Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Good Eats: The Return’ On Food Network, Where Alton Brown Continues Showing How To Make Classic Meals Better

There was a time when Alton Brown’s Good Eats was shown on Food Network five or six times a day, and for good reason: The network had a treasure trove of episodes with the affable and knowledgeable Brown showing people how to make basic food the right way, and — the most important part — why his methods worked so well. After a eight-year hiatus, Brown has brought the show back, entitling it Good Eats: The Return. Will it change to meet the demands of the today’s time-challenged home cooks?

GOOD EATS: THE RETURN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Alton Brown stands in front of an American flag, about to introduce the dish he’s going to deconstruct in this episode: The humble chicken Parmesan.

The Gist: Anyone who’s familiar with the original run of Good Eats from 1999-2011 knows that the flag represents a dish that originated in the United States. Chicken Parm, an American dish? Absolutely, says Brown; while the basic tenets of the dish originated somewhere in Italy (Maybe in Parma, maybe in Sicily), but as he walks down a street in what used to be New York’s Little Italy, he describes how the eggplant-based dish changed to veal and chicken as early 20th century Italian immigrants to New York found that they could afford meat to a degree they never could in the old country.

But is there a way to make a chicken parm that doesn’t have watery sauce, gummy cheese and gluey chicken coating? Brown explains why the traditional recipe, which was adapted from the layered eggplant parm, just doesn’t work for chicken, and sets out to make a chicken parm that’s crispy and flavorful. But first he has to find tomatoes for his sauce. To get San Marzano tomatoes grown from the actual region, he tries to get smuggled-in cans of tomatoes, but runs into his old nemesis Koko Karl (Bret Hansard), who tries to peddle “certified” San Marzano tomatoes that may or may not be from the region.

Brown shows the audience in his own quirky way — via his signature close shots, and cameras mounted in fridges, ovens and cabinets — how to properly butterfly and pound out a chicken breast, how to broil the pasty tomato sauce to generate flavor via carmelization, and how salt and vinegar potato chips help give the crust some extra crunch.

Our Take: The reason why we wanted to review Good Eats: The Return was simple: It was one of our all-time favorite Food Network shows, and we were pretty sad when Brown decided to end the show’s 12-year run in 2011. In the interim, Brown would host shows like Iron Chef America, Cutthroat Kitchen and other competition shows on the network, but none of them displayed his nerdy charm quite like Good Eats did. Brown reveled in showing America why the dishes and ingredients they’ve eaten for ages are prepared all wrong, and gleefully backs up his assertions with (gasp!) actual science.

But he always did this with a sense of impish glee, employing characters in mini-sketches and a self-deprecating air that drew viewers in. There’s a reason why, late in its run, Good Eats survived as Food Network turned away from “dump and stir” cooking shows to competitions and Guy Fieri-hosted restaurant profiles; it was a fun, simple show that kept people interested.

And eight years after the show’s original run, Brown, slightly older and thinner, picks up right where he left off. The show might now have refreshed graphics and is presented in HD, but the structure of the show hasn’t changed: Make a historical case about why a food is so popular, have some fun via characters and mini-sketches, then show a way to prepare the food that brings out all of its potential.

Watching the first episode brought a smile to our faces because it gave us a reason to tune into the Food Network again. We’re not sure why Brown brought the show back now, but we’re glad he did. Like Trading Spaces, it reminds us of a time not all that long ago when channels like Food and HGTV had simple, low-budget shows driven more by personality than by food porn or fake conflict. With people cooking at home more than ever, and meal services like Blue Apron and Plated thriving, there’s a need for someone like Brown to show people how to make the most basic meal so much better, so Good Eats: The Return should get a decent-sized audience.

Parting Shot: Alton Brown sits down to eat his completed chicken parmesean (duh!). Though, given the fact that he’s changed his eating habits over the past decade, notice he didn’t take a bite of it.

Sleeper Star: We always loved the factoids that pop up before each commercial break, like this one: “Chickens often accompanied Roman armies. If a chicken ate before a battle, it was believed they would be victorious.”

Most Pilot-y Line: We want to see Brown’s recipe for schmaltz! When he teases other recipes (“That’s for another show”), it always drives us nuts.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Alton Brown hasn’t missed a step with Good Eats: The Return. In fact, watching it will feel like the show never left the air, which is always a good thing.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Good Eats: The Return on Food Network