Alton Brown

Alton Crawford Brown Jr. (born July 30, 1962) is an American television personality, food show presenter, food scientist, author, voice actor, and cinematographer. He is the creator and host of the Food Network television show Good Eats that ran for 16 seasons, host of the miniseries Feasting on Asphalt and Feasting on Waves, and host and main commentator on Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen. Brown is a best-selling author of several books on food and cooking. A recap series titled Good Eats Reloaded aired on Cooking Channel, and a true sequel series, Good Eats: The Return, ran from 2019 to 2021 on Food Network. Early life Alton Brown was born July 30, 1962, in Los Angeles, California. Brown's father, Alton Brown Sr., was a media executive in Cleveland, Georgia; owner of radio station WRWH; and publisher of the newspaper White County News. He died on Alton's last day of sixth grade from an apparent suicide. Career Brown studied film at the University of Georgia in the early 1980s, and got his start in television as the cinematographer for music videos, including "The One I Love" by R.E.M. Brown was dissatisfied with the quality of cooking shows airing on American television, so he set out to produce his own show. In preparation, he enrolled in the New England Culinary Institute, graduating in 1997. Brown says he was a poor science student in high school and college, but he focused on the subject to understand the underlying processes of cooking. He is outspoken in his shows about his dislike of single-purpose kitchen utensils and equipment such as garlic presses and margarita machines, although he adapts a few traditionally single-purpose devices, such as rice cookers and melon ballers, into multipurpose tools.