Alton Brown thinks most kitchen gadgets are ‘Useless’—but here’s what every home cook should have

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Ah, kitchen gadgets. They look sleek and cool. Plus, they save us time, sweat and tears as we labor long hours in the kitchen, right? Well, maybe not so fast. “Good Eats” host and cooking connoisseur Alton Brown has come out strongly against most of these modern culinary marvels. In fact, he told “Food and Wine” exactly what he thinks about the latest, greatest gizmos for gourmets.

“Ninety-nine percent of things that people buy in the kitchen, they don’t need,” Brown said in the interview. “The kitchen is the room most full of useless crap.”

Oh, say it ain’t so, Alton! Even the incredible Instant Pot, which has taken the kitchen world by storm? Brown said while the trendy multi-function cooker does what it promises, he wonders why it’s necessary.

“I’ve got a pressure cooker and these other tools that I know how to use,” he said in the interview. “Why am I going to learn how to use another thing?”

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Instead of the latest gadget, the popular food show host recommends spending our kitchen dollars on higher quality essentials every cook should have: a pair of top-notch knives and a few good pots and pans. And, for those people who raise their eyebrows at spending hundreds on a knife, Brown has a challenge. Instead of blowing a bunch of money on a collection of cheaper gadgets, simply save up for the good stuff.

prep the asparagus
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“It’s funny, we’ll say, ‘Well, I don’t have $400 to spend on a knife,'” he said. “Well, yeah, but you bought six blenders in the last year and all these other ridiculous tools that don’t do anything for you. We tend to go for the quick fix in the kitchen, which I don’t believe in.”

Here’s something else Brown believes in: remaking his successful “Good Eats” television series. Brown is in the process of rebooting the entire series with new episodes. But, fans may need to wait until the host tweaks some of the classic episodes first.

Alton Brown photo
Getty Images | Ilya S. Savenok

He told Food and Wine about making changes for 13 of his original episodes for the reboot, “Good Eats: Reloaded.”

“Let’s face it, some of those shows are 18 years old, and I look at some of them now and I’m like, Oh crap, I really wish I had done this instead of this,” he confessed. “I’m going back and making those repairs.”

“Good Eats: Reloaded” made its return to TV on the Cooking Channel on Oct 15. The new series, called “Return of the Eats” will debut on the Food Network sometime in 2019.

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About the Author
Marie Rossiter
Marie is a freelance writer and content creator with more than 20 years of experience in journalism. She lives in southwest Ohio with her husband and is almost a full-fledged empty nest mom of two daughters. She loves music, reading, word games, and Walt Disney World.

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