Book Review — Alton Brown's Good Eats: The Early Years

I took the creation of a Good Eats cookbook into my own hands, thanks to website printouts and a three-ring binder. Why go the trouble? Like my other go-to-first recipe source -- The New Best Recipe Cookbook from Cook's Illustrated -- Good Eats is a Consumer Reports for recipes. Usually, the show distills a dish down to the basics and then tests how to achieve that, using established food science and home-cooking techniques to achieve those goals. Embellishments are always secondary, although those often receive the same consideration. The show's turkey recipe is still my go-to choice every Thanksgiving.

So how does Good Eats: The Early Years differ from my stained and torn binder of print-outs? Like Brown's delivery on the show, the book is chock-full of information, ranging from important discussions of fundamental techniques to snackable factoids. Combined with a crowded, pseudo-scientific design aesthetic, it makes the book a noisy, muddled mess. Flip through and find the recipes, if you can. Think of it as a pop-culture, limited-attention span version of Shirley Corriher's seminal Cookwise -- a woman and book that helped spawn Good Eats in the first place -- and you're almost right.

Except that these recipes are better. Modern, but fundamental. And well worth wading through the occasionally informative, occasionally entertaining static that riddles Good Eats: The Early Years. I'll be keeping a copy right next to my simple white binder.