Alton Brown Eats His Last Meal

Channel: Mythical Kitchen

YouTube Video ID: kCFkoOoYpa4

Episode Post Date: May 19, 2026

Transcript

Hello, I'm Alton Brown and apparently
this is my last meal.
Every person has exactly two things in
common. We all got to eat and we're all
going to die. Today's guest is a New
York Times bestselling author, recipe
developer, and legendary food television
host whose show Good Eats taught a
generation of home cooks the science
behind their culinary endeavors. You can
catch his Aonomous Cooking Show on
YouTube and he wrote one of the hardest
rap diss tracks of the 21st century.
Alton Brown, welcome to the show.
>> Wow, you knew about that track. That's
that's amazing. When you said, "Now I
own 20 restaurants and they are not
unique, but it's hard to mine for
diamonds when you open three a week."
Alton, who were you talking about?
>> Freaking I love that song. Um, off of,
you know, I don't think I was talking
about any person in particular. I was
talking about a a genre of chef who open
really great restaurants and then get
really greedy, get bought in by groups
and then have to spread like like a
virus and uh and inevitably uh something
goes wrong
>> and sometimes they end up on uh cruise
ships and sometimes in airports.
>> I have several photos standing in front
of Bobby Fle on the side of his
restaurant at the airport. I don't have
pictures of he and I together, but if I
stand just right, it's so realistic that
I can pass that off as an actual photo
of me with Bobby Fle and have done so.
>> They say you can even smell the ancho
chili on his cutout at the restaurant.
>> I'm surprised there's not an ancho chili
cologne.
>> I think you just made the next
million-dollar product. I think
>> No, not for me. Only it would only only
sell if it was if it was Bobby Fle.
>> Yours, I think, would just be scotch. Uh
which
>> No, no, I don't. You know what? I think
mine would be uh something Mine might
have to be stinkier. There's got to be
something slightly rotten. Sorry, I'm
just going to bring up I have a sidebar.
So, I have like this experiment drawer
at home. It's like I let things just go
and I keep like trying. It's like how
long can I keep cooking this bacon and
eating it and like enjoying it. And I've
noticed that there's like a sweet spot
of like especially if it's like artisal
bacon, right? Where it'll look like like
oh that shit's gone bad, man. And then
like 3 days later it gets good again.
What do you think you're tapping into?
>> I I think that in the in the age before
refrigeration when a lot of people died
of food poisoning,
>> so many of them.
>> But, you know, like in England and and
my blood is almost completely um
English. Um you know, you you didn't eat
beef until you hung it and and there
were maggots on the outside of it. I
mean, that was considered well, it's
ready now, right?
>> Sure. Yeah. And I and I think that we we
have robbed oursel from a whole bunch of
flavors and aromomas by simply insisting
everything be in a certain amount of
what we like to call freshness. We we
dry age meat, but let me tell you, I've
done some things with meat that I'm not
proud of and didn't get sick and didn't
die. Here are the potential flavors of a
food through its life, right? And we we
we like go for like this much of it,
right? We say that it's because of
safety or we say that it's because it's
a very narrow band, you know, and when
you start to open it up and control
aging, all kinds of foods get really
really interesting. I'd ask if you
thought about your last meal before, but
I know that a ton of people have come up
to you in fan meet and greets and asked
you about it before and you used to tell
them it'd be duck fee because it takes 3
days. Haha. But now we're sort of asking
you to really engage with it on I think
a more visceral level. Do you think
you're prepared for it? I wrote an essay
um in in my last book um that was about
the five questions that I get constantly
asked and and I and one of them was
what's your last meal and I answered it
from a strictly
emotional level and it and it was it was
all about um essentially being with my
my wife and I realized well if anybody's
going to poison me
it it would be no I'm kidding generally
the spouse
>> but but I realize generally I I think
that my list is is far more based on
um literary references
that mean a lot to me or because I I
noticed after I I kind of threw off the
list and I started really looking at I'm
like where did that come from? Cuz I
didn't I'll be really honest. I kind of
rush and roulette it. I didn't think
about it much. I just did it.
>> Sure.
>> A lot of them have very specific
references in um in either literature or
movies or films and things. So we can go
over those as we eat.
>> I It's almost like a broshock test,
though. I love the fact that you sort of
just rapid fired it and the ink blot
spilled with like my parents fighting.
>> I did and I and I shared it with my wife
and she's like, "Who are you?" You know,
I don't know that person at all. And I'm
like, "Well, that's weird."
>> Do you consider yourself like a bit of a
proan person? Because I think when
you're asked about your last meal,
right, when you were writing your book,
that was a very personal book and I
imagine you were in a very specific
headsp space when you were writing very
sentimental.
>> That book ended up having a lot of
emotional purge stuff in it. Um, and I I
think that
led me to that. If I if I had been asked
the question about a last meal separate
from that book, yes, it wouldn't it
wouldn't have been the right. It
wouldn't have been the same answer.
>> Well, I cannot wait to eat and mostly
drink.
>> You're eating with me.
>> I'm eating it with you and I'm drinking
it with you. Okay.
>> And I'm going shot forshot, bar for bar.
>> I think it's it's a it's a very
easygoing menu from a from a liquor
standpoint. I mean, it's mostly wine.
We'll sip. We're not shooting.
>> Blind space.
>> There's no there's no there no tequila
shots. Of
>> course. Get some as you'd like.
>> You know, let's see where we go. You
ready?
>> Out. And for the first course of your
final meal on Earth, we have the London
Dry Gin Martini. We have the
Marshallberg Farms Royal Oetric Caviar
with some potato chips and some creme
fresh. If you need backup caviar, we do
have some Kuga right here just in case.
We made the martini with beef eater gin
and then we actually got a dry and a
sweet Italian vermouth. And I know
you're fond of caper berries as a
garnish and so that is what we've chosen
to use. Do we drink now or uh
>> Oh, we drink that. Well, we have the uh
Shopan potato vodka. I've never chased a
martini with vodka. I think it's
probably better to chase the vodka. I've
never had these things offered to me at
the same time.
>> Isn't it exciting though?
>> It's very exciting to me.
>> Is it overwhelming to you or this is
>> Do you ever see the movie uh Moscow on
the Hudson with Robin Williams who plays
a Russian band member who defects to
America when the band is is touring and
he goes into a grocery store in New York
and sees that there's five different
kinds of coffee and then passes out. So
seeing
>> all of these things together in one
place is disorienting. I found that a
great way to orient yourself uh is to
drink a shot of vodka. That tends to be
how I orient myself in the world.
>> This is a different I think chapan is a
is a wonderful. It is potato based
instead of grainbased which I People
will tell me well that doesn't make any
difference. I think it and since it's my
last meal I get to say
>> not going to shoot it.
>> We're not shooting it. We're being very
classy today. So this is from a
sustainable caviar farm in North
Carolina. Right.
>> On the outer banks of North Carolina.
>> Yeah. Do you put it on the chip? Do you
go uh creme fresh or do you just shoot?
>> Well, you know what? Ordinarily
on the ship.
>> Well, it's my last. It's my last meal.
>> You could have freaking leprosy and it
wouldn't matter.
>> And maybe I do. Who's to say? I've been
peeling a lot more than I normally do.
>> Why caviar? There are plenty of luxury
items out there. Uh, and we do have more
coming up on this, but do you think
caviar is actually worth the price?
>> Bad caviar isn't worth
>> Mhm.
>> Great caviar is worth whatever I have.
I've only had full-on beluga a few times
in my life. And it it to me is is
when those little globes burst up
against the roof of your mouth.
>> Can we say?
>> You can say.
>> Okay.
>> Mhm. It's It's like I don't know how I
would use that word.
>> Can we talk about the word? I feel like
I don't get to talk about the word a
lot, but I like that the term was like
very much a Victorian way to be polite
around the idea of sexual climax. And it
was a very like uh shrouded in propriety
way to reach potential. You know what I
mean?
>> Gracious madam, I have arrived. Thank
you. It was a little bumpy there on the
approach, but we arrived just fine. I
want to read you something because as I
was thinking about why I actually did
some of these things. Now, it is my
favorite food on earth before I had ever
tasted caviar. Our English teacher
>> made us read Brid's Head Revisited,
>> which is really not something typically
teenage boys
>> go out of their way to read.
>> Sure.
>> There's this line, I wrote this down
because it really got to me. Uh this
character named Rex. Rex uh finally
pulling the waiter aside and asking for
more caviar, making a bowl with his
giant hands, the best caviar he'd ever
eaten, and then by God, he wanted his
fill. And that really got to me like,
what food could be so good that you were
like, by God, I will have my fill. Cuz
the whole thing is you can never have
enough. You can never have enough uh
caviar um ever in any way. Yeah, but
obviously that caveat is meant as like a
a a metaphor for somebody who's trying
to fill a hole within themselves that
can obviously not be filled by even the
most luxurious of the foods. And then no
coward gets it right, who I studied in
college.
>> Wit
ought to be a glorious treat like
caviar. Never vulgar, never plentiful,
always precious. So the fact that you
can never have enough caviar is the
whole point. Sure. And then there's the
point that it comes from a dinosaur
because most people agree that the
sturgeon when you talk to oceanographers
and paleontologist like this is a
dinosaur. This is older than sharks. It
has been alive unchanged for eons and
still mercs around in the depths. Have
you ever like seen one?
>> They're monsters. Yeah.
>> You know, they're they're 12, 13, 14t
long. And so there's something about
being connected so eerily to a to a
dinosaur like that. I find interesting
>> going back to the term vulgar in that
caviar should never be vulgar much like
whit I think they're talking a lot about
the context in which you eat foods right
to eat it out of your hands is vulgar to
eat that with the mother of pearl spoon
we're adding all of these things to
increase its sort of sacrality in a way
and I think the martini is something
that has this very sacred incantation
>> oh yes
>> to it you know what I mean and I know
the martini had a very sacred place in
your life when you were a kid watching
your dad make martinis
>> he taught me how to make martinis by the
time I was five there's a section of my
new live show and I'm not just shilling
the live show and even eating the val
tickets on sale now that that comes out
of the fact that I realized that my
entire culinary thing came out of my
father teaching me how to make martinis.
Um and then also as he started to make
different drinks for me that did not
have alcohol in them. All the crazy
flavors he put together changed and
opened up my my brain and my pallet.
>> He used to give you tastes of the
martinis he was making it though.
>> Yes, he did.
>> And he would say that one day you'll
like this. And he said when? He said
when you're a grown-up. when you're a
grown-up,
>> was there a point where you felt like
you were finally a grown-up?
>> The first thing I did when I turned uh
drinking age in the state of Georgia,
which had gone to 19 by the time uh
well, I was 18, then I went to 19 and I
kind of chased it. Then I went to 21. I
got my only suit on and I I went down um
we have this very tall hotel in Georgia
um in Atlanta, the Petri Plaza Hotel.
Used to be the tallest hotel in the
world and has a spinning restaurant on
top which I thought was the pinnacle of
class. And um I went for the express
purpose of getting a martini because I
figured I'm grown up now.
>> Yeah.
>> And it was
freaking disgusting. I hated it. And I
left so disappointed. And I realized,
well, I guess I'm not I'm not a
grown-up. And I I hated I I hated
martinis till sometime around the year
2001 or 2002. Um I was in New York. I
was I was working on I was on Food
Network because I was there. I had a
meeting with, I don't know, somebody at
Food Network and it was very hot. I went
into this bar because I felt the air
conditioning coming out. It was like
somewhere in Midtown. I'm wearing a suit
and I'm sweating and I I I just walk
into this place
>> and I sit down and the bartender looked
at me literally. Young fella,
>> younger than me. He walked he looked at
me and he said, "You need a martini."
And I went, "I do I?" And he's like,
"Yeah." And I'm like,
"Okay."
and he and he made me the martini right
there and he put it in front of me and
it was delicious. Oh my god, it was
delicious. I stayed and had like three
more. I don't even know how I got back
to my hotel. But suddenly, and then of
course I I realized later that, you
know, my dad had said, you know, when
you're a grown-up, oh my god, but I'm
not I'm not a grown-up now. I've made
grown-up choices and decisions and
mistakes, but I don't think of myself as
a grown-up.
>> Obviously, the martini didn't change.
Surely it could have been made better,
but I don't think it changed.
>> No, that wasn't it. It was my taste.
It's my taste. Of course. Yeah. Well, do
you think your taste change? Like I I
tend to be somebody who um with all due
respect to all the food science that you
taught me when I was watching your show
growing up, I tend to see the poetry and
things versus the science. Right.
>> And you're right to do so. You are right
to do so.
>> Interesting. Despite the fact that one,
we we uh cook the French fries um to try
and increase the uh starch
retrogradation
uh uh of it all by using your method of
>> this. This is um this is this is my
recipe from uh Everyday Cook.
>> Yes. Yes, it is. Hell yeah, brother.
>> Did your taste change or did you enter a
new era of your life where you finally
felt like you were able to be your own
person?
>> These are little light out on the salt,
but it's California. I understand.
So, you know how bad I wanted to put a
cigar at the end of this meal?
>> I don't know if we have a cigar. We can
probably go to Camel Crush somewhere.
>> Listen, I've always said if I make it to
80 years old, I'm going to do a pack of
camels a day and learn how to do heroin.
I mean like at that point I'm doing
everything flying planes blindfolded I'm
doing um so your your your question do
you do you like anything that you would
have either as a child or our tastes do
change right cuz you're right we we were
born to taste things to keep us from
eating poison
>> yes but also I was somebody who was
drinking black coffee by the time that I
was 8 years old because I knew that I
would have to grow very very fast and I
thought that that was my gateway to
doing so I've had to retach myself
>> I've had to retach myself to find
pleasure in certain things like a
sweeter coffee because now I associate
with infantilism in certain ways.
>> So you used black coffee as armor
>> 100%. Um but I very much spent a lot of
time alone, spent a lot of time reading,
spent a lot of time asking myself
questions. I get the sense that you were
somewhat similar spending a lot of time
alone. The fact that you have so many
literary references seems to indicate
that you were bouncing a lot of ideas
off your own head and off the page.
>> Everything um with me um came from my
father dying sudden very suddenly at a
at an early age. I was 10.
>> You're 10? Wow.
>> I was it was right um on the last day of
sixth grade. Mine not his. he had
graduated um and he died under very
mysterious circumstances which I was
left to grapple with um and never got
answers uh for until fairly recently
which has really me up good. Um it
doesn't matter back when my father died
it was before the day of or we're going
to get you therapy whatever it was like
your dad's dad go play in the yard. Um,
and so I I discovered the TV show MASH,
which ran through my entire teenage
years. And the whole reason that I
glombmed onto MASH, is because after a
day of trauma, Hawkeye and his buddies
would go back to their tent named the
swamp and drink martinis as a defiant
act against the lack of sophistication
and reason and civility and humanity.
And so I glombmed onto this as a symbol
because of that. And because I was so
desperate to keep my father alive
>> and on stoal matters, Bond villains.
>> Bond villains. I always wanted to be the
villain, not Bond.
>> But you had an interesting mix of role
models to sort of fill that gap. Alton,
do you know who I had?
>> Tell me. I want to hear this.
>> I was a Latchki kid. My dad didn't pass
till I was 19, but I didn't see my mom
after I was 14. And schizophrenia really
started to set when she was 10, but I
was alone
>> when she was 10 years old.
>> No, sorry. When I was 10 years old.
Yeah,
>> I was going to say
>> and that was normal.
>> And she went deep.
>> No, but I I was uh at home uh and just
watching network for 6, seven hours a
day waiting for my dad to come back from
his, you know, second or third job.
>> And I had people like Rachel Ray and you
and Clay
>> being those um you know, you were the uh
surrogate father. Uh, you're
>> papa. Oh my god.
>> Are you going to take care of me when
I'm old because my daughter's sure as
hell not going to do that?
>> Uh, we can find you a nice home. Uh, one
of the real good ones. It's like a
college.
>> But actually, this isn't a laughing
matter. I'm trying to trivialize it and
haha it off so they don't have to delve
in to the fact that you found
um solace, connectivity,
>> and
home.
>> 100%. Yeah. I internalized not the love
of food, but I think the reciprocal of
that as in I viewed food as something
that could be neglected because I didn't
grow up with anybody cooking for me. It
was a really like forge for yourself if
you could find a dollar, go to the
McDonald's and get, you know, a double
cheeseburger. So for me, I saw other
people with loving parents cooking for
them and I was like, "Oh, that's
something that I want at least if I'm
watching."
>> So it was aspirational from an
emotional. It was emotionally.
>> Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, but I snuck away
and I was so afraid of burning the house
down that I kept it on the lowest flame
possible. It probably took me 20 minutes
to cook this margarine logged grilled
cheese. But I remember
>> I want to know why. First off, why
grilled cheese?
>> One, it was probably all we had in the
house, but two, it's I mean, grilled
cheese is uh probably something that I
saw another mom cook for their kid. It
was one of those it's one of those
comfort foods. You know,
>> I took grilled cheese sandwich off of my
last meal list.
>> No way.
I thought that you would think it was
too kitschy.
>> You thought that I would think that
thought I personally royal eye
>> No. No. You
>> interesting.
>> No. I thought that you would think that
it was too kitschy.
>> Wait, so some amount of this last meal
is meant to impress me in a way.
>> No, but it's meant to not embarrass me.
>> What's the difference therein? And what
would be the greatest embarrassment for
you? Was it it would it
>> to be shown as
plebeian? Look, when when people live to
be my age, we're supposed to be like
guideposts of like sophistication. But
the truth is, here's the reason is
because grilled cheese sandwich hits too
close to things I don't want to talk
about. Uh that is a very
>> and I only I went back and I looked at
my original list which was extremely
child-oriented. It was like develed ham
and blah blah blah and I like oh my god
what you want to you want to drink
Hawaiian why do you want Hawaiian punch?
You know I my first list was very
nonaspirational. It it is in fact the
only food that I can think of and you
may you may call me out on this. I may
be wrong that absolutely never
disappoints.
It's up there.
>> Melted cheese pulled out between the
bread is food.
>> Yeah, it it is food. I didn't I did not
want to deal with the vulnerability
of talking about that food.
>> For the second course, your final meal
on earth, we have the Hokkaido uni
gungaki. And then we have three cushi
oysters. We have the junai sake. We also
please no for me. Skirt yourself. I'll
take it. We have the entire tray of
Hokkaido uni for you to do what you
would like. We have the forchome and the
vayon shabli. Then of course we have the
junai sake. We could not um get the
exact one that you wanted but with
threeear age. Junai, you're free to
leave if you'd like. I will eat the
oysters if you go.
>> This is extraordinary.
>> What do you want to What do you want to
do first?
>> I I think I'd like to pour you some
sake. I think that's uh that's probably
the key. Have you spent time in Japan?
>> I never have. I've never been, but I
>> What the Oh, that you should pour the
saki till it overflows in the table.
>> And you have to pour it for whoever else
is drinking it before yourself. You have
got to go. You've got to go.
>> Pops. When are you taking me?
>> Oh, you know what? You want to work this
out?
>> We'll work this out. I will take you to
Japan and we'll do some shows there.
Wonderful. Because the thing about
Japanese culture and food is like
whatever level it is, they strive for
absolute perfection. I'm sorry, I can't
take my eyes. So, you know, you take the
spiniest mother freicker that ever
lived, the sea urchin, and you go into
it and you cut into it and you just take
its gonads out. My daughter is an
attorney, but um she was born the year
that Good Eats came out,
>> and she's often said she's one of two
children. The first place that my
daughter ever went in her little
bassinet was a sushi restaurant.
>> The interesting thing about being a male
and having a child is we don't connect
with them immediately. We didn't carry
them. Yeah.
>> Right. So, we look for these signs of
connectivity which typically have to do
with consciousness. Right.
>> And I was terrified because I wasn't
getting them
>> from from my daughter. And we go to this
sushi restaurant and we put her bassinet
on the floor and I remember my daughter
going
>> like sniffing.
>> Yeah.
Alien from Alien. Yeah.
>> Kind of like that. Um the first bite of
solid food that my daughter had was
sushi.
>> That's crazy.
>> And her whole life
she was like she became a sushi fanatic.
So um when when my daughter graduated
from high school, I told her, "Zoe, I'm
going to take you to Japan and for 10
days you can eat all the sushi you can
hold.
All of it. Everything you want." and she
ate
by herself $8,000
of sushi. So I'm like, I've gotten a
guide that we're going to take us on
this private uh tour through at 4 in the
morning cuz that's when you got to go,
right? We do all this stuff and then the
guide says, "All right, I'm going to
take you to the the uni room.
>> Be next to me. You're you're me and I'm
I'm my daughter and
>> I'm so proud of you for No, no, no, no.
Sorry. Um,
so we walk into the door,
>> right? And there are just skyscrapers of
Hakkaido sushi and my daughter goes
and we just stand there for a while and
she's like, "Take me out of here. She
can't be in there with all that all
that." And so we leave and it was like
it was like this beautiful thing of like
right and she's like dad
take me someplace so I can the vulgar
handful of caviar
>> and in the old market it's completely
ringed by sushi restaurants that only
serve from like 5 to 7 in the morning.
>> That's what they do because they're
serving the workers. And u my daughter
went and consumed approximately 17.4 lbs
of it and that was the end of it. And
now what's funny?
>> Oh that's good.
>> Why you don't drink more?
>> What I love about sake particularly,
it's uh um almost all European wine in
New World, it's like kind of framed by
acid in a way that sake isn't. You know
what I mean?
>> You need to be quiet for a minute.
>> Go ahead. Sh.
It's I mean it's basically like and you
know why that's important because it
tastes like life. We have a rack of
life.
There's a little bit of toazu brushed on
top. So that's a little bit of a a
bonito flake with a rice bin just to get
some extra um um um um um um um um um
umami a little bit of acid. Point sushi
rice.
>> Oh, and we got to get to the oysters. So
these are cushi oysters and then on the
left we have the vion shabli and then we
have the uh forchome shabli.
>> I don't like like wine snob terms.
There's so much that goes on in the
aroma and aroma goes directly to lyic
system you know and so to me wine is
mostly important because of its ability
to connect to our emotions. You first.
>> I take fundamental issue with that claim
but I'll glad. All right. Go ahead. Um,
what percentage of the world had grapes
throughout a majority of humans?
>> Yes, it is specific to each person.
>> 100%. So, for me, I there's a specific
type of restaurant that, God bless these
people. I I I love them. But they have
only become very popular because they
serve a specific type of international
cuisine with European grapes. And I you
are totally correct.
>> Take issue with that. Look, I can talk
culturally,
puritanically about a very few foods.
>> Yeah,
>> most of them served by Tasty Freeze. Um,
I am Appalachin trailer trash from a DNA
level. My code of arms has a propane
tank and crossed banjos. I grew up
thinking wine is sophisticated.
>> Mhm. Of course it is.
>> So, automatically when I go out into the
world, Yeah.
>> I'm going to look to complete that
equation. I'm going to look to affirm
that.
>> Mhm.
>> And for my personal taste buds, it turns
out to be true
80% of the time. But part of that is
because I'm looking for personal
affirmation.
>> Yeah. I'm an affluent, educated white
person.
>> Of course.
>> My smell the chalk.
Is that real? Is it honest? I don't
freaking know
>> yet. It's on your last
>> I know this. I know that. I know this. I
know that every culture that I have
visited,
there's been something to drink that
made the food
add a dimension.
>> 100%.
>> My personal thing with wine, I'm going
to be I'm going to be honest with you,
please.
>> I always wanted to be a yepy.
I wanted to be a yuppy because when I
was growing up, yepies were like we are
the class that is beyond
question, I think. So I automatically
when I was old enough I was like, "Okay,
I'm gonna start learning this." You
know, I'm gonna smell this. This is my
way into food.
>> I wouldn't say your way into food. I
would say your way into yourself.
>> Feeling like you belong somewhere. It's
funny that you reference yourself in the
Food Network ecosystem as like a pool
boy that they let in to service the
club. Totally true.
>> As opposed to your grandfather who
wasn't He didn't drive BMWs. He was a
BMW mechanic.
>> Totally true. That is totally true. In
if if if the Food Network World were the
movie Catty Shack, I would be Bill
Murray. But wine, we all need a
switchboard
>> that allows us to identify across
certain things. And mine started when I
was way too young to drink wine.
>> When did you first start writing in this
notebook to I fill one of these a week.
>> Oh my god.
>> I have approximately 600 of these. Um
because um to me um I have this thing
that you haven't actually experienced
something until you have reflected upon
it.
>> Yeah.
>> And so this particular thing comes from
Hemingway. This and this comes from
something I read long before I'd had
this or this which is Hemingway in his
book Movable Feast. As I ate the oysters
with their strong taste of the sea and
their faint metallic taste that the cold
wine washed away, leaving only the sea
taste, the succulent texture, and as I
drank their cold liquid from each shell,
and washed it down with the crisp taste
of the wine, I lost the empty feeling
and began to be happy and to make plans.
Almost everything in this meal I read
before I tasted. What do you think that
says about you? That's very interesting.
I've never heard anything like that
before.
>> I I I don't I don't know. Um
>> I can proper a hypothesis.
>> Well, please please do. To me, it says
that you spend so much time living in
your own head in the worlds that other
people have created as opposed to the
one that you physically inhabit.
>> Oh, absolutely.
>> Oh, duh. Well, no, not duh. Sorry.
Sorry. I don't I don't mean to like duh
you, but I agree.
>> Yeah,
>> I agree. Which which technically means
that my tastes are all performative.
>> Yeah. Not technically, I'd say
literally. Um but but in this way that I
think we all are
>> literarily
>> that's what he meant to say.
>> Um which means that I'm trying to align
myself with the literature in which I
find meaning.
>> It feels tragic
>> or comic which are so closely
>> they're really the same.
>> But also by the way Shaby tastes really
good with oysters.
>> It really does though.
>> Do we need to know why?
>> I'd say no.
>> We don't. See we don't need to know why.
>> You ready to move on to course number
three?
>> Yes I am. Let's do it.
And for the third course of your final
meal on earth, we have you notice how
I'm stretching this meal out.
>> We have lamb sensers liver. On the
outside is the amaroni. On the inside is
the jabre shamber.
>> So I have not had a bite of lamb in 25
years.
>> Huh.
>> I think lamb to be the best meat.
>> I agree entirely, especially a chop like
this. In 1997,
I worked a lamb slaughter.
I was in meat fabrication class and was
given the opportunity to go work
a lamb spring lamb slaughter.
>> And I was like, if I don't do this,
I'm going to be a hypocrite. Yeah. And
so I did. I went and I spent three days
killing the little lambsies. And I have
not actually put a bite of lamb into my
mouth since that time. To me, eating
this in part of a final meal is to
admit the sacrificial
role
of all meat. It's a sacrifice. What does
that mean in the long run? I I don't
know. We seared it, herb crusted it with
a little bit of breadcrumb as well
whole, and then carved it off the bone.
Let it rest. Served it with a demi and a
little bit of Bloomsdale spinach. Not
the baby spinach. Adult spinach. Baby
sheep. Adult spinach.
>> The spinach. I'm not getting a goddamn
spinach. I'm sitting here in front of
three bones worth of lamb.
>> Would you eat octopus? I know you made
an octopus friend.
>> No.
>> At the Aquarium of the Pacific in
Monterey who reached in, took the pen.
>> Can I get him
>> out of your pocket?
>> I will not eat octopus.
>> But surely these are all the paradoxes
that we live in. Like you could have
>> No, because I never had a conversation
with a lamb.
I watched it put a tentacle up. It went
around my wrist like this and it held
for a few seconds. It let go and then it
immediately with another arm reached up
for the pin in my pocket which had been
established from a previous visit. Iting
remembered I was so messed up from that
I like I said in my book I literally
like excuse me everybody I need to go to
the bathroom. went to the bathroom and
cried like an actual baby for 20 minutes
because that freaking animal remembered
me. Yeah.
>> And it changed everything for me. Why do
you have to bring up octopus and lamb at
the same damn time?
>> I think because you're reckoning with
the morality of your decision to I think
even
>> we decide we decide what we're willing
to lust for. I agree entirely. I think
that is um part of being human. I'm
talking about the idea of decency. Also,
this jav shimmer tent is rad, man. This
rules.
>> I like saying, you know what this wine
tastes like? This wine tastes like wine,
man.
>> Tastes like Hey, tastes like wine.
Really? Tastes like wine.
>> And I don't need to go any further than
that. I'm like, okay,
premier crew, ground crew.
I've never had this wine before. I just
I was curious whether you could get it
or not.
>> We got a good wine guy in the valley,
dude.
>> I know. You probably do. And I'm like,
this is the first time I've actually had
this. asked for it because I wanted it.
Talking about the science and the poetry
of this all food obviously the point is
to nourish both emotionally and
physically. The thing that you can't get
through a screen is nourishment in that
sense. Do you think that food media as a
whole has completely divorced food from
its primordial purpose?
>> Yes.
>> Do you feel
>> not only its primordial purpose, it's
secondary and tertiary purposes? We have
turned food into pornography.
>> We really have. We basically just look
and jerk.
>> It's a bummer, dude. And we're doing it
right now. We're creating the the point.
>> No, I know we're not because we're
telling you because we're telling the
truth through our experience. But the
truth is is that people look at food
more than they experience food. Have you
lately tried to ask someone to describe
what something tastes like to you, you
will find
no one can do it anymore?
>> It's one of the things that when when
people say to me, "How do I get uh my
kids to eat food?" M
>> I'm like, "Okay, get them to explain to
you what things taste like and get, you
know, exchange that." One of the things
my dad did with me when I was young was
like anytime he put something in front
of me, he would like, "Tell me what it
tastes like." He would force me to
articulate. We don't do that anymore
because we have Instagram. We go and we
post the picture. And so what we've
learned is that
>> that connectivity of what does this
taste like? What does this feel like?
What is this like? Let's use words to do
this. And we have lost that. We no we
have sacrificed that. We didn't lose it
like you lost your car keys. We actually
sacrificed it because images are
everything now.
>> I mean sacrifice implies that uh as an
epiric victory something died for
another thing to live.
Do you think I mean like the fact that I
was watching Good Eats and I was
genuinely creating not only meaning for
myself but I mean that this wouldn't
exist without Good Eats and and so many
you know other of your contemporaries.
Do you think that any of the things that
have lived on are worth the things that
we've lost?
>> Let me back up and say make a confession
>> please.
>> Other people that were making shows then
knew what they were talking about.
I was making shows as I was discovering
what I was talking about. People have
said to me, "Thank you so much for
making Good Eats. It taught me how to
cook." And I'm like, "Guess what? Good
Eats taught me how to cook. I was
learning how to cook while I was making
the show. We went together. I I worked
in restaurants. I'm glad for working in
restaurants. You know why? Because I was
glad for the people I was working next
to. I was glad for the experience of
being on the line because never in my
life had I established trust
>> and working on the line is about trust
in a lot of ways. It's about are you do
you have my back? Can I borrow your mis
can I do this for you? Can blah blah
blah. It's about that camaraderie.
>> I think it's the trust that's forged in
fire that can only be forged in that
particular kind of fire as well.
>> Well, we all like to talk about forged
in fire like we're in Vietnam. We're not
going to die. Sure.
>> But I do think that there is something
to be said for the camaraderie of of of
the kitchen.
>> It's forged in a hotter fire than being
at a desk job doing data entry.
>> I remember having this conversation
several times with Bourdain. I'm like,
where would you be if this whole
renegade kitchen thing hadn't have
existed? That'd be nothing. Because
without this whole there's there's the
banking world and there's the blah blah
world and there's the kitchen world,
right? And he helped to, you know,
define that. And I remember saying like,
I I hated it. I hated that life. I hated
that world because it was it underpaid.
It didn't take care of me. It sucked
everything out of me. And he was like,
yeah, but we belonged.
>> We have a census taker's liver.
>> Okay. Where did the liver where did the
liver actually come from?
>> So, we got a calves liver. We believe
this is the closest thing to an actual
human liver. So, we've taken a cal's
liver and we've uh seared it very
quickly. Try to leave a little bit of
medium trace on a little bit of onions
and fava beans. And this is a reference
to the silence of the lambs as uh
portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in the
movie, but another literary reference.
There's something about liver. It tastes
it hits close to home.
I mean, it's literally visceral. I have
never eaten a piece of liver that didn't
say to me, "You have one of these." So
yes, of course I referenced Hannibal
Lecter, but the reason that I bring it
up is because the difference between the
book and the movie. Well, the book said
Amaron, which is correct, and the movie
that said Keiante, which is not correct,
but familiar.
>> I've never had an Amiron. Oh,
we have another dish. I'm wondering if
you can place.
This dish means a lot both you and I.
Why do you?
>> Why do you?
>> Oh, this is well done. Look at the
viscosity. My best friend in the entire
world of 20 plus years is a Gujarati
Indian and his mother makes gadi and she
makes it in gallon batches and would
keep it in the fridge and he and I would
just after basketball practice come home
and and microwave it microwave it out of
the country croc margarine container and
it opened up the doors of perception for
me for a new world of food that exists.
Now why does kadi mean a lot to you?
this idea that there was this soup, this
yogurt-based soup that could so
completely enclose an entire range of
herbal
majesty
um was an absolute gamecher for me. So
the Kotti um in in this little you know
little motel in South Carolina
um was transformative for me because I
had never been invited
into a meal like that before. Do you
know we're working on this TV show and
we're all on motorcycles and we ride in
to this little town of South Carolina.
We're just looking for a place to stay,
right? And I walk in and we're talking,
me and the producer are talking to this
guy, a really beautiful tall man with a
mustache, Indian man. And we smell
these aromomas.
And I'm like, what? You know what's
what's going on here? And he literally
looks at me and says, "Oh, my wife is
making cotti. Please come join us." And
it's not because the soup was so
amazing, which it was.
>> Yeah.
>> It was the act of hospitality. They they
didn't know who I was. They weren't
like, "Oh, Alton Brown, Food Network
guy. Come in." No, they were just like,
"Please join us for our dinner."
>> And it was the first time in my life
that I realized
that what really makes food matter
is sharing. Yeah. It doesn't matter what
it is. If you have it and you offer it
to me, then my job as a human is to say
thank you and to take
Alton, for the final course of your
final meal on this mortal plane, we have
the pint of half and half, a perfect
peach from the farmers market. A badass
blue cheese. You can have all the Girl
Scout cookies you want. So, this is this
is a Rogue River blue cheese from
Oregon,
>> which I recognize from the the leaves on
the outer side.
>> Yeah, the fig leaves that are soaked in
perilicure. I think this is maybe
>> my favorite cheese in the entire world.
This is actually K's idea though to
source this. So, this is a wonderful
cheese. And then it was also his
decision to poach a pear in pork because
we thought that would actually set
nicely against the lightness of the
sotan to pair with the blue.
Wow.
Well, before I open the tube of Girl
Scout cookies, which is the the the last
barra, the peach
>> peaches were my father's favorite fruit.
And the only time that I remember seeing
a a human adult like move into a
transcendent state over food, which had
a huge effect on me,
>> um was watching my dad eat a Georgia
peach. Now, I know these aren't from
Georgia cuz I can tell by the variety.
That's okay. Um
there is some smell it first. Don't just
eat it.
This is the back of my wife's neck.
When you love something in a kind of
secret way, you find things that other
people don't know. And I think that's
the wonderful thing about food is it
allows a uh
um integration, a connectivity
with the planet in a way that is
singularly yours.
You probably have these and I hope you
do.
and to amplify it. This particular surn
I find the wonderful thing about this
wine is that it turns peach up to 11
>> 12 13.
>> It stretches it out.
I taste angel and I taste devil.
I smell the peach and I smell the wine
and it almost feels like the same
chemical compounds,
but it's like this is this beautiful
lifeaffffirming
something that grows out of the ground
to
to nourish us. And then wine by
definition, alcohol, a poison. And it's
something that shuts off a part of your
brain that gets you to make the rational
choices. And I would argue with all due
respect to my sober friends, it turns on
the part of your brain that makes the
human choices that makes the choices to
smell the nape of your wife's neck and
associate it with the bacterial funk of
a ripe stone fruit where the ethyl
esters are literally causing
decomposition.
>> You said ethyl esters.
They're so good.
>> We're going to be friends. I think that
what you're saying
>> is the best of us rubs right up against
the worst of us.
>> Absolutely.
>> That is what it is to be human. But this
this peach to me would be all like
goodness.
>> Mhm.
>> If it wasn't for this wine, which isn't.
>> Yeah. And that dichotomy, that
juxaposition
is really where we find the wrestling of
what we are.
And I dig that because we are effed up
in so many ways. It's like would you
know who you are without
the disaster of it?
>> No. In a way that I um I almost have to
stop myself from being incredibly
grateful for the disasters. At least
people have told me that I shouldn't be
grateful for the disasters.
>> Well, do you feel that's true? What do
you feel?
>> No. What I actually feel um I hear a lot
of people saying things like you are who
you are and you are successful um not
because of the disasters but in spite of
them and I simply don't believe in it.
>> Nope. You are successful because of
them.
>> I agree with that.
>> There is no in spite. I I don't believe
in in spite of.
>> Yeah.
>> I I believe in because of same
>> and we can overcome it. We can I don't
think I need to overcome it. I simply
need to be in it and be truthful to it
and then try to move to a slightly
different level.
>> We are going to be friends.
>> I got to go. We are. We're going to
Japan next.
>> I mean, if blue cheese isn't isn't a
metaphor, man.
>> It's funny when you taste something
that's rotten against something that
isn't.
>> We couldn't get the Bowmore 21.
>> We got the Bmore 18.
>> You got the 18.
>> Got the 18.
>> I can't even get the 18.
>> I've so enjoyed our time together.
>> This has been a dream. Really
>> scotch is
my particular ODV. Um,
oh god, you can smell the casks. You can
smell the bourbon. You can smell the
cherry.
That's the last thing I taste on this
earth.
>> Mhm.
Okay, I'm setting that down so that I
can eat my entire
I remember being given my first um Girl
Scout cookie by my mom and thinking this
this is everything that I want for the
rest of my life. It was like literally
it's like communion
really. Um
to this day, even though the recipe has
changed many times.
>> Mhm.
This is my only connection left to
childhood.
Everything else is gone. Everything else
has been changed, mutated. This is the
only flavor that I can draw a direct
line back all the way to being like
five.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, has it changed a little bit, but
not by much.
>> Does that make you feel comforted? Does
that make you feel nostalgic? Does that
fill you with existential dread?
>> Existential dread. Where you at with God
these days? I'm like Isaac Newton. I
don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of
him. You know, I was like baptized as an
adult full form, deep immersion, water
submersion in front of a thousand
people. I believe absolutely in God. I
don't know how we find it. Look, there
are people that believe that a trip is
about the destination and there are
people that believe that the trip is
about striving for the trip. I would
like to think that God is about the
striving of the trail, the journey. I
may be wrong. I'm probably wrong. And
I'm scared enough of going to hell to
where I'm willing to say that. No, I
totally am.
>> Cuz I was capital Hell. They could
>> Yes. capital Hell because I was raised
in the Southern Baptist tradition. So,
it's like heaven doesn't sound very
good, but hell sounds reallying awful.
>> Truly the worst of both worlds that you
>> the worst of both. It's like heaven I'm
like what I'm going to sing for a
million years. I don't want to like be
in a choir for eternity singing to but
hell bad.
>> Yeah,
>> bad. I'd rather just die.
>> Sure.
>> Feeling that maybe
I'd done in something worthwhile.
>> Adam, what do you think happens when you
die?
>> Keanu Reeves said
maybe people miss you.
>> Yeah,
>> I think that's about it.
>> I think you're going to have a hell of a
lot of people that miss you. I think
some Girl Scouts are going to miss me
because sales are going to go down when
I die
here. We have to chug our half and half.
>> You're chugging it.
>> Well, look. Two cookies.
>> Okay.
>> How are you doing that?
Jesus.
Okay. Alotcha. They say in Italy.
>> Corona. It means to the boot.
You know,
I have to make it to the airport. I'm
just going to sleep in the office
tonight. Al, you ready to move to the
You ready to move to the lightning
round?
>> Lightning round before I pass out.
>> Jesus Christ. Who's the one person dead
or alive you'd want to share your actual
last meal with? Orson Wells.
>> What song do you want to be played at
your funeral?
>> Oddly enough, it's Billy Joel's scenes
from Italian restaurant.
>> Who's your dream eulogizer?
>> Sylvia Pla.
>> What's your biggest fear?
>> Emptiness.
>> What's your greatest regret in life?
>> Being a shitty husband the first two
times.
>> Finally out. And are you happy?
>> I am.
>> You seem happy. I think you figured a
lot of out in your life, man. That
gives me a lot of hope.
>> Really happy.
>> I'm happy you've been here, man. if you
want to deliver your last words to that
camera right there.
>> I'm actually hoping this is not my last
meal because I'm going to the airport to
get on an airplane if my last meal.
Well, you know what?
If that's happening, if it is my last
meal, I'm okay.
I have shared honestly with the person
who I will now call my friend. I did not
lie.
I'm good. You are good. I mean that in
every sense of the word good. Thank you
so much, Hen.
>> Everybody, make sure to check out Alton
Brown on YouTube. He's a YouTuber now. I
don't know if you've heard. Oh, I know.
>> And make sure you go to alton brown.com.
You got a tour coming to town?
>> Alton Brownlive.com.
>> Brownlive.com.
>> My my new live tour, which is called u
an evening of Alton Brown, not with
Alton Brown. Um is playing in like 5,000
cities.
>> Hell yeah. Go see it. I saw him live
like 15 years ago. It was red.
Is that a great finish? We're out, BABY.
LET'S GET HIS ASS TO THE AIRPORT. OH,
there's a grilled cheese sandwich. Oh,
we have a Somebody made a grilled
cheese. It's the bonus round.
Wait, wait, wait. No, you can't do that.
I have to do one side of it. Go for it.
Okay. Okay. No, you take one. How long?
How far can we go? How far? How far? Uh,
>> follow at Mythical Kitchen for more Last
Meals moments and be the first to know
who our next guest is going to be.