The Scientific Concept That Helped Alton Brown Become A Better Cook

Alton Brown is taking the phrase "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen" to heart. Despite spending 20 years as a host on the Food Network, having written eight cookbooks, successfully selling out two variety/cooking show tours, and attending culinary school 30-plus years ago, Brown admits to not previously having a proper understanding of the role heat plays in cooking. In an exclusive interview with Chowhound, he called the new tour he is launching this year "a long love letter to heat."

After looking back at where the gaps were in his culinary education, Brown said, "I realized a few years ago that my black hole is a proper understanding of the actual base concept of being a cook, which is heat." That realization led the chef to study thermodynamics, or the study of heat and energy. "It's human beings' ability to apply heat to food that makes us cooks," Brown explained. "It's allowed us to become the masters of the planet because we've been able to make our food safe, we've been able to free up nutrients. That all has to do with heat."

This tour will be Alton Brown's last

In Alton Brown's new culinary show, "The Last Bite," so named because he expects it will be his last tour, he plans to make extensive use of steam, which he calls "one of the greatest expressions of heat in the modern age." For his past shows, Brown and his team built large-scale devices to cook things in ways he called "bizarre." "This time we've made something that's about three times bigger than anything we've ever done," Brown said, noting that it will use steam to cook "a very popular American food that would not have existed were it not for the Industrial Revolution." He declined to give further details, but he provides some hints on his website.

Despite his love for heat, some of Brown's favorite foods and drinks – olives, caviar, and martinis — don't require any. As for the tour itself, it will coincide with the release of his latest book, "Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations." Both the book and the tour will launch in February. Although exactly what he'll be doing onstage is somewhat of a mystery, it's probably a sure bet that the "Good Bites" host will share a list of his cooking tips you should know by heart. He probably knows he'll get a lot of, well, heat if he doesn't.

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