The Simple Ingredient Alton Brown Struggled To Cover On Good Eats
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Seems like a suitable description for Alton Brown's personal avocado battle. The wildly popular chef, author, actor, TV host — you name it, he's done it — met his match when he faced off against the ultra-trendy fruit.
Brown, who hosted 16 seasons of Food Network's "Good Eats," conceded in 2010 that avocados had him beat. At the time, he told the Athens Banner-Herald he hit a dead end every time he tried to build an avocado-centric episode. "OK, avocados. First we're going to make guacamole, and then we're going to, going to..." Nothing. Not a single idea. So he'd tuck the topic away in the back of his mind for consideration another day.
Make no mistake, Brown took on plenty of challenging ingredients during his decades-long run at the helm of a show he once described as a combination of Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, and Monty Python (via Delish). In each episode, Brown guided viewers through an entertaining exploration of a particular food, including tradition, culture, and preparation, punctuated by "unusual interludes" and "unconventional discussions" (according to Food Network). He incorporated sumac into a fried chicken recipe (via Food Network) and faced off against artichokes (a food he loves to eat, but hates to cook, according to Food Network). But the avocado was always there, in the back of his mind, rallying to earn featured-ingredient status on "Good Eats."
An avocado breakthrough
Finally, in season 9 of "Good Eats," Brown had a lightning moment that changed the way he thought about avocados: Instead of focusing on how to showcase the fruit's creamy flesh, he decided to consider its key attributes, including its concentration of healthy, unsaturated fats (via Harvard Health Publishing). Once that shift occurred, Brown was on a roll. "We did a show where we turned avocados into a butter, an ice cream and a cake frosting. It just took me a while to get my mind around it," he told the Athens Banner-Herald.
That episode, "Curious Yet Tasty Avocado Experiment," aired on the Food Network on November 2, 2005 (via Metacritic) and it took avocados to a whole new level. Let's just say the king of thinking outside the box outdid himself. Venturing far beyond guacamole, Brown showcased avocado buttercream frosting, replacing butter with creamed avocado. Next, he ventured to the ice cream machine — the nemesis of so many cooking show competitors (think "Chopped") — and created a five-ingredient avocado ice cream recipe that garnered 48 5-star reviews. Then, there's Brown's avocado compound butter, a delicate topping for grilled fish and chicken.
These are avocado recipes we'd like to try, try again.