Chef Alton's Flying Food Circus...er... Good Eats the cookbook

Weighing in at about four pounds and nearly 400 pages long, Good Eats: The Early Years encompasses the first 80 episodes complete with recipes, trivia, photos, food science and culinary techniques. And just like show the book derives from, Alton Brown presents all of the information in his own special way. Starting off with AB interviewing himself, the story behind the show is revealed along with his original idea for a title: Chef Alton's Flying Food Circus.

Inside, the book is chocked full of illustrations straight from AB hand just like his other books I'm Just Here for the Food and I'm Just Here for More Food. So if you enjoy that aspect of his books this will not disappoint. There are many screen captures from the episodes along with some behind the scenes photos. There's one good photo of Alton reading a script in the first GE kitchen with his mom standing across from him. Nice little touches like that make the book interesting for more than the recipes.

From the beginning I found the retro-style graphics to be a be plus for the book. I'm a sucker for vintage style. Inside, the graphics got better, each episode title is presented as a clapperboard with title, episode number and season. That so spoke right to the old film student in me. The movie style poster also wasn't a bad addition to the package. In fact, that poster's style was another element that I found appealing. The production tidbits also made me squeal with delight to know how the some of the show was created... again, that film geek in me. ;)

Aesthetics aside, content for the book includes recipes from each of the 80 episodes and in some episodes additional recipes that were cut out for lack of time. In Good Eats tradition much is written on how and why things happen. And the tidbits and trivia tell information about the show and ingredients.

Long time fans of the show may even pick up some new knowledge regarding a few things about the show.

One criticism I must level, a few episode sections are missing original recipes offered in the show. In the section for "Three Chips for Sister Marsha" the only recipe given is for The Chewy. Now, The Chewy is my favorite of the three and no doubt the best one, but how could the other two (The Thin and The Puffy) be shut out? Tsk, tsk. Sorry lovers of The Thin and The Puffy, you'll still have to print them from Food Network's site. Ditto for the "For Whom the Cheese Melts II." The stove top mac and cheese is missing. I like that one! So what's the deal there? Huh?

Several of the left on the cutting room floor recipes look very good. Up first the missing pastry cream that should have been in "Choux Shine." Thanks to Luke over at Latent Chestnut for alerting me to the existence of this! I'm also interested in the masher cakes, cut from episode two; pimento cheese from the first cheese show; beef and barley stew from the beef broth episode and artichoke pasta salad from, you guessed it, the artichoke show.

I didn't look closely at the real recipes to see how many were reworked. AB said last year, in Nashville, he was going to revamp some of them. I did, however, notice the angel food cake recipe, since an added recipe was next it, that two types of extracts were given as options. Vanilla and lemon. I just so happen to make my angel food cake with lemon extract, have since I started making it. Good call, AB.


Most Good Eats fans will enjoy owning a copy of this book. Though the recipes can be obtained at FN's website, the added recipes and having the laid out explanations for the recipes are a plus. The quirky humor and trivia also make the book appealing to fans.

So, if you're a fan you should get this book. ;)