Alton Brown Fumes At Mark Bittman Over Food TV Comments

Sorry, food television stars: New York Times columnist Mark Bittman probably isn't a fan.

According to Capital New York, the scribe behind The Minimalist told fellow food writer and former Times critic Ruth Reichl so much in an interview, calling today's food television programming "all competition, cleavage, nastiness."

Both chefs agreed that cooking and television don't have to -- and probably shouldn't always -- go together:

"This whole thing 'in order to cook, you have to be a chef' has got things all backwards," Bittman said. "The vast minority of people who cook wind up being chefs. No where else in the world, except for the West right now, would anyone ever think that cooking and being a chef was synonymous. There is that tendency around television. Books are a small part, television is really -- if ‘blame’ is to be cast television is to blame for that."

Bittman already seems to have ruffled a few feathers with the comments, including Food Network star Alton Brown, whose show, "Good Eats," often delved into the science of cooking, the history of various foods and uses of an assortment of cooking equipment.

On Thursday, Brown took to Twitter to air his grievances:

@altonbrown
Alton Brown

To the thousands who've told me you learned to scramble eggs from Good Eats, the shocking truth: you didn't! http://t.co/2meO9Gty

April 12, 2012 3:21 pm via web Reply Retweet Favorite

@altonbrown
Alton Brown

Very good cooks who are employed as "chefs" rarely refer to themselves as "chefs". They refer to themselves as "cooks".

April 12, 2012 3:26 pm via web Reply Retweet Favorite

@altonbrown
Alton Brown

The worst food you'll ever eat will probably be prepared by a "cook" who calls himself a "chef". Mark my words.

April 12, 2012 3:26 pm via web Reply Retweet Favorite

@altonbrown
Alton Brown

I guess I should feel grateful that Mark Bittman has erased any illusions I may have had regarding Good Eats as a teaching vehicle.

April 12, 2012 3:31 pm via web Reply Retweet Favorite

@altonbrown
Alton Brown

Because we now know definitively that you can't learn cooking from television. Dang.

April 12, 2012 3:33 pm via web Reply Retweet Favorite

Check out Brown's Twitter feed for more disgruntled tweeting.

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Comments

[PrunellaC]

01:29 PM on 04/16/2012

Oh, and for the record: although I've known how to make scrambled eggs from about the age of 7, I learned how to make them creamy and delicious not from Bittman, but from Francis Lam.

[PrunellaC]

12:52 PM on 04/16/2012

Love ya Alton, but there's no need to get all pissy about it. Bittman is right -- Food Network jumped the proverbial shark some time ago and in the wasteland that remains, your show and Anne Burrell's are about the only thing worth watching. FN's priorities are clearly big, loud personalities and cleavage, which, sadly for FN, I have no interest in watching.

What originally drew me to Food Network was information and an interest in healthy eating. As a new gastric bypass patient, the food I was raised on would no longer work and I had to do something. George Stella and Juan Carlos Cruz had a lot of useful information. Sadly, they are long gone.

[Tatters]

05:58 AM on 04/16/2012

It used to be that cooking shows were about learning but now it's mostly entertainment and product promotion (and of the F&B industry). Gone are the Jacque Pepins, Julia Childs, Alton Browns and America's Test Kitchen. But we still have the internet, thankfully.

[Dr Gachet]

08:48 PM on 04/15/2012

Good Eats was great, but the channel itself really hit the wall around 4 or 5 years ago. Sorry, Alton, but the guy's right about "today's food television programming."

[cameron d]

10:43 AM on 04/15/2012

My only gripes with the Food Network is that they have too many competition shows and TV personalities instead of actual shows that teach you how to cook. Now as Alton said, there are shows that do indeed teach you how to cook, I just want more of them and less of Diners, Drive-In's and Dives!

[bizzaro birdman]

01:09 PM on 04/16/2012

I enjoy the competition shows like Chopped and Iron Chef America. But I agree, more real cooking shows and less Guy Fieri would be a huge plus.

[Kevin73]

10:42 AM on 04/15/2012

Alton Brown is a knowledgable food-snob...a hipster foodie.....but defending the channel that his shows are on is simply silly.

The vast number of shows on the food network are just wastes of time.....people in the industry know this.

[Derek Spiewak]

12:33 AM on 04/15/2012

Alton Brown is well-known for his ability to fly off the handle in response to what he perceives as insults, and that can include pretty much anything. I feel like he and Keith Olbermann need to get together, smoke a joint and go bowling.

[Tatters]

05:49 AM on 04/16/2012

I think that Alton would prefer to pray whilst Keith will light up that doobie. Pass it bro!

[PrunellaC]

01:23 PM on 04/16/2012

I personally would love to share a bowl with Alton and Keith.

[captainspirou]

06:32 PM on 04/14/2012

Alton's comments would have more influence if he still did his show.

[clearthinker2008]

05:29 PM on 04/14/2012

Food Network does have way too many competitions. I don't watch much, every time I see a competition show on I change the channel. However, you can learn to be a better cook from watching quality cooking shows. I have no personal feelings toward either one.

[Louis369]

03:49 PM on 04/14/2012

Some truth. More and more competitions on FNT--Chopped, Sweet Genius, Cupcake Wars. Plus, the competitors often make quite nasty and insulting comments about their opponents, especially on Chopped. And, of course, can't leave out Iron Chef. I guess since men (and Cat Cora) can't battle it out on the real battlefield, they've turned the kitchen into a faux battlefield. Kind of creepy the way they talk about a kitchen that way. Do they think we really believe this is a "battle." Next thing you know, they'll be slapping each other around with whole tunas to get up those ratings. On the other hand, I've learned quite a lot of cooking technique on FNT, especially from Mr. Brown, bless his scientific heart!

[procyon4092]

03:33 PM on 04/14/2012

Food Network used to be more centered on teaching than competition, for sure. But, there is an audience for both. [I suspect that's why the Cooking Channel (same folks who bring FN) is now available.]

I'm not going to learn much from "Iron Chef America", "Chopped", "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" that I can apply in my own kitchen; but the shows are entertaining.

That said, I am huge fan of AB because the vast amount of information he provided in "Good Eats" when it was a staple on FN. I learned alot of useful things from watching his shows, and ended up a better cook for doing so.

[JulieMarisa]

11:20 PM on 04/13/2012

Bittman, I am with you. Less cooking on tv. More cooking with friends and family.

[SimonBao]

07:41 PM on 04/13/2012

Seems to be Brown is taking Bittman's comments personally and is over-reacting with no basis for doing so.

Bittman's comments about food television programming seem quite sound and reasonable. If Brown feels responsible for some small part of that, for his role in Iron Chef America, well, so be it. There's nothing wrong with Iron Chef America, but Food Network has reduced itself to some useless competition, cleavage, and nastiness.

And Brown's "Good Eats" and other instructional programming no longer exists at Food Network.

[orange county man]

02:38 PM on 04/13/2012

OK, girls pull your claws back in.

[parisnoire]

04:48 PM on 04/13/2012

"Girls"? Yeah. I love how childish behavior is somehow girl-like and not simply childish.

[PrunellaC]

01:25 PM on 04/16/2012

Well, I'm a girl and on my blog I gave my post about this the title "Cat Fight."

[blacksmithn]

01:36 PM on 04/13/2012

Well, competition and nastiness, I get. But where's the cleavage?! I'd watch more often if there was more cleavage (Ann Burrell excepted-- that's one cleavage that needs to be kept away from the camera).

Seriously, I do wish that Food Network would return to offering more shows about actual cooking and fewer shows that make cooking the basis for some sort of game.

[GibbsSlap]

03:59 PM on 04/13/2012

How could you have missed Giada de Laurentiis? In fact there is a humorous website devoted to her show. It spends 4 or 5 paragraphs discussing what she wore, with pictures of her barely covered breasts, and maybe one paragraph describing what she cooked.

[blacksmithn]

05:43 PM on 04/13/2012

Well, to be honest, it's remarkable only because of the paucity of cleavage found elsewhere on the channel.

[MBinNYC]

02:24 PM on 05/08/2012

She is hot but her teeth are scary blindingly white.....but she is hot.

[Kevin73]

10:44 AM on 04/15/2012

Maybe refering to Guy Fieri?

[blacksmithn]

11:28 AM on 04/15/2012

LOL. I just threw up a little in my mouth.

[PrunellaC]

01:27 PM on 04/16/2012

LOL Guido's moobs are about the same as Rachael's, aren't they?