Good Eats: Use Your Noodle II

Alton’s nephew Elton is supposed to finish a school project about the Founding Fathers, and when he gets to “stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni” Elton asks about the song. Alton’s answer veers into a discussion of Macaroni and Cheese. Frustrated when a macaroni maker he’d ordered didn’t arrive, Thomas Jefferson designed his own machine and his cook mixed its product with cheese sauce and cheddar, making the first macaroni and cheese. Alton then shows his nephew how to make his own Baked Macaroni and Cheese. Like the convenience and flavor of the box varieties? Then Alton’s Stove Top Mac n Cheese is for you. And finally, in the unlikely event you’ve got leftovers, Alton explains how to turn them into Next Day Mac and Cheese “Toast”.

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Episode Info

Episode number: 5x11
Production Number: EA1E10
Airdate: Wednesday April 03rd, 2002

Writer: Alton Brown

Uncredited

John Herina As Elton Brown Recurring	Vickie Eng As W Recurring
Merrilyn Crouch As Marsha Brown Recurring

Main Cast

Alton Brown
As Himself

Recap

Alton’s nephew Elton visits. Alton has entertainment lined up but Elton faces a looming school deadline. Alton offers to help but Elton’s mother has warned him that Alton’s not so good at school projects. Alton asks what ‘his dear sister’ would do and Elton recounts a tale of how she made cookies from around the world for geography class. Alton won’t be outdone by Marsha! He demands to know the topic! Elton reveals that it is “The Founding Fathers.” Eventually the conversation turns to a song: “Yankee Doodle Dandy” that British wags scribbled to ridicule the colonists. In the song the word “macaroni” captured the essence of the upper class twit, a popular pejorative of the eighteenth century. But to Alton it means “macaroni and cheese,” a delicious dish invented at Thomas Jefferson’s home of Monticello...

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Episode Notes

Cards

The material in Corning Ware was first developed for missile nose cones.
Macaroni and cheese is Ronald Reagan’s favorite dinner.
Archaeological evidence dates the dawn of cheese making at 8000 BC.
Béchamel is one of the 5 French “mother sauces” from which many other sauces are made.
If you can’t find Panko bread crumbs, coarsely chop 2 cups of seasoned salad croutons.
Thomas Jefferson once received a 1,235 lb. wheel of cheese as a gift, giving us the phrase “the big cheese”.
Evaporated milk is basically unsweetened condensed milk.

The FoodTV site calls this episode “For Whom The Cheese Melts 2." In this case, the Food Network has the better title: Good Eats will reuse "Use Your Noodle II" in Season 6. It is possible that "For Whom the Cheese Melts 2" was the intended final title.

“The Big Book of Culinary Lies” makes another appearance here (Elton reads from it). This book appears in a number of episodes, usually in connection with some fact that Alton wishes to debunk.

Music

Artist	Song Title	Played When
Monty Norman	James Bond Theme (remix)

Episode Quotes

Alton: Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni!
Elton: Why macaroni?
Alton: Well, the song was written by the British to ridicule the colonists. The implication is that we were so clueless and unsophisticated that we would stick a feather in our hat and think that we were all dressed up. See, “Macaroni” was the name of this fancy-shmancy dress-up club in London at the time.

Alton: You combine history with some really good ingredients and some science and you get...
Elton: Oh, yeah, Mom told me I had to say this: (unenthusiastically) Good Eats.
Alton: Yeah! Good Eats! (Good Eats theme plays)

Elton: Jefferson didn’t visit Italy until 1807. So macaroni and cheese couldn’t be a comfort food for the fathers at the time they were founding...
Alton: Boy, you’re getting bogged down in details! You gotta keep your eye on the bigger, more marketable picture!

Alton: Corningware. Developed in the [19]50s by scientists at Corning when they discovered that if they took photosensitive glass and put it in a very, very hot furnace, it would convert into an opaque, heat resistant and extremely durable ceramic. Just another happy accident of science!
W: Which is more than your mother can say about you.
Alton: Oh, now that hurts!

Alton: Now that we’ve got the right dish in hand, it’s time to find... the right noodle.

Alton: I never ever, ever cook pasta unless I boil an entire gallon of water.
Elton: Why so much water?
Alton: Well, pasta needs room to move around if it’s going to cook evenly. It needs room to expand; it needs room to release starch.

Alton: It takes more than macaroni and cheese to make macaroni and cheese.
Elton: Why’s that?
Alton: Because, if we just cook that stuff (points to macaroni) together with that stuff (points to cheese) it’ll end up looking like this stuff (points to hideous mess).
Elton: (pulling a face) That’s not good eats.

Alton: It’s the best macaroni and cheese this side of a church social!
Elton: Well, you see... my friends and I like the kind from a box...
Alton: You really know how to hurt a guy!

Elton: Whatcha makin’?
Alton: Something special, my boy... fried macaroni and cheese!

Elton: (accepting a plate of fried macaroni and cheese) Heart attack on a plate!

Cultural References

W, Alton's irascible equipment expert and an homage to the James Bond gadgeteer Q, makes another appearance.

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