My guest today is Alton Brown, who for years hosted Good Eats on the Food Network and brought his interest in science to the making of dinner. He's currently touring the country, and he has also just published Food for Thought, a truly great collection of essays about food, culture, and his life on and off the screen; it’s a fantastic memoir as well as deep-yet-often-humorous appreciation of all things related to eating.
I talked with him about how food transcends politics, why fusion cooking isn't cultural appropriation, and why there's always room for JELL-O salad on his menu. We also discuss why he believes that Martha Stewart’s ‘perfectionism’ ruined dinner parties (the stakes got too high), how Monty Python and Mr. Wizard influenced him every bit as much as Julia Child, and whether the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement is onto something.
Click above to watch or listen in the Substack app. Scroll down to watch via YouTube or listen on Spotify, Apple, and SoundCloud.
If you like the podcast, please subscribe on your favorite platform and share with friends!
Here’s a list of topics covered:
0:43— Brown's Last Bite tour
1:55— Brown's new book: Food for Thought
6:40— Curiosity and surprise are essential to life
12:03— The pizza that made Alton Brown
16:21— When Indian immigrants made kadhi that blew Brown's mind
18:57— The positive case for 'cultural appropriation'
26:53— Food media's impact on cooking skills
30:40— How Martha Stewart's perfectionism ruined dinner parties
32:07— Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, and Monty Python
39:56— Good Eats motivated food exploration
48:19— Ozempic & the moral value of restraint
51:01— USDA & FDA were created to support industry, not consumers
55:28— Southern cuisine and JELL-O salads
57:00— On being from the South and embracing its full history
Please support Reason, the planet’s only magazine of ‘Free Minds and Free Markets.’ Established in 1968 (and my work home since 1993!), we provide a libertarian perspective on politics, culture, and ideas that you won’t get anywhere else.
Today's sponsor:
The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy in an age of intellectual conformity and groupthink. It doubles as a live taping of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. Go here to buy tickets and go here to sign up for Reason's NYC Events newsletter.
Share this post