Good Eats ends after 249 Episodes

[FoodMan]

"G.E. fans, I've decided to cut the half hour series at 249 eps. There will be 3 new 1 hour eps this year and that's it. But mourn not. New things brew on the horizon..."good" things."

From Serious Eats

I've always loved Good Eats and probably learned more from it than any other cooking show and most cookbooks. Following Good Eats through the years is what kept me curious about cooking and food science. The first episode I ever saw was the baby back ribs one...that made for some good ribs...

Anyways, I will miss Good Eats even if it has not been as relevant to me in more recent years as it was 3 or 4 years ago. I enjoyed watching it and still found bits and pieces of useful information. IMHO, this really is the last of the good cooking shows that FN had.

[therippa]

I will certainly miss it. I agree with you that it feels like Alton has sort of been phoning it in since Iron Chef America and him losing the weight, but it was the only thing left to watch on the food network. His show was what piqued my interest in cooking...I couldn't boil water, then I saw his first episode, the steak one, and it changed my life!

[TheNoodleIncident]

also very sad to see it go....Good Eats has been one of my favorite tv shows for many years, and i credit it for developing most of my interest in food

[Darienne]

Good Eats was my introduction to food on TV. I was able to watch it for 6 months while we lived in Moab a couple of years ago. Really enjoyed it. I know it's on at least once a week where I live in Ontario, but it's at some wretched midnight hour that I can't do. Alas.

Oh, if you think American food networks are bad now...you just haven't tried the Canadian one!

Edited May 24, 2011 by Darienne (log)

[Dakki]

There's so few reasons to even own a TV anymore and that's one less.

[Lisa Shock]

I liked the show, but, I can see that he's already covered so much territory that there just isn't much left to say. -At least at the infotainment-for-the-casual-user level of expertise that FN is interested in presenting in their lineup.

But, he's a savvy producer, and, if he says he has great things on the horizon, I would believe him. He's always been straightforward with the press.

[Brown Hornet]

I really loved Good Eats in its prime -- it was as informative and entertaining a cooking show as I've ever seen. I learned something useful or interesting from almost every episode I watched. Plus, I always got a kick out of the Atlanta area locations that Alton would visit since I am familiar with most of the them.

Honestly, I think it was time to cancel the show and it seemed like it died a slow death starting about two years ago, pretty much around the time of the Spartan smoothie/sardine episode. Still, hats off and a standing ovation to Alton for 249 awesome episodes.

[Trev]

I'll miss his unusual style, and the science behind how it goes down in food town. I've sure learned a lot from him too, but I guess he's on to bigger and better things. Good luck, Alton. See you in the kitchen.

Edited May 24, 2011 by Trev (log)

[violetfox]

I'll miss Good Eats very much, and hope for new and exciting shows from Alton!

[IndyRob]

I own two of his books (still, after a major purge of cook books), and was a Good Eats early watcher. But, I'm actually a little surprised to hear that Good Eats is only now ending. I had completely lost track of it. I thought it was over.

I thought Alton had moved on to Iron Chef, Feasting on Whatever, and The Next Food Network Star.

Good Eats did seem to start to run out of ideas, but oddly, he never latched on to things like sous vide, or other modernist things that seemed right up his alley. He could have even brought some healthy skepticism to the whole discussion. Instead, he was entirely absent.

If he has a new project in the works, I must say that that I'm hopeful, but not expecting much. I fear that 'TV Alton' (enabled as it is by his clique of Current Food Network Stars) has taken over his wonderfully curious cooking side.

[ScoopKW]

Good Eats did seem to start to run out of ideas, but oddly, he never latched on to things like sous vide, or other modernist things that seemed right up his alley. He could have even brought some healthy skepticism to the whole discussion. Instead, he was entirely absent.

From watching the show -- all 249 episodes -- I think that AB was reluctant to delve into anything too expensive. I think the show would have suffered if he touted $4,000 infrared sear grills, $1,500 immersion circulators and $2,000 commercial vacuum sealers. The FoodTV average audience doesn't have the means or the inclination.

A lot of his cooking gear came from thrift shops and hardware stores -- much to the benefit of the viewer. To this day I use welding gloves instead of oven mitts. And I line my the bottom shelves of my ovens with bricks.

Alton got a lot of people to quit nuking Hot Pockets and start making dinner. So the show was a complete success by my yardstick.

[Dexter]

What Alton did, he did really well, from the episodes that I saw. I haven't seen any of the last 3 seasons, but loved the "early years" for precisely the reasons that have already been stated by others. I do wish he'd have tried to do some things like sous vide, clarifications, or revisited some of the episodes that he said "more to come" on (maybe he did? Like I said - I haven't seen the last 3 years worth). Part of the brilliance of his show was taking expensive techniques and ingredients and making them practical for the home cook. Taking semi-primal cuts of beef from a big box store and breaking it down into proper steaks and chains, building a cold-smoker, etc, all were inspirational and have clearly shaped my kitchen habits. I too have welding gloves, a hardware store butane torch, bricks in the oven, a clay-pot smoker, and half a dozen other DIY contraptions on my balcony and in my kitchen precisely because he showed me what could be done for much cheaper than retail.

FN has become essentially unwatchable for me, and I don't regret letting cable go when I did. Now that they have spun off "cooking" to another channel entirely (available in my area only with a costly "upgrade" in service), it's truly dead to me. Something slightly horrific about Bravo being the de facto Food Television now, but here we are.

Here's hoping that his new project finds his old spark. Best of luck to him, and thanks for some truly excellent television over the years.

[JasonW]

Good Eats was truly one of my favorite shows. It was such an excellent mix of science (isoelectric point of albumin!) and practical DIY set ups (bank-of-lockers smoker!) truly accessible to everyone.

I can't imagine I would ever have fallen in love with cooking had it only been jamie oliver or gordon ramsay on tv.

I really enjoyed the small history and nomenclature lessons on each topic and I am sure his academic precision and methodology helped alot of people greatly improve their cooking!

AB you will be missed

[emannths]

Another Good Eats fan here. More than anything, I think AB prodded me to think of cooking like any other task--choose the best tool and technique for the job, and always assume there's a way to do it until proven otherwise. It also really did the job of transforming mundane, taken-for-granted foods into good eats. I never would have made something like the coconut cake that he made, but he convinced me that it was something that you could really improve beyond the standard diner/grocery store item.

Of course, the show certainly had it's faults. I think the strangest was AB's alternating between sometimes adhering strictly to traditional ingredients/recipes and sometimes taking huge liberties with them, often within the same show and without acknowledging it. And don't even start to bring up error-ridden homebrew episode...

[Porthos]

Good Eats was the last show I still watched until I just gave up on FoodTV. And just this morning I heard that the Government finally is agreeing with what he already knew about safe temperatures for pork. 145 degrees F, a bit pink is safe.

[OliverB]

I like the show, lots of silly fun with great information, though I haven't watched it in a while, I've long lost faith in the Fool Network and it's "stars", and since I never tune in I don't happen to stumble across his show anymore. Just an other worthless channel in the swamps of TV land

Alton is a fun person, though it almost seems like some lame twin is doing an impersonation on that Iron Chef nonsense. I'd love to see him do something interesting again, but if he stays on Fool TV I don't have much hope - unfortunately.

[BadRabbit]

Good Eats did seem to start to run out of ideas, but oddly, he never latched on to things like sous vide, or other modernist things that seemed right up his alley. He could have even brought some healthy skepticism to the whole discussion. Instead, he was entirely absent.

From watching the show -- all 249 episodes -- I think that AB was reluctant to delve into anything too expensive. I think the show would have suffered if he touted $4,000 infrared sear grills, $1,500 immersion circulators and $2,000 commercial vacuum sealers. The FoodTV average audience doesn't have the means or the inclination.

A lot of his cooking gear came from thrift shops and hardware stores -- much to the benefit of the viewer. To this day I use welding gloves instead of oven mitts. And I line my the bottom shelves of my ovens with bricks.

He did some jury rigged versions of things like the flower pot smoker so there's no reason he couldn't have taught people about beer cooler sous vide. For most people that would cost them nothing because nearly everyone owns a cooler of some sort.

[Special K]

I would like to see him do a victory lap - all those "but that's another show" episodes!

[ScoopKW]

He did some jury rigged versions of things like the flower pot smoker so there's no reason he couldn't have taught people about beer cooler sous vide. For most people that would cost them nothing because nearly everyone owns a cooler of some sort.

True. AB is the master of improv cookware.

I don't recall him ever using a vacuum sealer -- even a FoodSaver -- on the show. Perhaps there is some legal reason why.

[annabelle]

I never liked this show and haven't watched it more than a couple of times. Alton makes a lot of declarative statements that are just shy of being right and are often dead wrong. I initially thought he would be sort of a Bill Nye the Science Guy in the kitchen and not such a know it all hipster. Not only that, he is the reason that I don't watch Iron Chef America. That show should be dynamite and it's a pale imitation of Kaga's show. Where's Fukai-san and the lame soap opera actresses that I learned to love?

[ScoopKW]

I never liked this show and haven't watched it more than a couple of times. Alton makes a lot of declarative statements that are just shy of being right and are often dead wrong.

I'm resisting the urge to declare, "Them's fightin' words." (But I am an unabashed fan of the show.)

But I'll bite -- what has been dead wrong?

[annabelle]

The episode about home brewing is a good place to start. Gah!

[Lisa Shock]

I have heard him state opinion as fact. On several occasions, he has said something along the lines of 'X herb is the ONLY seasoning appropriate on Y ingredient.' And, my first thought is always, 'huh? I bet people in India or China or Malaysia would disagree. I know that at my house we occasionally like Q herb or Z herb on it.'

[cdh]

The episode about home brewing is a good place to start. Gah!

Yup... he was really wrong a lot on that one... It does make me wonder if his skill at quickly studying and assimilating info about a new subject and turning it into a show were as off on other subjects I don't know so well.

That said, I still really enjoyed his show and will miss it. I hope his new "good" stuff is indeed good... but perhaps he really has jumped the proverbial shark and would be better left to fade away into the realm of reruns.

Edited May 26, 2011 by cdh (log)

[ScoopKW]

The episode about home brewing is a good place to start. Gah!

Yup... he was really wrong a lot on that one... It does make me wonder if his skill at quickly studying and assimilating info about a new subject and turning it into a show were as off on other subjects I don't know so well.

I just re-watched the brewing episode.

Outside of sanitizing with bleach, there was nothing horribly wrong with the information presented.

He did a mini mash, sparged through a colander, added extract to the boil, two hop additions, chilled with ice (not really a big deal, although a dedicated chiller should have been mentioned), fermented out (he said when the bubbles are 1 minute apart, the yeast is "mostly dead" -- that's wrong, of course), and then used table sugar to prime the bottles (he really should have used priming sugar).

His beer isn't going to be nearly as good as what I make. But I'd take one over a domestic "Lite" beer.