Alton Brown facts for kids
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Brown in 2015
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| Born | Alton Crawford Brown Jr. July 30, 1962 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
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DeAnna Brown
(m. 1994; div. 2015)Elizabeth Ingram
(m. 2018) |
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Alton Crawford Brown Jr. (born July 30, 1962) is an American television personality, chef, and author. He is famous for creating and hosting the Food Network show Good Eats. He has also hosted other popular shows like Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen. Alton Brown has written several best-selling books about food and cooking.
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Early life and education
Alton Brown was born on July 30, 1962, in Los Angeles, California. His father, Alton Crawford Brown, was a media executive. Alton's father passed away when Alton was in sixth grade.
In the 1980s, Alton studied film at the University of Georgia. He started his career working as a cinematographer for music videos.
Brown was not happy with the cooking shows on TV at the time. He wanted to make his own show that explained the science behind cooking. To prepare, he went to the New England Culinary Institute and graduated in 1997. Even though he struggled with science in school, he worked hard to understand it for cooking. He often talks on his shows about not liking kitchen tools that only do one thing, like garlic presses.
Television career
Alton Brown has created and hosted many popular cooking shows.
Good Eats and its return
The first episode of Good Eats aired in July 1999. Food Network soon picked up the show. On Good Eats, Brown often built his own cooking tools to show that many kitchen gadgets are just fancy versions of hardware store items.
Good Eats was nominated for a James Beard Foundation award in 2000 and won a Peabody Award in 2006. The show ended in 2012 after 14 seasons.
In 2019, Good Eats returned with two new versions. Good Eats Reloaded on Cooking Channel updated old episodes with new recipes. Good Eats: The Return on Food Network featured all-new episodes. New episodes of Reloaded came out in April 2020. New Return episodes were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic but later appeared on the Discovery+ streaming service and Food Network. In July 2021, Alton Brown announced that Good Eats: The Return would not have a third season.
Iron Chef America
In 2004, Brown appeared on Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters. This show was based on a Japanese cooking competition. Brown became the expert commentator and later the play-by-play announcer. He also hosted all five seasons of the spin-off show The Next Iron Chef.
In 2022, Netflix brought back Iron Chef America as Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend. Alton Brown returned as a co-host.
Feasting on Asphalt and Waves
Brown's series Feasting on Asphalt explored the history of "road food." Brown and his team traveled across the United States on motorcycles. He tried different foods and shared stories about famous road trips.
The show first aired in July 2006. A second season, Feasting on Asphalt 2: The River Run, followed in 2007. In this season, Brown traveled along the Mississippi River. The third season, Feasting on Waves, had Brown traveling the Caribbean Sea by boat to find local foods.
Cutthroat Kitchen
In 2013, Brown started hosting Cutthroat Kitchen on Food Network. In this cooking competition, four chefs each get $25,000. They use this money to bid on ways to make it harder for their opponents to cook. This could mean taking ingredients or making them use strange tools. The winner gets to keep any money they didn't spend.
Worst Cooks in America
In 2018, Brown was a mentor for one of the teams on Season 18 of Worst Cooks in America. The season aired in January 2020.
Live tours
Alton Brown has also taken his cooking and comedy shows on the road.
The Edible Inevitable Tour
In October 2013, Brown launched his first national tour called "Alton Brown Live: The Edible Inevitable Tour." The show included comedy, talks, live music, and fun food experiments. The tour visited many cities across the U.S. until April 2015.
Eat Your Science
Brown's second tour, "Alton Brown Live: Eat Your Science," started in 2016 and continued through 2017. His live shows often feature big, unusual, and sometimes dangerous food demonstrations. They also include audience participation and songs performed by Brown.
Beyond the Eats
Brown's third tour, "Alton Brown Live: Beyond the Eats," was announced in March 2021. This tour began in October 2021 and continued with several parts, including special holiday shows in late 2024.
Awards and other appearances
Brown has won two James Beard Awards. He won "Best Book" in 2003 for I'm Just Here for the Food. In 2011, he won the "Broadcast Media Award" for TV Food Personality/Host.
He has also appeared on other TV shows. He was a mentor on Season 8 of The Next Food Network Star. Brown also voiced characters in SpongeBob SquarePants (Nicholas Withers) and Big Hero 6: The Series (Yum Labouché). He appeared on MythBusters for an episode about food myths. In October 2017, he was featured in a special five-part series on Chopped.
Online shows
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Alton Brown started two new online cooking series on YouTube.
Pantry Raid was a weekly series of short videos. In these videos, Alton showed how to make tasty foods using ingredients people might have at home during quarantine. He filmed these episodes in his test kitchens with only a cameraman.
Quarantine Quitchen (also known as "QQ") started as a live stream where Alton and his wife Elizabeth cooked dinner at home. It became a weekly live series that aired every Tuesday. The series continued off and on until July 2023.
Personal life
Alton Brown lives in Marietta, Georgia. He was married to DeAnna Brown, who was an executive producer for Good Eats. They divorced in 2015 and have one daughter, born in 1999. Some of his family members, like his grandmother and daughter, appeared on Good Eats.
In 2018, Brown became engaged to Atlanta restaurant designer Elizabeth Ingram. They married in September 2018 on a boat in Charleston, South Carolina.
Alton Brown used to enjoy riding motorcycles but no longer owns one. He is also an airplane pilot and has owned two planes. He likes collecting vintage watches and wore a different one for each season of Good Eats.
In 2009, Brown changed his eating habits to become healthier and lost 50 pounds over nine months.
Books
Alton Brown has written many books about food and cooking. Some of his popular books include:
- I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking (2002)
- I'm Just Here for More Food: Food × Mixing + Heat = Baking (2004)
- Good Eats: The Early Years (2009)
- EveryDayCook (2016)
- Good Eats 4: The Final Years (2022)
See also
- Shirley Corriher
