Alton Brown has me REALLY upset!!!

[Nifty-Chicken]

Watch for about 4 minutes at the 34 minute mark:


You might have heard him say:

"I don't search for restaurants online"
Well, he's obviously not representative of the majority of web users... but I'll let that slide as his opinion.

"There is no way to find good recipes online... 99.97% of them are crap!"
SAY WHAT? Seriously? Just on BYC I've seen GREAT recipes. Not to mention the tons I've seen on other sites.

... but here is what really ticked me off:
"Forums will ultimately destroy the usefulness of the internet"
"People on forums are the last people you want to listen to"

!?!?!? Those statements are some of the dumbest things I've heard!

He may be an expert chef, but he knows NOTHING about the internet or online forums.

 

[hemet dennis]

Well there's an hour I will never get back.

 

[Capvin]

Alton Brown is NOT an expert chef...he is an entertainer and as such he feels he needs to say certain things that would be considered controversial. That way he has more material for his next TV show or his next book. To me there is quite a difference between a "celebrity chef" and a chef at a four star restaurant. When he says some of the things, i.e. recipes, Internet, he does not want you to agree, he wants controversy around him. It is how he makes money.

 

[speckledhen]

LOL, like people who frequent forums are not real people who cook. He hasn't met Miss Prissy! Geez, gimme a break. Consider the source, I guess.

 

[mom'sfolly]

He thinks most recipes are crap anyway. He feels that most recipes don't give detailed enough information. His cookbooks are primers on the whys of how recipes work, and what will and will not work in the kitchen. If a recipe fails, he wants to know why it failed.

I didn't watch the video, but that is a position he has taken for a long time.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

"We have given everyone a voice an most of it is crap" Is he talking about his self?

 

[eenie114]

Watch for about 4 minutes at the 34 minute mark:


You might have heard him say:

"I'm a moron and I don't search for restaurants online"


"There is no way to find good recipes online... 99.97% of them are crap, but I say that because I call myself a professional and putting people down is part of the job!"


"Forums are the coolest and most useful places on the Internet, but I don't use them because I'm so blasted annoying that none of the other users will talk to me."
"I am the last person you want to listen to. Head on over to BYC where just about everybody there has something I don't... A brain and common sense."

!?!?!? Those statements are some of the dubest things I've heard!

He may be an expert chef, but he knows NOTHING about the internet or online forums.

I dunno Nifty... They sound pretty accurate to me.

 

[DuckLady]

Never heard of him, so I don't feel the need to add to the view count on the video by watching it.

 

[Eggcessive]

Nifty, the guy asking the question sounds familiar--is that anyone we know?

 

[punk-a-doodle]

As someone else said, he's an entertainer first, not a chef first. My only exposure to him personally is that his recipes tend to pop up at the top of searches. I almost always have to cringe and skip them as they tend to be pretty bland and lacking on the technique side. There are many celebrity chefs and cooks I could say the same for. I find much better on simple cooking forums and websites, though it is true that I usually have to do some serious wading to find really solid recipes that hold up well to the test of time (and different altitudes, haha).