Trivia / Good Eats

• Acting for Two: Alton often plays two different characters in the same scene (generally one of them as himself), sometimes doing a cut between himself and the alter-ego, and sometimes using editing trickery to put him and the alter-ego in the same shot.
• Actor Allusion:
  • In Season 7 episode "The Cookie Clause", Alton Brown mentions using cocoa powder to hide mistakes with coloring frosting. Santa turns to the camera, stroking his chin and murmuring "cocoa powder". The actor who played Santa, Bart Hansard, also plays Cocoa Carl, one of Alton's Sitcom Arch Nemeses.
  • Hansard also showed up as an appliance salesman in the souffle episode, leading to a You Look Familiar moment at the end of the scene.
• California Doubling: Inverted in "Q". Although set around a trailer parked in Hollywood, California, the cloudy skies in the background hint that this episode was taped somewhere around Atlanta.
• The Character Died with Him:
  • Ma Mae, Alton's Real Life Grandmother passed away in 2001.
  • Deborah Duchon, the Real Life nutritional anthropologist, was suffering from a brain tumor in 2018, and couldn't reappear in either Reloaded or the series revival. She passed away in October 2019.
• Creator's Favorite: Brown wrote in his cookbook that his favorite episode was Season 1's "The Dough Also Rises", as it leaves a fond legacy of his grandmother that he can show his daughter.
• The Danza:
  • W, aka Vicki Wong, is played by Alton's chiropractor, Vickie Eng.
  • Alton's "apprentice" Paul is played by head prop master Paul Merchant.
• Descended Creator: In the book Good Eats: The Early Years, Alton says that everyone who works on the show does so with the understanding that, one day, they'll be appearing on-camera in some capacity. Thus many characters in the series are members of the staff (exceptions are actual food experts such as Deb Duchon the nutritional anthropologist, Shirley Corriher, and a few recurring characters that are hired actors such as Marsha, Elton, Cocoa Carl, Chuck, etc).
• Doing It for the Art: Alton never made any money off of Good Eats itself, instead pouring what would have been his salary back into the show's budget. He makes all his money off of merchandise, writing, and advertising (like the series of ads for Welch's grape juice).
  • One of the producers even agreed to construct a new home around a kitchen specifically designed to allow for production of the show within said home/kitchen (this would be the "set" used for Seasons 5-8). Complaints from neighbors eventually forced the show into a lookalike studio set for the remainder of the production run.
• Falsely Advertised Accuracy: Veteran home brewers have accused Alton of this due to the Season 6 episode "True Brew III: Amber Waves". It got to the point that Alton issued a public apology, but what the veteran home brewers often forget is that the episode was taking the perspective of a first-time home brewer, and much of the advice Alton gives is also given by brewing shops to entry-level home brewers, so at worst, Alton was guilty of the beer equivalent of Lies to Children.
• Real-Life Relative: Alton's mother appears in "Romancing The Bird"; his (now deceased) grandmother was in two episodes (fruitcake and biscuits); his daughter appears in several episodes (usually as the character of Marsha Jr.); however, his then-wife (who was also a producer) did not appear outside of the curtain call on the 10th Anniversary special.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The reason that W often appears as a Virtual Ghost in early seasons is that the woman who plays her, Vickie Eng, was out of the country for the purpose of adopting a child. She had to film many of these appearances in advance.
  • The reason Deb Duchon doesn't appear in the "Reloaded" episodes, outside a short bit at the end of "Pressure: The Reload", is that she contracted brain cancer and had to focus on fighting her ailment. Sadly, she later passed away in October 2019. Alton dedicated a segment of "Raising the Bar: The Reload" to her and made her favorite cocktail, a daquiri, before toasting her memory.
• Science Marches On / Tech Marches On: Often, Alton's explanations and guidelines on whether to do (or not do) and use (or not use) a certain thing change with the seasons due to new studies, new technology, or changes in commercial foods. Sometimes, he will address his previous guidelines and explain how things have changed—but this doesn't stop Negative Nellies from pouncing on what they think are examples of Alton not doing his homework.
  • Of particular note, Alton's stance on frying machines.^ExplanationIn early episodes, Alton eschewed the use of them in favor of a dutch oven or pot with a fry thermometer. By the first "Man Food Show" episode he worked with a electric fryer, explaining that modern models work better and are safer to use (and was a better approach for the corndogs he was making as it allowed the food to stay in the fat while the sticks stay out)... but he went right back to using the dutch oven and thermometer in the next season. Eventually, in the Season 10 episode "Tortillas Again", he explained why he went back to dutch ovens, saying that despite all the improvements, electric fryers still don't manage heat very well in terms of maintaining temperature between each batch, which leads to greasy food. He's also said that a heavy pot or dutch oven is better because it allows the cooking food more freedom to move around and thus cook more evenly.
  • Then there's Alton's use of shortening.^ExplanationIn early episodes, Alton used vegetable shortening in quite a few episodes—for example, when making biscuits. In the Season 3 episode "The Case for Butter", Alton showcases the then-recent studies that revealed that the trans fats used in shortening are actually less healthy than the fats in butter. Since then, several vegetable shortening manufacturers have introduced "low" or "zero" trans fat versions of their products, but as Alton notes in the Season 9 episode "The Waffle Truth", companies can claim their products are fat free if the serving they recommend has less than half a gram of fat.
  • Curiously enough, some of these changes appear due to Brown's and Food Network's influence. Items like Microplane graters and chimney starters were relatively hard to find back in 1999, but today are available at any store with a cooking section or barbecue display.
  • Good Eats: Reloaded is all about updating older episodes to approach this, such as discussing how things have moved on, and providing corrections, such as new looks at how to boil pasta on the Reloaded episode of "Use Your Noodle".
• What Could Have Been: On an episode of the Nerdist, AB mentioned that he was able to figure out a way to effectively cook a whole pig with just 75 dollars worth of gear from the hardware store. Unfortunately, the executives at Food Network vetoed it because they said no one would actually try it.
  • Every time Alton says "but that's another show"...and we never got that episode.
  • A topic mentioned in Good Eats: The Early Years but not specifically mentioned in the series: "I still think anchovies would make a great show."
• You Look Familiar:
  • Steve Rooney (AKA "The Mad French Chef") appears as a chef named Jacques in the episode "A Bowl Full of Onion". Whether or not they're the same character is up for debate.
  • Bill Greeley, who plays the farmer Mr. MacGregor, also plays Alton's grandfather in "Romancing the Bird" and "What's Up, Duck?".

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