Alton Brown Quotes

I love to have battles of the wits with people that can dish fast and dirty - and it leads to problems occasionally, 'cause I can sound mean without attempting to be mean.

Culinary tradition is not always based on fact. Sometimes it's based on history, on habits that come out of a time when kitchens were fueled by charcoal.

Slicing a warm slab of bacon is a lot like giving a ferret a shave. No matter how careful you are, somebody's going to get hurt.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

My college degree was in theater. But the real reason, if I have any success in that milieu, so to speak, is because I spent a lot of years directing, I spent a lot of years behind the camera

Laughing brains are more absorbent.

So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand, it's bee backwash.

Cooking is an observation-based process that you can't do if you're so completely focused on a recipe.

I had kicked around the idea for Good Eats when I was directing commercials.

A lot of food shows need only to tempt. Some food shows only need to inspire, to empower. And there are a lot of shows that do that.

The stubby French painter Toulouse-Lautrec supposedly invented chocolate mousse - I find that rather hard to believe, but there you have it.

Everything in food is science. The only subjective part is when you eat it.

A home cook who relies too much on a recipe is sort of like a pilot who reads the plane's instruction manual while flying.

If my wife made childhood obesity her mission and I signed a law making 1/8 cup of tomato paste a vegetable, I'd be sleeping on the sofa.

I like television. I still believe that television is the most powerful form of communication on Earth - I just hate what is being done with it.

Cranberries contain a massive amount of natural pectins. They will gel all on their own, which is why you can basically make cranberry sauce out of filling.

Good service can save a bad meal, but there is no level of food that can save bad service.

I became a cook so I could cook and tell stories in wacky ways.

Gluttony is wrong. It's wasteful.

A balanced diet may be the best medicine. I was eating too much good eats. But people consider that part of your job, you know? Eat. And I do!

I love poking fun at myself. I have a rather mean sense of humor.

I'm like a really goofy home ec teacher.

The problem is I am both a procrastinator and a power junkie, so I am very frustrating to work with.

It's funny, when you look back in history books or American cookery books, one of the reasons that the quinces and cranberries are used so often is because of their natural jelling properties.

Last year, I made a refrigerator in my basement. And I needed to because I needed to figure how - you know there is no such thing as 'cold.' There is only less heat.

Believe me, a grain is a terrible thing to waste.

I approach cooking from a science angle because I need to understand how things work. If I understand the egg, I can scramble it better. It's a simple as that.

My feeling has always been that 'Good Eats' would have never happened had it been left to a committee.

Recipe writers hate to write about heat. They despise it. Because there aren't proper words for communicating what should be done with it.

I do like artfully breaking rules.

There are no bad foods, only bad food habits.

Now my wife may think she's locked me out of the kitchen but MacGyver's not my patron saint for nothing.

I spent a college semester in a small town in Italy - and that is where I truly tasted food for the first time.

Take ice. Ice is fascinating to me. Ice is the one thing in our world that went from an agricultural product to being manufactured.

The skin is forming because of proteins, just like if you cook milk or anything else that's got a coagulant protein in it.

Stuffing is evil. Stuffing adds mass, so it slows the cooking. That's evil because the longer the bird cooks, the drier it will be.

I'm going from doing all of the work to having to delegate the work - which is almost harder for me than doing the work myself. I'm a lousy delegator, but I'm learning.

Molecular gastronomy is not bad... but without sound, basic culinary technique, it is useless.

If you're good with a knife, you don't need your eyes.

Do not allow watching food to replace making food.

I grill, therefore I am.

The only unitasker allowed in my kitchen is a fire extinguisher.

The way to any woman's heart, be she witch or Wonderwoman, princess or Pocahontas, is through her stomach.

Remember, America: organization will set you free.

I have nothing but sympathy for the people who are forced to work with me. I'm better now at picking out those that want to play that game with me, and those that don't.

I do know I'm a control freak.

I feel like being on Broadway will convince my mother that my theater degree was worth it.

I am firmly in the lard camp. It must be what we call leaf lard, which is a specific kind of lard that resides around certain internal organs in the pig.

I'm loyal and very good about giving people opportunities.

I'm prickly. I fuss over every single detail.