87+ Alton Brown Quotes On Education, Food And Environment

Alton Brown is an American television personality, celebrity chef, author, actor, and cinematographer. He is the host of the Food Network's show Good Eats and Cutthroat Kitchen, as well as the mini-series Feasting on Asphalt and Feasting on Waves. He is also the author of several cookbooks, including I'm Just Here for the Food and Good Eats: The Early Years. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Alton Brown on education, leadership, life.

Top 10 Alton Brown Quotes

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
4. Cooking is an observation-based process that you can't do if you're so completely focused on a recipe.
5. So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand, it's bee backwash.
6. I had kicked around the idea for Good Eats when I was directing commercials.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Good service can save a bad meal, but there is no level of food that can save bad service.
10. 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.

Alton Brown Short Quotes

• I became a cook so I could cook and tell stories in wacky ways.
• I do like artfully breaking rules.
• Believe me, a grain is a terrible thing to waste.
• I do know I'm a control freak.
• Lumps are caused by one thing and one thing alone - the improper addition of a starch.
• I hate using the word coagulant.
• I keep the "ThunderCats" thermos safely in the kitchen.
• I feel like being on Broadway will convince my mother that my theater degree was worth it.
• I played every bad guy in Shakespeare.
• I'm just sitting around thinking about turkey.

Alton Brown Quotes About Food

I'm a filmmaker who decided to go to culinary school. All I picked up was the fact if I didn't understand what was going on with every single ingredient, I could be qualifying for, like, the lunch food job at my daughter's school. — Alton Brown

I kept thinking, 'Somebody has to make a food show that is actually educational and entertaining at the same time... a show that got down to the 'why things happen.' Plus, I hated my job - I didn't think it was very worthwhile. — Alton Brown

You know most of the food that Americans hold so dear - things like hamburgers and hot dogs - were road food, but even before they were road food, they were peasant food. — Alton Brown

Wine is like women. It tempts you; it comforts you; it confuses you and can even turn on you when you least expect it. It can be your friend one day and your enemy the next. — Alton Brown

I think a lot of food shows, especially when we started 'Good Eats' back in the late '90s, they were still really about food. 'Good Eats' isn't about food, it's about entertainment. If, however, we can virally infect you with knowledge or interest, then all the better. — Alton Brown

Alton Brown Quotes About Love

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

If you really love stuffing, wait until the turkey comes out of the oven, add some of the pan drippings to the stuffing, and bake it in a dish. That's called dressing, and that's not evil - stuffing is, though. — Alton Brown

We are fat and sick and dying because we have handed a basic, fundamental and intimate function of life over to corporations. We choose to value our nourishment so little that we entrust it to strangers. This is insanity. Feed yourselves. Feed your loved ones. And for God's sake feed your children. — Alton Brown

Alton Brown Quotes About Work

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

So I quit my job and went to the New England Culinary Institute for the full two years and worked in the restaurant industry after that until finally I thought I had a grasp on what I needed to do what I do. — Alton Brown

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. — Alton Brown

Butter typically melts around, you know, 90 Fahrenheit, as opposed to about 20 degrees higher for lard. So what that means is that when you're working with it, the lard is going to stay more solid, which is great for flakiness. — Alton Brown

You need to either create a slurry in a cold liquid, which also works with cornstarch, or you've got to do your gravy in a very wide pan and kind of scatter the flour over the top and then very quickly whisk it in. — Alton Brown

Although I don't take myself very seriously, I do take my work extraordinarily seriously. — Alton Brown

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. — Alton Brown

I'm grateful my teenaged daughter is healthy and well and for the work I do to make a living. — Alton Brown

For me, it was kind of like going into the military or something. And anybody - any male - who has ever worked in a French kitchen knows what I am talking about when I say that. — Alton Brown

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. — Alton Brown

Alton Brown Quotes About People

I know people that could serve me canned tuna and saltine crackers and have me feel more at home at their table than some people who can cook circles around me. The more you try to impress people, generally the less you do. — Alton Brown

What tends to happen is that people will go - they've got hot broth, you know, they've added some liquid to their drippings, they've brought that up to heat. And then they try to add in a big clump of just kind of a handful of flour, and of course, it turns into library paste. — Alton Brown

The turkey - my number one thing that people don't get is take that sucker out of the refrigerator about three hours before you plan on cooking it. — Alton Brown

Enough people have now mentioned Bill Nye the Science Guy to me that I now desperately avoid it all costs. — Alton Brown

My mantra was to educate people - to actually give them the know-how they could use - and to do it in a very subversive kind of way. I would entertain them, and I was going to teach them whether they knew it or not. — Alton Brown

If I took my turkey out of the refrigerator and, like, threw it in a dumpster or drug it down the street in New York for a while [it will make people sick]. — Alton Brown

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

Alton Brown Quotes About Heat

My first book is really about heat. That book, for me, was an exploration of heat as ingredient. Why we don't talk about heat as an ingredient, I don't quite understand, because it is the common ingredient to all cooking processes. — Alton Brown

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

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. — Alton Brown

Alton Brown Famous Quotes And Sayings

A meringue is really nothing but a foam. And what is a foam after all, but a big collection of bubbles? And what's a bubble? It's basically a very flimsy little latticework of proteins draped with water. We add sugar to this structure, which strengthens it. But things can, and do, go wrong. — Alton Brown

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. — Alton Brown

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. — Alton Brown

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

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. — Alton Brown

Well, you know, when you go into a restaurant, one of the scariest things is the wine list, so whenever I'm really feeling intimidated, I'll just pick a wine type, like a Chianti or Brunello or a Burgundy, and I'll pick a year that's missing and ask for that one. — Alton Brown

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

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

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

I want to bring things up to room temperature, especially poultry, before I cook it because I want it to cook faster so that there's less moisture loss. — Alton Brown

I am publicly apolitical. — Alton Brown

I looked for a very long time, knowing that it had to happen, but it took me a long time to find someone with the same background and whatnot and I finally found him. — Alton Brown

I can't talk about anything or write about anything if I don't understand it. So a lot of the stuff that I go through and a lot of the time that I spend is understanding. — Alton Brown

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

I only really fake it anymore with sommeliers who are being really snotty to me and I don't want to take their grief and so I try to do something to kind of throw them off or put them on the defensive, even if I don't know what I'm talking about — Alton Brown

I'm prickly. I fuss over every single detail. — Alton Brown

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. — Alton Brown

Racism. It's ugly. Even in tubers. — Alton Brown

You know, [skin] happens at the gravy boat stage - right? - or this happens when you're trying to keep it warm. So the way that I avoid this is I keep my gravy - the second it's done, I put it in a thermos, which will keep it hot and will prevent air from getting to the surface. And I keep it there till the last moment. The last thing that goes out to the table is the gravy, and I pour it out of the thermos and immediately move it in. — Alton Brown

I never spoke about politics, with the exception of Election Night. — Alton Brown

Laminated Lettuce ... perfect for holiday gift giving. — Alton Brown

I never rated my cuddle factor, but I expect it's pretty low. — Alton Brown

I've learned that you shouldn't have preconceived notions about anybody. — Alton Brown

I'm too tired to hate. — Alton Brown

Seriously. I'm not very bright, and it takes a lot for me to get a concept - to really get a concept. To get it enough that it becomes part of me. But when it happens I get real excited about it. — Alton Brown

If there's something I feel certain of, it is that we're not very aware of each other and that's largely because of social media. — Alton Brown

What happens is that in each clump you've got the gelatinization of starches, which happens very quickly at the surface of the clump and it kind of forms a protective skin around this dry hunk of flour. — Alton Brown

I'm not a slave driver or a yeller. I was yelled at in kitchens and other workplaces. — Alton Brown

I would have bacteria and, yeah, it would grow in what we call the danger zone, which is typically between 40 and 140. But if I'm getting something out of my refrigerator where it's been basically pretty clean and I'm putting it on my counter, what exactly is going to happen in that amount of time that going into a hot oven isn't going to kill? Nothing. — Alton Brown

Your patience will be rewarded. — Alton Brown

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

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

I don't like to be polarizing. It's not who I am. — Alton Brown

No matter how much creativity goes into it, cooking is an art. Or perhaps I should say a craft. It abides by absolute rules, physics, chemistry, etc. and that means that unless you understand the science you cannot reach the art. We're not talking about painting here. Cooking's more like engineering. I happen to think that there is great beauty in great engineering. — Alton Brown

I feel a strong wakeup call and need to build social connections. — Alton Brown

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. — Alton Brown

The jewel of the lard is right around the kidneys. But this is a fat that has a very specific crystalline formation and a high melting point. — Alton Brown

My advice: write down everything you eat. It's amazing what that "self honesty" can do for you. (Do you really want to have to confess that doughnut? I thought not.) — Alton Brown

When you're touring, you're constantly in motion. — Alton Brown

Life Lessons by Alton Brown

1. Alton Brown's work emphasizes the importance of learning the basics of cooking, such as proper technique and the science behind food, in order to create delicious and creative dishes.
2. He also stresses the value of experimentation and having fun with food, and encourages viewers to take risks and be adventurous in their cooking.
3. Lastly, Alton Brown's work emphasizes the importance of understanding the history and culture behind food, as well as the importance of sustainability and using fresh, quality ingredients.