The World's Fair

Chemical & Engineering news has a profile of Food Network guy Alton Brown. (Did you know the Food Network is about the only family-friendly station I can ever find? True story. Ergo, I've seen Alton Brown before.)

If you've not seen him, Brown's "presentation style [is] a combination of Julia Child, British comedy troupe Monty Python, and Mr. Wizard." He's influenced in part, he says, by James Burke's Connections and he uses a lot of multi-syllabic words. Like multi-syllabic.

Extended excerpt below the fold:

He believes that the interest in molecular gastronomy detracts from a larger issue that ought to be addressed and one that he cares greatly about: the exposed weaknesses in our nation's food safety net. "One of the places where America has really damaged itself is food," he says. "When you look at the map of the Escherichia coli spinach outbreak [in September 2006], every one of those affected states can grow commercial spinach. What business did California have feeding all those states spinach? If you can't cook chili for yourself, you deserve cans that explode on your shelf."

Brown doesn't believe that food should be globalized. "You can't have food systems on a global scale that don't break down. [The U.S. Department of Agriculture] was established as a support organization for the agriculture industry--it's not a police force. There is no way to keep a global food system safe. It can't be done and it shouldn't be done. It's bad for economies, bad for the planet, and bad for humans," he says.

He is a big fan of farmers' markets and having access to locally grown, seasonal foods. As recently as two years ago, no farmers' markets existed in Brown's community in the Atlanta suburbs. Now, 500 consumers come through because they're connecting fresh food with local farms, and buying food locally empowers them to ask questions about the food that is sold.

The rest is here. (Along with all of you, I suspect Rachel might take a particular interest in it.)

Thanks to TMN for the link.