On 'Good Eats' and Alton Brown, also Willy Wonka and Dire Straits (PODCAST E46)

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[@lisabromley6824]

A female listener and baby boomer here, but the real important piece is that I am a retired food technologist. I tuned into both you and Alton Brown to see what you were going to give to the unsuspecting public. The media is great at giving half truths and out and out misinformation, but much to my delight, you both have well thought out shows that contain lots of well researched information. Kudos to you both. I will be listening and watching your broadcasts regularly.

[@ChrisKChandler]

Glad to see this from a professional! This should be top comment, but instead we have a lightly veiled threat in that spot...

[@gjits5307]

One of my favorite parts of Good Eats is that it would defer to experts "like you" on screen. Rewatching it haphazardly, I realized that every single "guest expert" scientist on the show was a lady. "the work we show on screen was built on the work of others and we will celebrate them for that" is just good vibes

[@danm8004]

​@@gjits5307I never noticed that, but you're right. Awesome.

[@MapleDaze]

@@gjits5307 Where i learned what a food anthropologist was!

[@kristenwilliams9601]

I think it’s a positive thing that Alton Brown made men feel comfortable entering a traditionally female domain. As a woman interested in learning some male dominated skills, I appreciate finding content created by female instructors. It gives me a comfort level and encouragement to try it out myself.

[@hypergraphic]

I also grew up watching Good Eats and then later Iron Chef. During the pandemic, I started watching his live streams where he and his wife just cook together and it brought back a lot of those memories. I think all of us elder millenials are more shaped by our common media influences that we might wish to admit. Also, you are definitely not a knockoff.

[@Becky0494]

I’m a younger millennial (almost 28) and watched it too- It was on air for a long time. I remember it being on tv until I was maybe 14. Although I think younger millennials like me are the very last people to watch it if at all.

[@jadegrace1312]

@@Becky0494 Nah I'm a zoomer and I watched reruns growing up

[@SyBernot]

Happy QQesday!

[@christianhansen3292]

then food network became garbage and all they played was diner drives and din-in with guy fieri all day long! very annoying

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

I watched it all the time growing up as well as pretty much everything on the Food Network back in the late 90's and Early 00's.

[@danielhague734]

22-year-old elder zoomer here. I've always known of Alton because my aunt was a huge fan, and I've always appreciated Alton, but he was a bit before my time. I found you, Adam, when the pizza video randomly went viral and I've been watching ever since; even bought the first run of the chef knife. I think, for all intents and purposes, you have been my generation's Alton. I cannot think of anyone who has better carried the torch for that style of content.

[@anathemasoul8393]

I'm your age and absolutely agree. As well as wanting to add that adam is absolutely not a knockoff of any kind, just to reiterate what another comment I saw said.

[@ozok17]

as an elder millennial, i am delighted to see the term elder zoomer.

[@Danish_raven]

@@ozok17 does that make my 26 year old ass the eldest zoomer or a baby millenial?

[@vivianho7252]

I'm a millenial/Gen Z cusp, and when we were growing up my brother and I used to love watching Discovery Channel and Food Network together. Good Eats was a perfect crossover, and now I find myself still seeking out cooking content based in food science as an adult such as your channel, Ann Reardon's, and Ethan Chlebowski's. I don't know how to attract other women to your channel, sorry 😅

[@Ca11m3Raven]

I used to watch good eats with my dad, who is the main reason I actually know when food is good or not. And the show is why I refuse to put pancake batter in waffle irons. In describing certain things I learned through this channel to him, I have reffered to Adam as 'KZbin's Alton Brown.' And I mean that as high praise.

[@jadegrace1312]

I always describe Adam the same way

[@goosewithagibus]

I love putting pancake batter in a waffle iron.

[@3rdjrh]

Good eats and Alton Brown are what got me into food and cooking. This channel is like a continuation of what that was…older half? I’m the same age as Adam 😂

[@ascreen8]

I love how Kenji does it. Most of the time he says "this is better in my opinion for this reason, but if you'd rather this or that or the other, that would also work" and occasionally he will say "that won't work because or this way is best based on my double blind study". I tend to believe Kenji when he says something is unequivocally better or something will not work (typical for a food science reason). Also, my wife is super picky about food so when someone says "you can't have risotto without mushrooms" or something, my response is "watch me", so when Kenji says "or you can do this instead of mushrooms or leave them out entirely" it really speaks to the way my house eats

[@robertwilcox9566]

It's funny, Good Eats was one of my favorite cooking shows growing up, yet I've never made the comparison between Adam's content and Alton's. I think that while Adam fills the same niche as Good Eats does, he does so in a different enough way that it doesn't feel like a copy. No one thinks of John Mayer as "discount Jerry Garcia." He's his own thing, but he attracts the same crowd. Edit: spelling

[@braxtonwise9897]

I agree that you shouldn’t call John Mayer a discount Jerry Garcia but man, Jerry just wrote way better stuff than John ever could… Except for Stop This Train. Thats a good song.

[@JetstreamGW]

But, like, now that you said it, we can *start* calling him Discount Jerry Garcia. Let's make it happen!

[@Chrislk1986]

I used to TiVo Good Eats all the time and just rewatch the hell out of it. Also binged a bunch of Alton Brown on YT during covid, before finding Adam. I was expecting him to reveal that his favorite cooking show of all time (in his last video) was Good Eats and was surprised when it wasn't. I see the resemblance, but Adam goes far more in-depth and goes outside of food, which is awesome and set's him apart from Alton/Good Eats.

[@davidb5205]

Alton Brown is the godfather of all food science bros on KZbin: Adam, Babish, Brian, Ethan, Joshua, et al. Men love hobbies once they are STEM-ified.

[@confusedwhale]

I thought that Augustus Gloop's flaw wasn't that he was fat but because he was putting his filthy, grubby, little hands into the river of chocolate that Wonka uses to make chocolate bars. You know, he contaminated all of that chocolate, because he either did not care or could not control himself.

[@ChrisB...]

AB taught me about salting coffee, because "Coffee is food". There is a lot of cooking wisdom in that statement.

[@Dandelion_Stitches]

Your "this is what i do (or this is what i believe), and these are the reasons for that" approach is 100% the reason I love your stuff. I don't always agree with your opinions on various topics (it'd be weird if that was the case IMO), but in pretty much each and every case you make it very clear and understandable how you arrived at your position. That understanding is something we miss a lot these days, given the twitter dimension and everything being a constant hot take lacking nuance. Please keep doing what you're doing!

[@nicoskefalas]

I 💯 % agree !!! :)

[@covariance5446]

Yeah, I agree! There are periodic things that Adam says that I don't entirely agree with (almost always very minor things whenever he dips into an area that I would consider myself relatively expert on) but when it comes to cooking, I always appreciate Adam's very humble and defensible claims. It is not like, say, Gordon Ramsay when he says something like OKAY, YOU PUT THE STEAK ON. AND THEN ONLY FLIP IT EXACTLY ONCE. IT'S *BAD* IF YOU FLIP IT PERIODICALLY AND IT MAKES YOU NOT A REAL CHEF! Or others who just parrot claims in the past unquestioningly "e.g., don't cut the meat once it's frying; you want to build up a sear so it ***seals in the juices***" - that latter point has always bugged me. If I recall correctly, there was a side by side test (it might have even been from america's test kitchen) measuring moisture loss as a function of whether or not a cut of meat was cut or not. There was no significant difference in moisture loss between conditions. Furthermore, both cases will lose moisture either way. Searing to "seal in" juices is an outdated myth that is hopefully no longer passed down.

[@Dandelion_Stitches]

@@covariance5446 haha yeah selling in juices was always one of the silliest... Moisture loss is more a result of the cooking time and heat than anything else, and you definitely aren't sealing anything in with a hard sear. That said it does make it tasty...

[@GatorTomboy]

Throughout the course of this video I had to look up the lyrics of "money for nothing" and a lecture on the Bantu migration. I learn so much from you Adam. Thank you!

[@FinneasJedidiah]

I was confused because I've listened to Money for Nothing a lot and had never heard the slur- turns out the 'Best of Dire Straits' album removed it, and that's the version I grew up listening to

[@Craxin01]

@@FinneasJedidiah I legit heard the unedited version on the air not a week ago on the local soft rock station. Then again, I live in Oklahoma, even though it's a college town and we're a tiny blue island in a blood red state, I still hear knuckle draggers calling people queer (not in the way LGBT+ people use it) and Fa**ots.

[@FinneasJedidiah]

@@Craxin01 yeah, I'm in Utah where I've heard 'hell' be censored before, so it wouldn't surprise me if they don't play it here 😅

[@b.c.2281]

By the time I watched good eats reruns, every channel was clogged with stupid competitions, reality cooking shows and the like. Alton's sort of "Bill Nye but with food" approach sold me on cooking and made me appreciate it and I think more importantly, taught me the "whys" of cooking so I could comfortably make substitutions and improvise on my own.

[@scottbutler5]

The contrast to the rest of the channel is what always strikes me when I remember Good Eats - when the show started in the 90s it was the weirdest show on Food Network, and by the time it ended it was the most normal cooking show they had left in prime time.

[@MayorOfEarth79]

I was really disappointed when Alton Brown went on to be the host of that not-very-great competitive cooking show "Cutthroat Kitchen" where other chefs sabotage each other by giving massive handicaps to one another like, only cooking with one free hand or your only cooking vessel can be a colander. It's not even like Chopped which tests your knowledge of rare ingredients or your ability to think under pressure, it's just so...gimmicky. It felt very anti-Alton Brown.

[@AlexAnder-yj1qs]

That “bill nye with food” is what glued me to Adam Ragusea and Ethan Chlebowski. Both mainstays in my KZbin subscriptions

[@CharleneCTX]

@@MayorOfEarth79 It may have felt anti to you, but to listen to Alton speak about it the show was very much Alton Brown.

[@SirWussiePants]

I look at Good Eats, America's Test Kitchen and your show as "cooking with the science" which is the best type of cooking. All are similar, all are different (as happens in every genre). But, best of all, all are fun to watch and learn something while watching.

[@sabatino1977]

Love all three. Good info with sound reasoning and testing, and none of the "oh this is the secret recipe from a thousand years ago."

[@hissoka]

NGL I love this channel so much bc it reminded me so much of Good Eats, which was my favorite program as a kid. I'm now 7 years in the restaurant industry with degrees in food science and pastry

[@paigeh1670]

I was obsessed with Good Eats as a teenager and now this is my favorite food channel. I certainly have noticed the overlap myself lol.

[@jefftimmerberg193]

Dropping those RUSH lyrics. Gotta love it.

[@ProcrastPerfection]

As someone who was very excited by the announcement 5/6 years ago that good eats would be returning with new episodes only to find out that they were merely “recapped” style programs, I love your work Adam! It is everything I wanted and more from my food science entertainment. That and while I have only cooked one Alton Brown recipe, Ive made dozens of yours, and they were all very well received by my dinner guests.

[@ThetaReactor]

We got both, actually. There's one season of all-new episodes (Good Eats: The Return) and two of the re-jiggered ones (Good Eats: Reloaded). I particularly enjoy the Reloaded episodes because they exemplify the core of science: you've gotta be open to learning and willing to change your mind. He's looking back at those fixed points and re-evaluating them from a new perspective, just as Adam is doing here, because Adam is obviously an AB copycat. :P

[@ellienikolova9072]

My boyfriend came home tonight and asked what I was listening to while cooking dinner. Autoimmune deseases, I replied. But why, he asked, astounded. What do you mean, why? Because it's intetesting, I said. I listen to your pods not necessarily because I find them useful, which I do, but rather because I too suffer from metacognition and am interested in a million different things from bread baking through performance engine tuning to origin of life. Even if you get tired of editing and stop doing the cooking videos, please keep the podcast alive! Cheers!

[@SimuLord]

Ditto me and why I'm subscribed not only to several cooking channels that are heavily into the craft side of cooking (Adam Ragusea, Ethan Chlebowski, Brian Lagerstrom) but plenty of deep-dive channels about video game design, my other metacognition passion in life (Game Maker's Toolkit, Razbuten, Adam Milliard, those sorts of channels.) Metacognition is one heck of a way to pass the time at work...

[@elddonnemar]

As a female viewer of your content, I just want to thank you for trying to maintain as much balance and understanding as possible while making said content. As for the overly confident delivery of Alton Brown in his shows, I have noticed that men need the facade of complete confidence in order to be taken seriously. And as my partner has started exploring a sales career recently, his experience, as well as relevant literature on the topic points to how much facts delivered with total confidence is simply much better received by a wider range of audiences. Human minds abhor ambiguity after all. I'm not suggesting that you abandon your pursuit of explaining as truthfully as you can, since it's much better for human minds to embrace ambiguity. I just can't help wanting to put behavior, especially toxic behavior into context. Usually you do a very good job of this, but perhaps this one is too close to home for close examination?

[@JoeAuerbach]

Alton is a treasure. I literally grew up on a restaurant kitchen, but it was Alton who taught me to cook.

[@imjames29]

This was perfect to listen to for deep cleaning the desk. Most of my cooking lessons and experiments came from memories of Good Eats.

[@susanjohnson5824]

Loved Good Eats - now I love Adam Rugusea because Adam Rugusea taught me how to cook along with Pro Home Cooks - Good Eats didn't to that. It took years to find the teachers that could get through to me. Cooking by using kitchen skills and common sense instead of just following recipes is what I needed. Thank You

[@27nightjars]

Lady vinegar leg here! I am proud to be a part of the 10%!

[@Zuraneve]

I'm also proud to be in the 10%! And I think I'm part of the older half of his audience, as well.

[@garrettlane7870]

I find this to be one of your best videos. Your vulnerability and discussion on your past self has been refreshing. Haven't heard this from you since your videos about your caretaking days or your body image discussion. As a kid who watched Alton at age 12 being a young boy who didn't want to validate my more feminine side, I now realize why I think I enjoy your show so much more.

[@hannahstein6266]

22 year old from your small female audience here! the first time I came across your videos (when you only had a few), I commented, “oh my gosh, this guy is the alton brown of KZbin.” I grew up watching good eats and loved Alton’s scientific approach to cooking, so I was immediately hooked on your content. After watching you for years, I can assure you that you are much more than an alton brown knock-off. you bring a much more evidence-backed and nuanced approach. you bring something novel and valuable in each of your videos. thank you for your content!

[@MacThornbody]

As someone who grew into a decent home cook at least partly through the education and encouragement of Alton Brown and Good Eats, and as someone who loved and still loves Good Eats, I have to say that Adam is not a dime-store Alton Brown and this KZbin channel isn't discount Good Eats. Adam's videos are more like an evolution of the same basic cultural foundations that created Good Eats (and also shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy) but removed a generation and taking those shows into account as part of the cultural canon of food and science education. Also, as with pretty much all educational- or instructional-focused television channels, the Food Network has devolved mostly into a vehicle for reality competitions and game shows and other empty content (see: Discovery Channel, Learning Channel, History Channel, etc). This is one of the things I think Adam should actually be quite proud of: he's picked up from where others have left off and continued evolving layperson-oriented science-based food education. A smart and sophisticated TV channel would never greenlight Adam Ragusea Making Omelettes for Seven Minutes or a show about trying to whip egg whites with varying amounts of yolk. Yet these things are good and useful and entertaining, and because of Adam the rest of us get to have them, on-demand, for the foreseeable future. For as good as it was, Good Eats (along with pretty much all pop-science-y education of that era) had a habit of infantilizing the audience, resorting to big goofy skits to get many of its points across. Adam may not see it this way, but he really is closer to the Carl Sagan side of things, trusting the audience to follow him through the topic mostly without overt jokes. So he's inevitably going to be compared to Alton Brown and Good Eats, but I imagine mostly because it's two people doing similar things, differently, and well.

[@ginkgobilobatree]

This is funny because I never could watch the History Channel even when it was because it was mostly about WWII, I used to call it "The Hitler Channel" and for Discovery - "The Shark Channel".

[@5fingerjack]

I agree. Both Adam and Alton are educators who explain the science why to do a thing. But Alton adds much more silly poppiness to his presentations. My kids watched Alton avidly at age 8 & 9, I don't think Adam would have grabbed their attention. Having been inspired to cook by Alton, I think they would appreciate Adam. Adam is also more like a personal tutor, and would be less likely to be a thing to watch as a group. Like Adam said, TV is dead and people wouldn't say "Good Eats is on, let's watch!" the way we did at the time. Alton's funny characters and sketches made that happen.

[@mndlessdrwer]

There are definitely some correlations between Alton Brown and your own youtube channel. Alton Brown was also someone who was more interested in the process of making of educational food videos than he was in making the food itself, at least at first. He has become increasingly engrossed in food science and technique over the years and his interests have changed a bit, but he still takes a similar approach to presenting his videos. He started out as a commercial videographer and was one of the people involved in popularizing the use of the steady-cam system early on. He got into food entertainment programming because he saw that the production values were below standard and he had some personal interest in the subject, but more importantly he saw that this genre of programming had the potential to explode in popularity. Then 9/11 happened and the entire American people wanted to be comforted and what is more comforting than food, even vicariously.

[@mad_incognito]

The first episode I saw of Good Eats was the Pie Crust one and I liked it even though I thought that it seemed to be overkill. I took me a year or two to realize that he was making a ‘Muerbeteig’ (shortcrust ?) which I learned to do by hand with cold hands and ice-cold water and just crumbling up the butter with flour between my fingers. I never do that with a food processor but it helped me to understand how it works. What I learned most about cooking from my parents on a farm was how to improvise and substitute as here in the SoCal we are limited in what we can get compared to Switzerland where I come from.

[@ryan55124]

I loved going over to my grandmas house, as she was working making cakes for her job she would turn on good eats so I could watch and ever since I still go back and watch the old episodes and was even happier when the new episodes came out. Yes it’s nostalgic and I love every minute of it.

[@Mashiroro]

Female millennial here~ I grew up on late night good eats which is one of the reasons I ever got interested in cooking. The other being the desire to eat things not offered where I grew up - south florida (outside of Miami) is a much more varied place in the food department today.. but not when I was in high school! Anyways, I’m positive you’ve always been my youtuber version of alton brown( and hey, technically I still watch him on KZbin too bot that content is different and rare by comparison). I probably would also have to rewatch good eats to see how I feel about it today. While I know the impact it had on me, I don’t really know why. But today, you l, Adam who are in my current entertainment sphere, have also greatly contributed to me in my “older age”. Time is limited, and I was always more into baking than cooking before having to act more like an adult. You brought more joy to cooking and have changed my perspective. “It doesn’t have to be overly difficult. Make it easier for home cooks and simpler in general.” You are similar for sure; but bring so much other stuff to the table. Scientific, more fun and modern. Intellectual, it is always interesting to hear your perspective and input on any random subject, food or not. Even when I do not agree, I love to hear your reasons, etc. I appreciate your uniqueness based on your life experiences that have culminated into this channel and its contents. I like to learn a lot… and you certainly help there while keeping it enjoyable specifically with cooking (learning to just put what I have on hand together versus following a recipe step by step, is thanks to you!) I continue to try new things and love when you post recipes I have to try 😊 Keep being you and thanks for producing content!

[@riverent2347]

My first attempt at risotto was inspired by the Good Eats episode you speak of. Using my electric stove, I had the heat as low as possible and I cooked that damned rice for hours, added twice as much stock as was supposed to be required, and still ended up with underdone rice.

[@pb2959]

Called you the modern Alton Brown a few years ago. It was a compliment.

[@joseph_b319]

Me too. The KZbin AB

[@godminnette2]

Over the last few episodes, this podcast has really evolved to being one of my absolute favorite podcasts. I love the introspection on display here; I've had similar messy, complicated feelings with different media that I tend to avoid. I still avoid a particular piece of media because it came out while I was writing a story with some basically identical concepts!

[@joshwilliams7692]

I imagine the main reason the chocolate river effect was more convincing in the past is that you watched it on a low resolution CRT as a kid. Those old TVs were much more forgiving on special effects.

[@ShadowDrakken]

Good Eats is a... strange thing to look at these days. It started off as this journey with an unknown who was also learning for himself. But then Alton kind of blew up, and in the process so did his ego. He started becoming exactly the kind of cooking prescriptivist that he was originally against. He became one of the gatekeepers he professed to hate so much. A real shame there :( Watching it now, you can start to see hints of it in the second season, but it really stands out in Season 3 and beyond, as well as all of his shows outside of Good Eats.

[@jeffnicholson663]

I watched good eats in the early 2000s when i was a little little kid. didn't get any of it, just liked the skits. I was the only one excited when my foods class teacher in junior high played an episode. And then i mentioned you as an inspiration when writing and presenting in university.

[@mdp4440]

Just amazing! I'm old...quite. I watched the original Julia Child shows on PBS. I was 15 years old when AB was born, but was fascinated by the Good Eats shows. ( I was also a big fan of Mister Wizard and Monty Python ) The kitchen is my favorite room in the house. You might be interested in watching his "Good Eats: Reloaded" (2018-2020) series where he revisits 13 of the original episodes where he admits some of his foibles, and scolds himself for absolutisms. I don't remember any admissions about risotto. As a Georgian myself (Athens area & UGA grad) I've always felt some sort of connection. Alton was featured in an Atlanta Magazine story years ago that told a lot about his life. Now I'm a fan of your work. I can relate.

[@SirNichosis]

I love that during this in-depth discussion of similarities and differences to AB, all while having the most Good Eats looking background that's physically possible

[@lynnstacks]

as a millennial female listener, ladies love when you critique capitalism.👀 worth a shot

[@thedancingsousa]

I used to watch good eats every night before going to sleep, even though it kept me up late since it didn't start until 10. I loved it, and I love cooking. I'm not sure that a single recipe from the show is actually anything I would cook today, but I did enjoy good eats reloaded when it started. Even if I don't use any of his recipes, AB's explanations still to this day help me understand the way a mechanism works and how I want to cook instead. The first time I saw you explain science in cooking hit a lot of the same spots for me, but I do generally like your recipes better.

[@buttersPbutters]

Good Eats for me was about how a rigorous and precise understanding of cooking is the technical foundation that unlocks creativity and liberates the home cook from dependence on recipes. For example, when Alton revealed that after exhaustive testing his ultimate ice cream recipe was "9, 8, 3, 2, 1," the lesson was about ratios -- not only that I could use his ratios as a starting point to find my favorite ice cream recipe, but providing insight into the process of recipe development in general. That was an angle seldom portrayed in cooking shows and cookbooks. For a nerd of my generation, that was about as exciting as discovering that if I didn't put Oregon Trail in the floppy drive, I could type BASIC programs at the cryptic prompt.

[@ciscoortega9789]

Favorite podcast of mine so far. Very salient and relatable talking points w/ really interesting insights. Thanks Adam!

[@adamdejesus4017]

I've gotta take issue with the review of "Money for Nothing". Knopfler never intended to depict the hardware store guy INSULTINGLY as a knuckle-dragging meathead, not as a bad guy...he depicted him as a real-life, typical, uneducated, even ignorant, working-class member of society. The song goes on to draw that stark contrast between working class folks and artists, that's correct, that's been a trope in British art dating back to Feudalism. In an interview he said he wrote the song by writing down verbatim what a real guy was saying. He said he left out all the times the guy said m----f----- . He said "that is the way people speak." Knopfler is not disparaging of the narrator, he's just calling it as he heard it, and turning it into a catchy, very successful song.

[@shnut]

I don't know why but I love the style you do your podcasts. Please keep it up 👍

[@TheLittleHomestead]

Great pod as always. I love both your cooking show and the podcast. This one was a trip down memory lane for me. I too learned a lot from watching Good Eats, just as I do from you now. So thank you!

[@rdbeef5645]

This brought back memories or recordings Good Eats on VHS in order to watch and rewatch each episode again and again as a teenager interested in cooking and nutrition.

[@danofthehour4822]

Female listener and gen Zer! I turn 21 this year, but since I'm from the 'third world' I watched a LOT of food tv as a kid (I wanted to be a baker, so much that I learned French when my dad told me about the Cordon Bleu) and Good Eats was my absolute favorite show in the world! I was always so frustrated that it came on late at night, and when we finally got streaming tv and internet I used to hunt down and binge old episodes. I was similarly obsessed with Julia Child after watching the RomCom Julie and Julia, so it makes sense looking back that that was an influence on him. That said, I never made the connection to your series-- it makes sense in a similar way, but ironically I feel like the real 'knockoff Alton Brown' in my heart is.......... John and Hank Green, actually. They're much wackier and dad-ier about their communication, and a little more didactic (in a way I'm not particularly mad at). Your dry humor and favorite college professor vibe I think are really distinct, and I agree that you lack that cooking school baggage and appreciate how you connect with the needs of a home kitchen. Also, if I can bro you, bro, you are hotter than Alton Brown. Like a lot more, bro. Bro. I think the zany know-it-all tone is less exclusive to men, especially in the current day, than you might think. Maybe it's because I'm really butch and always wanted to be part of that boys club, but I talk the same way! Even after years of realizing how silly I seemed and trying to correct for it-- going to art school a lot of my classmates are often weirded out by it actually jaja. I think that's informative regarding demographic concerns-- people in general who resonate with your work, regardless of demographics, are the ones who will go looking for it. If anything, out of my straight, femme friends almost none of them cook, so none of them really watch cooking videos.

[@tisjester]

Adam.. Are you ok? lol... No seriously.. How have you not figured out why people watch your show? 1) You make it. (If you went to 1 video a month people would still watch that 1 video) 2) You are pleasant to listen to. 3) You do your best to take others differing thoughts or ideas in stride in the "You do You" mantra. (In other words you do not have that my way is the right and only way) 4) You have interesting things to say about whatever topic you are talking about. 5) You cover interesting topics. 6) When you do cook.. you cook more like a everyday person and not a sous chef - so it is easier to relate. (not that professional cook youtubers are not also good) 7) You explore things outside your lived experiences and bring us along on the journey. 8) You journalistic background and education shine through in your content. 9) You just seem like a decent guy - or a guy trying to be a decent person. (Oh and you highlight your troubling, for you, past or mistakes you have made; and do not make stupid excuses for it. and talk about how your views and actions have matured as you get more time on this earth lol) 10) Your baked in Ad spots are not awful. TLDR; You're a good dude!

[@vicemayorskeletonmeat]

the recipes are easy and don't require an automatic dishwasher

[@csforesman]

So much this. Towards the end of this video when Adam suggests that "people who do basically what I do are a dime a dozen these days", I have to disagree. When it comes to food and cooking, perhaps there is some truth there, but some of my favorite content has come to be that which is only tangentially related to food, if at all. This very podcast episode is a great example. I probably discovered Adam through a cooking video, but I keep coming back because I find him relatable, and because I enjoy his personality and appreciate his take on all sorts of things.

[@agbook2007]

This! ♥️👍

[@oklibrarian]

My husband and I more or less learned to cook 'properly' via Good Eats (as late Gen Xers, he got big right after we graduated college and got married). He gave us solid base recipes and the understanding needed to improvise on them, rather than just aping what we'd picked up from relatives or other TV shows. To this day we'll throw on an DVRd episode if, say, we want to make mac and cheese casserole that weekend and need a quick refresher. I fully admit that's why we got hooked on you pretty much instantly--you've incorporated a lot of Alton's strengths, but bring a lot of complexity and nuance to your explanations and analysis that he didn't/couldn't, either because he was on cable tv or just because of who he was. I appreciate that you aren't shy about acknowledging the giants whose shoulders you're standing on, but don't feel weird about it either. Even AB fully admitted he built on Julia, Mr. Wizard, and Monty Python.

[@Maxaldojo]

You do you, Adam. I appreciate your content, your delivery and your zanky, nerdy, casual persona. You started with a few videos, transitioned to a cooking and a sciencie video a week and then started a podcast... The sky is the limit and also appreciate you scaling back to maintain balance. Keep it coming!

[@mixiekins]

This is very out of left field, but hopefully helpful: there's these polarizer things (films? Lenses?) that you can put in front of your camera to reduce glare, and I didn't know this until literally last week, but it'll actually remove reflections in glass and negate tinting on windows. It's really random, but I wanted to mention it because I noticed the screen reflecting in your glasses and wanted to mention it as a fellow glasses-wearer who gets the short end of the being-filmed stick. It should help make filming yourself a lot easier. I came across it because I was trying to film framed artwork and kept distracting people by showing up in the reflection. I can't imagine how much other helpful minutiae there must be that we all miss out on when teaching ourselves videography, so I genuinely hope this is helpful (either for you or anyone else here who shares your interest in learning about how cooking shows are made.)

[@PurajitMalalur]

I've been following you for, what, 4-5 years? The reason I watch you and love the podcast is precisely because you have similar neuroses to me haha. So pretty much anything you talk about here appeals to me even if it isn't something I directly care about.

[@Phoenixryu]

"Money for Nothing" is still being played but was/is increasingly censured. At first, the full version only played after 11pm and a "radio edit" where the other F word was censured played during the day. Eventually, that entire segment of the song was completely removed altogether. I only listen to the radio when I drive; even so, I barely hear it anymore nowadays. IDK how other places handled it but that's how they did here in the Chicagoland area.

[@DavyRayVideo]

Quarantine Quitchen with Alton and Elizabeth helped me to stay sane during 2020 and 2021. His recent work is way different than Good Eats.

[@0910MK1]

I just have to say that I love your humble and less rigid way. That's one reason that I've just spent 52 minutes listening to you talking about a show I've never seen. I also enjoy watching you show simpler ways of doing things - exactly my thing because I hate everything complicated. 😉 And I feel honored as one of the only 10% females here. 😀 BTW: I am 43 and would love to grow older with you. 😉 Lots of love from Germany. And please tell your wife hi from me - I look forward to seeing her again soon.

[@lalunafate]

This is funny, when I first discovered your channel I thought to myself "Oh, this guy is like Alton Brown"

[@BrittonBateman]

i love good eats because i watched it when i was very young (i was born in 2003) i love the way alton brown speaks and how he does his show.

[@ATable4You]

Good Eats has and will always be my favorite childhood cooking show.

[@mr.somebody1493]

I'll go out on a limb and say that, Alton Brown probably introduced more people to cooking than Julia Child did, and had a bigger influence on them.

[@ibsulon]

Only because there were more humans in America at that point, but Julia Child was more influential to her generation than Alton was to his. Alton would himself back that up. Julia was a giant influence.

[@mr.somebody1493]

@@ibsulon Alton would back that up because like me, he grew up watching Julia. If you put Alton in a time machine and send him back to 1963, you would change the world. Julia was a big influence...YES. She laid the foundation for people like Alton to build upon. Bigger and better.

[@alinaantochi5940]

Love how your videos come out in the evening in Europe!

[@SirGuido]

Shows like yours, Kenji's, America's Test Kitchen, and Food Wishes are the top of my KZbin subscriptions BECAUSE of my enjoyment of Good Eats. I'm 45 years old, and I've been watching cooking shows since I was about 5 years old. I love them. Good Eats was such a standout, because Alton explained WHY you do certain things, instead of just showing you a recipe. It taught you techniques. Now, these days I find Alton to be pretty unenjoyable. He comes off quite often as a know-it-all person who fully believes himself smarter than everyone else. Its grating to my sensibilities. I digress. You are certainly not a "dime store Alton Brown", you are your own person with your own draws and drawbacks. I very much enjoy your in depth videos on a litany of topics. You(and Kenji for that matter), give your opinions while being sure to state that its your opinion. Alton often presents his opinions as absolute fact. I still like Good Eats, but I've "graduated" to you, Kenji, Chef John, etc.

[@naniedesbois3891]

I am a french 47 years old woman and a professional cook. I didn't know about Alton Brown and good eat before today. I did grow up with really different cooking programs on TV. And I still watched / listened you with great pleasure as usual. Shame on me 😂...

[@snguy5232]

as a lady in your audience, dw! I'm more than happy with your usual informative and fun videos!

[@joseph_b319]

I learned how to cook from Alton Brown. Ive watched his shows so many times. I have his books and meet him at a meet and greet and have a picture with him. I loved James Burke's show Connections.

[@hanslehmann2124]

I started watching Good Eats when I stumbled upon his Down And Out In Paradise episode. The wife & kids were out of town, I was home alone, and so I ventured out and bought some shrimp & whatnot to mimic what he had made. I was the occasional cook before that, but that episode was what got me hooked. That and the 2007-2008 writer's strike was what really got me completely immersed into cooking. I still have, and watch, all of his episodes thanks to pirate TV

[@quinn3334]

I grew up on Good Eats and that food network era. Really kept and sparked my love of food

[@kristenwilliams9601]

I always loved Good Eats!! In fact, I still make Alton’s candy corn recipe every Halloween 🎃 It’s become a tradition my husband and extended family look forward to once fall hits.

[@GeoffreyToday]

Your Alton Brown Risotto experience mirrors my Alton Brown Bechamel experience pretty closely. Followed Alton's instructions to the letter, and the results were tragic. I very much think this is another "good advice for gas stove, but not electric stove" situation.

[@breaknfiction21]

Good eats made me fall in love with cooking

[@bmxfreakxyo]

Fwiw, I never watch Alton, I love your channel, and you should be proud of the audience you’ve built.

[@guyaarchbold5005]

Alton Brown is a cooking and television legend, and even though I’ve watched nearly every popular cooking show, when it comes to my meals at home, my library of Alton Brown books is my absolute first “go to”…

[@sutematsu]

Female Milennial here. It broke my heart when you worried you're a dime store Alton Brown. Sir. Not in the least. I like you because your channel fills the hole in my food learning that "Good Eats" left behind. I think your journalism background gives you excellent chops for interrogating your questions to a deep degree and delivering the info you find in a compelling, clear way. I also like that you use that same curiosity and persistence with everything you talk about. I LOVE that you show your work. When I watch one of your videos, no matter the subject, I know its been researched with as much care and attention as you could possibly give. And, selfishly, I like your videos because it sounds like we're about 95% politically aligned and 100% aligned on questions of human rights. That's maybe not so much a reason I arrived here as why I've stayed for the past 3ish years. Also - and only because you specifically asked! - you're good looking enough that if I was single and saw you in a bar and didn't know about Lauren, I'd probably try my luck with a pass. That said, I don't go to videos looking for handsome men. (Not on KZbin, anyway.) Edit: clarify I'm not out there hitting on married men. 😅

[@urvermin2682]

ADAM... i love that you're a Rush fan.. that must have been a Subdivisions reference.. it tickled my ear instantly. "Somewhere out of a memory Of lighted streets on quiet nights"

[@mikeoswald8053]

As a kid I was taught the basics of cooking by my mother who felt that that a man that couldn't cook for himself was not a man. Thanks to mom, I've enjoyed feeding others a good meal and gaining new recipes. As a viewer of many of the cooking shows on TV over the years.Alton Brown's "Good Eats" was a favorite; especially because of the recipes of his southern heritage and his quirky personality. And you're right, you two are very similar in many ways. LOL Keep the show going!

[@Human_Decoy]

Going to give myself a small chemical burn... Make good choices LMAO 🤣

[@KPA78]

I remember viewing your cooking videos back early on, and told my wife of this 'Alton Brown-type' guy on KZbin. I enjoyed Good Eats and I enjoy your cooking vids. The occasional social/political commentary I could do without, but hey, "you do you..."

[@LocaChoca]

I am soon to be a 38 year old woman, and I had never heard of Alton Brown before this episode of your podcast. I will say that I was not big into cooking until about 4-5 years ago, and your KZbin channel was a big inspiration for that interest. Emmymade was my other big one. I love both of your styles, and are a bit of a refuge from the day to day awfulness of the world at times. Thank you for that. Also, you are your own brand of cool. Don't beat yourself up so much.

[@robertkendall6660]

I may be an outlier, Adam. I’m not here because I’ve spent much time watching cooking shows, or even cooking for that matter. I’m here because of the journey you took me on to get to your thoughts on a show I’ve never seen, starring someone I’ve never heard of. Willy Wonka, dire straits, etc. I’m here for it. Good on ya.

[@riswampyankee9633]

Ok, this is a weird time and place for this particular stream of thought. Right after Scott Addams and a Elon decided to put on the white robes together. Dude. Alton rescued himself from the Brain Eater. Everyone has a failed Good Eats recipe, every god has feet of clay, and he is the first to include the phrase “Your Mileage May Vary” - Have you watched 30 Minute Meals? Only one of them worked in my kitchen (The mezza luna) - have you watched Emeril Live? Complicated and convoluted, and that was him trying to reel it back for the home audience. Hell yeah, Alton made cooking a masculine skill. My wife hates to cook, Alton allowed me to love to cook. A woman’s place is wherever she wants to be - on the couch playing animal crossing. We de-stress in different ways, and that’s very cool to me. There is a deep satisfaction in making something delicious and nourishing for my family. I wouldn’t have even known that satisfaction existed if it weren’t for Good Eats. Then Cooks Illustrated, then ATA, then SORTED Food… The Burger Scholar, Kenji… Chef John. You’re in there, too, obvs, but the critique of Good Eats is a little too precious. You can’t encapsulate in a particular time and place, you must observe the trajectory. Backsliding is a trajectory, that said. Not one Alton is on. He made an entire season correcting his earlier mistakes, FgS!

[@Craxin01]

AB never struck me as an "alpha male." You know the type, the self-described alpha male who is desperately afraid of looking weak or foolish or be ridiculed. When you're the kind of man willing to pretend on camera he believes in Santa Clause to make a cookie episode and go through boyhood giddiness in front of an audience, it's hard to claim to be an alpha male. Elon Musk, Scott Adams are both self-described macho he-men alpha males. Alton Brown saw how his side of the political aisle was going and had the good sense to nope out of it. Also, he turned "stuffing is evil," a statement he made for his Thanksgiving episode into a running joke, so he was always willing to self-correct, often using self-deprecating humor.

[@thomasgebert6119]

I never thought any of the kids actually died in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; I got the vibe that it was all smoke and mirrors, but also carefully controlled. For example, I always thought that the tiny, unreadable text on the contract was specifically there so that Wonka could always have an excuse to screw the kids out of the lifetime supply of chocolate, and fundamentally this was the test: will the child do the right thing, even when they have no reason to do so; fundamentally none of the kids were ever actually in danger.

[@cmdrbudman1ao580]

Want something really weird? I can make gravy BOTH ways. I was once told that I made "backwards" gravy. To be concise, you can cook the fat and thickener, and then add the liquid.... OR you can mix the fat and thickener and add it to simmering liquid. The latter works better in a commercial environment, but I still use it more often for greater control over the finite amount of "base". Need to make a gravy from 1 and 3/16ths cups of broth... add the "(loosely) roux" to gain the right consistency. I cringe when people add water to overcome thick gravy. And yes... sauces too... especially cheese sauce. Water and cornstarch is super cheap, the milk/cream just isn't.

[@YolayOle]

I am one of your female subscribers and I enjoy your content. Also, I was a huge fan of Good Eats. It did make me a better cook, but I have moved way past what I've learned from Alton and have relaxed my ideas of how things should be cooked. Finally, there was a Good Eats Fan Page that ran for the entire run of the show. I was a proud Briner for most of those years and met my now husband there. Still friends with a good chunk of the members there 10+ years later. As a matter of fact, we had 3 marriages from that fan page. Several of our Briners were on a Good Eats episode, but I can't for the life of me remember which one it is - it's been so long :D I'll have to go through the archive and see if I can find the name then edit this comment.

[@alospm]

I’m fascinated that your audience is mostly male. You don’t need to be hotter. Speaking from my own experience, women (and I am one) don’t watch food shows to see hot dudes. I just like learning things about all food-related topics. I do really really like it when your wife is on the show and when you reference your young family. That might not be applicable to all women. I just happen to be a 41 year old mom of young children, so it’s relatable to me. What I’m saying is that you don’t need to change things. Your show is great.

[@emmythemac]

I'm now trying to think of any male food youtubers I watch that I find incredibly hot and honestly I can't think of one haha. Don't get me wrong, Adam and others are perfectly handsome, it's just never something that occurs to me watching recipe videos. The closest I can come is thinking that Max Miller looks like an Actual Disney Prince, but that's not why I like his videos (besides he's, y'know, gay and happily married).

[@alospm]

@@emmythemac I love Max too! It’s the history lesson that reels me in.

[@vandevere321]

Bruh… Alton and his good eats show is THE REASON I cook!! He’s Bill Nye for adults 🎉

[@chrisculey2575]

I’m 37 Alton brown is my favorite tv cook and many of the foods I still eat today I learned to cook from good eats it’s a comfort show for me in the streaming era we’re living in also the KZbin live show he does where he and his wife have cocktails and cook dinner for themselves is pretty good too

[@RonJohn63]

Nostalgia was considered a disease 100+ years ago, since it comes from the Greek words meaning "return home pain". My sister and brother-in-law have quite severe _nostalgia_ for their dead son.

[@TwoToneShoes]

I think the moral line of credit you're talking about is a lot more difficult in songs if only because...we want to sing along to songs. When we're watching a movie, it's rather rude to be reciting the lines of a movie in time with them projecting from the speakers. But when Money For Nothing comes on, and you want to sing along, suddenly it becomes a lot more awkward to start belting out slurs even if you and I both know there is no malice in the creator's usage of it or my wanting to sing along to a good song. This phenomenon also occurs a lot with modern rap music. All sorts of people love listening to Rap music for any number of reasons, but as a largely black dominated section of the entertainment business, you're going to get a lot of a certain reclaimed slur coming in with songs. And boy do you not want my pasty white ass singing along to it out loud, thus you're likely to see less non-black folks playing that music even if they would otherwise like it.

[@ericfallabel9201]

Your comments on meta-cognition really resonated with me; that's me too! I've always loved reading product reviews, all the way back to reading the 1993 Consumer Reports annual auto issue as a kid. I've realized that I often enjoy the reviews more than I do the actual products! As a flight test engineer (and fellow Penn State grad from the early 2000s), I've essentially become a professional product reviewer.

[@nicoskefalas]

Same on the meta-cognition!!!

[@Ang3lzzzzCr33dPR]

Well for me Good Eats is a chef sharing his unique recipes with strict instructions while giving you the "whys" in a streamlined way. You on the other hand are a homecook who streamlines recipes so we can make our own version of said recipe with flexible instructions while giving us the much deeper dive and interesting "whys". I've learned more about cooking watching just a hand full of your videos over the last few years compared to the many years I've watched Good Eats.

[@plfenzl]

Watched it with my toddlers when I stayed home from work while they were little. My son called the show "Man Cooking". To this day, that's what we call that show. 😆

[@kam7056]

Hi Adam, great educational videos. I am glad you are talking about Alton Brown. Can you please make a video about how FOOD NETWOK, especially the reason of the decline in the quality of their shows? Thanks

[@secretlyjay9564]

I loved Good Eats, inspired my passion for cooking. I hope I don’t end up hating Alton Brown after this damn podcast

[@Zach0451]

If some dumbass on KZbin is able to make you hate Alton Brown, you might not have been that attached to the guy as you think.

[@notapplicable7292]

The podcasts have quickly become my favorite thing Adam does!

[@seamushowling572]

Adam is the contemporary GOAT to Alton's OG GOAT.

[@EliStettner]

I am a teenager today, and from watching the 70’s Gene Wilder _Chocolate Factory_ as a kid I did not pick up any of the darker undertones, besides the scary tunnel scene. So I don’t think it’s dated, moreso out of line with current Adult values (although it was edgy in the 1970s too, I remember an interview with Wilder saying that parents were hesitant to let their kids see it). I always assumed from the movie that Wilder snuck the Oompa Loompas out of loompaland, and brought them to (England?) without the government’s permission, so therefore the Oompas Loompas needed to stay hidden in his factory to avoid being discovered (and deported?).

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

Yes! Good eats rocked!

[@Craxin01]

I met Alton Brown when he was doing a book tour for Good Eats The Later Years. He's taller than I thought, but a perfectly nice guy. Told some funny jokes before the signing commenced. He commented on my shaky handwriting, I write perfectly well when I've got a stable surface to write on, better than literally everyone in my family. When I said that, he quipped, "family full of doctors, eh?" Still have the book with his signature and that memory will live with me forever.

[@StarTrekSundays]

Great video... You influenced me! Your experimental beginning and seeing your progression gave me the nerve to start a podcast, blending philosophy and Star Trek. So I will forever be grateful for your honesty and growth. Love your podcast.