Review: 'Alton Brown Cooks Food'

It's nearly impossible to discuss the success of the Food Network without mentioning Alton Brown. Brown's series Good Eats premiered on the network in 1999 and was one of its early pop culture hits. The series ran through 2012 and Brown also hosted the limited series road shows Feasting On Asphalt (2006) and Feasting On Waves (2008). Once Good Eats was over, he appeared in a wide variety of Food Network shows, including hosting the original (and much more entertaining) incarnation of Cutthroat Kitchen as well as the 2019-2021 series Good Eats: The Return. But he hadn't appeared on the network since 2022's Iron Chef: Quest For An Iron Legend and I assumed that Brown was no longer working with the network and was perhaps enjoying a well-deserved semi-retirement.

But he has been posting semi-regularly to his YouTube channel and after a seven-month hiatus, Alton Brown is back with a new weekly series entitled Alton Brown Cooks Food, in which he promises to revisit recipes and theories from his original Food Network series Good Eats. The initial 15-minute video, in which he revisits his original OG turkey preparation, looks nearly identical to a Good Eats episode, albeit with the addition of Brown's beard, which is apparently the choice of many men appearing on television who don't want to show off their aging faces and neck.

The YouTube series looks remarkably like the original series, albeit with a couple of changes. Brown seems to be using having a variety of adult beverages nearby throughout the episode and weirdly, unlike the OG version of his show, Brown spends most of his time perched behind a table explaining things. Oh, you see closeups of things being mixed and going into the oven. But for whatever reason, you only see his hands, which seems a bit weird at times. I didn't expect Brown to throw himself across the kitchen like he did in the 1990s. But the lack of movement is striking. It could be that it's easier to frame the shots this way, but I do think the approach sucks some of the energy out of Brown's presentation.

Those complaints aside, it's good to see Alton Brown back at work doing the thing that he has always seemed born to do. I am hoping that in later episodes, he presents some original recipes, as opposed to just updating come of his classic presentations. But even if he sticks to "here is that dish I first presented more 25 years ago," I'll still be watching. Because an older and hopefully wiser Alton Brown is still more fun to watch than just about any other food host I know.