern Baptist, you're not quite

57:06

any more, but how does being

57:08

from the South inform your worldview

57:10

and, you know, something that other

57:12

Americans as well as, you know,

57:14

people from wherever, from wherever, can

57:16

learn. Southern Cook means understanding the

57:18

incredible culinary heritage of the southern

57:20

experience and I absolutely that that

57:22

is deeply entrenched not only in

57:24

people escaping Europe you know Scotland

57:26

to the the Appalachians but in

57:28

very much embracing the full situation

57:30

of the experience of the experience

57:32

of the experience of enslaved people.

57:34

have influenced what we call southern

57:36

cuisine. And so to be a

57:38

southern cook I think means constantly

57:40

being aware of it. and

57:42

with your place

57:45

in that system. that

57:47

system, better, for

57:49

worse, least being

57:51

aware of it

57:53

and appreciating it

57:55

and studying where

57:57

these things come

57:59

from and how

58:01

they got there and

58:03

how a rich is

58:05

a rich quilt work of people's

58:07

of peoples and

58:09

experiences. that Yeah.

58:11

And that intentionality

58:13

or knowing where

58:15

you're from and

58:17

where you might

58:19

be headed might to

58:21

be central to

58:23

everything you do.

58:25

to I think it's gotta

58:27

be there. it's got to be there. I think you're

58:29

robbing yourself of a whole dimension. of

58:31

a whole dimension. All right, we're gonna leave

58:34

it there, there. Alton Brown. Thanks for talking Thanks

58:36

for talking to on Good luck

58:38

on your farewell tour the book Food for

58:40

food for you so much. you so much.

58:42

Fantastic, fantastic conversation. I really enjoyed

58:44

I Thank you so much. this. Thank you

58:47

me much. Yeah, me too.