Good Eats: American Classics I: Spinach Salad

Sifting through his many cookbooks, Alton has come up with a few hundred recipes he calls American Classics. He's done this because foreign cuisine has made recent inroads that threaten classic American cooking, and Alton wants to take steps to preserve it. He withdraws from a spinning drum a single card bearing the name of this episode's classic: Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing. With a few detours to “Pennsylvania” and Harry's Farmers Market, Alton explains the history of each ingredient and how they came together to make this classic. He show two different ways to prepare it, one suitable for immediate consumption, and one that will last longer, suitable for buffets.

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Episode Info

Episode number: 10x20
Production Number: EA1019
Airdate: Wednesday April 18th, 2007

Writer: Alton Brown, Rob DeBorde

Guest Stars

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Recap

Alton opens standing before a large American flag. He notes that over the last few years songs have extolled the virtues of much that is American – but not food. Classics of American cuisine have given ground before foreign competition, and to Alton, that's bad. The flag lifts into the sky to reveal Alton's kitchen, and on the counter a drum of the sort used in raffles. Alton has culled sixty or so classic American recipes from various sources, and their names now tumble freely inside the drum as Alton turns its crank. He'll choose one of these, and without using strange characters or bizarre props, he'll... at this point a caveman pulls a model cow decorated with the names of beef primals past the camera, as Alton watches bemusedly. As he spins the drum further a flying saucer on a wire zips by, accompanied by sound effects. Finally, Alton stops spinning and reaches into the drum. Extracting a card, he faces the viewers and declares that today's American classic is... and the Good Eats theme plays...

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Episode Notes

Cards

Peeled, hard cooked eggs can be refrigerated in a sealed container of cold water for up to a week.
In America in the 1930s and 1940s spinach was a slang term for nonsense.
Most mushrooms continue growing after they are harvested.
The major spinach growing states are California and Texas, where spinach grows best during mild winter months.

Locations: A buggy in (“Pennsylvania”); Harry's Farmers Market (Atlanta, Georgia); a mushroom farm in "Pennsylvania."

The Food Network site and program guides refer to this episode as “American Classics I: Spinach Salad” but the title displayed at the beginning of the episode reads simply “American Classic I”

A note during the egg discussion reminds viewers, “Never leave home with small electrics on.”

Music

Artist	Song Title	Played When
Sammy Lerner	Popeye the Sailer Man	Alton, as Popeye, discusses spinach nutrition

Episode Quotes

Alton: In moment, I will reach my hand into this hopper, and whatever I pull out will get the full Good Eats treatment, meaning that we'll fuss and fidget over every detail as though our lives depended on it. And what's more, today there's not going to be any of that funny business – no stupid characters or hokey... (a caveman walks by pulling a model of a cow with the names of beef primals written on it) ...special effects. Nope, we're just going to make a down, dirty honest... (a model of a flying saucer drifts by with a whir) ...cooking show. Let's get to it. Today's American classic is... (Good Eats theme plays)

Alton: I think the traditional cauldron of boiling water is a, too violent for egg cookery. Too much heat is transferred to the shell and that can result in rubbery whites and grainy, dark tinged yolks, and that's a bad thing. Is there an answer? Yes! The electric kettle.

Alton: The word “bacon” has different meanings depending on where you are. In Europe, bacon usually refers to one half of a fattened pig. In Ireland, Canada, bacon refers to cured meat from the loin on the back of the animal, but here in the United States we're talking about side meat, taken from between rib number five and the hip bone. It is then usually cured, usually smoked, but sometimes smoked without being cured and sometimes cured without being smoked.

Alton: If you went with the thick cut bacon, then you can completely ignore the next thirty seconds of this program. But, if you went with the slab bacon, and I certainly hope you did, it could be a little on the slimy and slippery side, so take a little precaution for cutting.

First Amish Farmer: I believe thoust got thine salad in my mushrooms...
Second Amish Farmer: I'm sorry, but I believe thoust has got thy mushroom in my salad...

Alton: (Alton is trapped on a playground merry-go-round) Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!

Alton: Well, food fans, I hope that you have found our first American Classics episode to be a tasty one. As for our next episode, well... We'll just have to wait and see what issues forth from the great Spinning Cage of Culinary Chaos. Whatever it is, rest assured it will be Good Eats!

Episode Goofs

Alton discusses “centrifugal force” in connection with removing water from spinach leaves. In fact, the physical property at work here is simply inertia, a property of all objects that have mass. In motion, they prefer to move in a straight line; a device like a merry-go-round (or a salad spinner) forces their motion to describe a circle, instead. The pseudo-force that results from this can be exploited to do a lot of things, such as remove water from produce, with the right equipment.

Cultural References

Alton's appearance and speech in front of a United States flag, coupled with the title of the episode, calls to mind George C. Scott's speech as General Patton, from the 1970 film Patton. This speech has been the subject of many parodies and homages since the film's release.

The two “Amish” farmers who collide, mixing salad and mushrooms, are a parody of a series of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup advertisements that ran in the 1970s. In these ads, a person carrying chocolate would collide with a person carrying peanut butter, and the pair would then discover how good these two tasted together, much as the Amish men do here.

Stuck on a rapidly spinning merry-go-round, Alton yells, “Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!” This lament originally came from George Jetson, who takes his dog Astro for a walk on a kind of treadmill during the closing credits of The Jetsons. When Astro takes off trying to chase a cat, the treadmill speeds up and poor George cannot keep up, eventually being sucked into the mechanism and spat out the other end several times, all the while yelling for help from his wife Jane.

Alton eats spinach and then transforms into a muscular “sailor man.” Specifically, Popeye the Sailor Man. Invented in the early twentieth century, Popeye often ran afoul of Brutus in his attempts to woo heartthrob Olive Oyl. To compensate for the fact that Brutus was so much bigger and stronger, Popeye would consume canned spinach, causing his muscles to pop put (sometimes inset cartoons depicted them containing powerful turbines or other energy sources). Thus energized, he would then make short work of the hapless Brutus. Alton's costume, pipe, and bizarre pronunciations are exactly those of the cartoon icon.

Episode References

For more about cleaning mushrooms, see Myth Smashers.

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