After making an initial announcement on Instagram, Food Network personality Alton Brown recently revealed more details about his upcoming web-based cooking show. In a Facebook live stream from Oct. 29, Brown told fans that this new show is “essentially a sequel” to Good Eats, his hit cooking show on the Food Network.
Brown calls this new venture (appropriately) A Cooking Show. While Brown has yet to announce a release date, we know the show will debut in 2017. But how soon next year? “Real soon,” says Brown. That’s vexingly vague, but Good Eats fans should be rejoicing anyway. A Cooking Show will continue where Good Eats left off, but without Food Network’s restrictions.
But why go to the web-based format when Good Eats did so well on Food Network? That’s easy. “I want freedom to do what I want and work with the food that I want,” Brown explained. By making the series himself, Brown will be able to focus on ingredients that made Food Network squeamish. Brown says some of those ingredients included rabbit, whole pig, venison, liver, sweetbreads, and chicken gizzards.
A Cooking Show will differ from Good Eats in a few other ways, too. Brown will forego traditional volumetric cup measurements and weigh most of his ingredients instead. And he’ll be working almost exclusively in metric. This isn’t unexpected — the web is a petri dish in which a new culture of good science geekery has grown. Brown’s science-focused method helped with that, and it created a built-in audience.
To make A Cooking Show, Brown will be taking a break from hosting Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen. “I made 200 episodes of Cutthroat Kitchen. And there will be new ones next year,” said Brown. “[But] for now, I think I’ve game-show-hosted about all I can take.”
But that doesn’t mean Alton Brown is splitting with Food Network. He’s still a mainstay there, and he tells fans to expect new episodes of Iron Chef America in 2017. He’s also developing a late-night variety talk show with the network. Brown is a busy guy, having spent the last several years on the road with a touring science show. Later this month, his Eat Your Science show will be on Broadway for five nights and will tour the rest of the country next year.
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