Stoid. Bubela. Here’s the video of AB giving the apple pie recipe. Entertaining isn’t it? Notice he doesn’t claim credit in his presentation, he just presents the technique. This is what a cooking show about chemistry and science does; Brown gives credit to discoverers and developers of basic scientific principles, but rarely to named cooks. He only tells you what works in cooking and why that’s so.
Brown by the way is also not using vodka in his recipe; he’s using applejack. (That may seem like a difference without a distinction to you but I dare you to taste test the two and compare.) That’s what some would call an adaptation of a technique for a special application, and it’s not something Cooks Illustrated recommended in their otherwise celebrated article. CI used vodka for its lack of flavor; Brown uses applejack for the exact opposite.
Finally, I’d like you to notice that the credits you’ve cited are from independent weblogs. Now, there’s nothing wrong with blogs. I have one, I’m sure you have one. Alton has one, too. But I find a few blog cites insufficient evidence that this earth shaking innovation was something independently contrived by Cooks Illustrated, patented or copyrighted or otherwise laid claim to as a technique requiring due credit. Particularly when even your blog sources cite similar techniques employing vinegar as an agent used for generations to make pie crusts tender, even more particularly when sodas and alcohols are so frequently used in batters, and most particularly when cooks of all sorts so commonly experiment with using alcohols in all aspects of cookery, including pastries (and yes, this includes my own independent and unpublished tomfoolery in the kitchen).
Please review Jacques Pepin’s shows, by the way, and count how many times he credits other French chefs for the techniques he demonstrates. (You won’t need more than one hand.)
Thanks for your consideration to the above, my friend.
I hear you, Xeno. But because this particular technique really is revolutionary in the pie crust world (the vinegar thing is completely unrelated and almost completely debunked as having no power to do anything to the crust one way or another…As I said, I’ve been kinda obsessively all over this topic since I was about 12 years old.) and I am so in tune with this topic, and it’s so obvious that Alton read CI and went from there… (I mentioned the applejack myself…) it just bugs.
Maybe it IS related to Robin Williams… I was a standup comic for about two years. During that time I learned first hand, from direct personal observation, exactly what a terrible thief he is…I mean blatant and shameless and you are fucking kidding me! And not just him, he was just the worst. So I have a thing about giving credit or not going there at all. As I said, Alton did no harm to CI or Kimball, I just feel like it was icky. It wasn’t just another technique. It was special, new and recent. And he subtly takes and gets credit for it simply by presenting it to people who don’t know.
Kimball and his minions are really amazing and they are really bringing something new to cooking all the time, where most others really aren’t. New recipes, maybe, but not the way CI does it, deconstructing the familiar piece by piece and rebuilding to perfect it, sometimes preparing a dish a hundred times, each time changing just the tiniest thing, coming up with genuinely new techniques and ideas for achieving the perfect result. And this was really the ultimate example of it. I want them to get the credit they deserve.
I get that, Stoid, and I agree that a nod in the direction of Cook’s Illustrated would’ve been appropriate given the timing of the Good Eats episode and the near certainty that Brown saw the technique there.
I’m not convinced that AB (or any cooking show host) has any obligation to give more background on any given tool, technique or ingredient than is required to educate the viewer on its uses.* They do give shout-outs now and then, and this includes Good Eats as well, but it’s not the purpose of the show, nor would that always fit the editing constraints of a 30 minute format. (Over and above some basic food education, they’re going for entertainment value, and a stupid little joke would probably make the cut in favor of crediting another show/magazine/other medium.)
CI does a marvelous service in a very creative way; you described their niche very well. Once their product is in public use, it’s eminently fair for it to be popularized by cooking mavens and pundits as a technique you the viewing public should be using®. In fact, I’d argue that this serves the intent of Kimball and crew even if they don’t get mention. I’m pretty sure they want their results propagated beyond the smaller circle of their target audience, and that’s what the popular cooking shows do. And food knowledge shows like Good Eats do it better than most.
*[sub]Nor am I yet convinced this was an entirely independent find by CI. I’ve emailed Alton Brown via FaceBook, and I’ll let you know if I get any kind of a response.[/sub]
The thing about Alton is that he’s not a chef who got a TV show. He’s a TV personality who does a show about cooking. So yeah, I’m not real surprised he’s disliked by real chefs, because his methods and habits are naturally not going to be traditional.
I don’t know about stealing; in this case, I would say the worst he could be accused of is not giving proper credit. But then, he makes it a point on the show to not mention any company by name, at least in my memory. So no, I’m also not surprised he just presented the technique as a clever technique, not CI’s clever technique.
In the late Sixties I rarely missed an episode of Graham Kerr as the Galloping Gourmet. He’d pounce upon with set complete with a glass of vino in hand and partake generously throughout the show cracking smarty-pants quips as he worked his masterpieces.
By the time he was ready to sit and enjoy his creation he’d be fairly glowing.
He had that gawky gracelesness of Dick VanDyke and was quite clever. His demeanor was alway flush with good cheer and a bit of devilish verve.
He lost his spark after he quite drinking? A shame. (One of the many who only put the cork in the bottle and don’t accomplish a recovery.)
I wouldn’t say he completely lost anything, just that his shows were lower keyed and his recipes were conscientiously (and very self consciously) healthier after he quit. His later shows were also after his wife had some health problems and he came out with what he called “minimax” cooking, which aimed to minimize fat & cholesterol while maximizing appeal.
I don’t think he lost his spark. The shows I watched in the 1990s were quite entertaining in my view. After his wife’s heart attack, his mission became to create low-fat, low-calorie, low-sodium dishes that were just as appealing as his prior, more traditional, work. In fact, in many episodes of the “Graham Kerr” show on the Discovery Channel, he showed a clip from “The Galloping Gourmet” and came up with a “minimax” version of the dish therein.
He went through a lot of changes. In 1971 he was temporarily paralyzed after a car accident and he became a born-again Christian. The show he did right after that was, I hear, quite preachy (I never saw it). At some point he gave up alcohol, too, as well as serial infidelity (apparently, female fans were throwing themselves at him when he went on tour). In the 1980s, his wife (who was also his producer) had a stroke and a heart attack and he changed over to health-conscious cooking. In the 1990s show he still seemed to have a bright sense of fun and energy–although he was no longer jumping over chairs with a full glass of wine in every episode. His on-air religiosity was reduced to a simple “God bless” at the end of each show. After that, he did several shows for public television featuring his “minimax” philosophy. I have several of his cookbooks from that era, and I have made several tasty meals from them.