‘Twas the Night Before Good Eats

I am a fan of cooking shows. It’s a bit odd since I have the palate of a five year old. I’d never eat most of what I see on the shows, but I still enjoy them. The best cooking show of all time is Good Eats. There’s no arguing that. It is the best.

This year is the tenth anniversary of the show’s hour long holiday special, “‘Twas the Night Before Good Eats.” It’s a quality episode. I watch it every December. It’s very loosely based on A Christmas Carol. Alton Brown is visited by four spirits, St. Nicolas, Charles Dickens, Uncle Sam, and the sugar plum fairy. Each one has Alton resurrect a traditional Christmas dish. He winds up preparing wassail, duck (but only because Americans don’t eat goose), oyster dressing, and sugar plums.

If you’ve never watched Good Eats, this episode has everything that made the show great. There’s the jokes (Goose sat behind Maverick), the silly costumes, the campy acting, and the viewer actually learns a lot along the way (oysters became a traditional Christmas dish because December is when it gets cold enough to transport the oysters inland). I encourage you to check it out.

True to form, I wouldn’t eat any of the dishes prepared on the show if you paid me. That doesn’t stop me from being completely entertained by it. I’m glad it’s become part of my holiday tradition over the past ten years. And it’s not even the best Good Eats Christmas episode. . .