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Good Eats: Kinda Blue
In the winter, it’s hard to find blueberries, which is a shame, because they’re delicious and very nutritious. Alton solves that problem. He also offers Blueberry Buckle, a delicious coffee cake that can even use frozen blueberries. It’s the best thing Alton can think of for breakfast except... pie. Specifically, Frozen Blueberry Pie. And, for those who wonder why there are no blue beverages Alton offers Blueberry Soda. Along the way, he slips in some lessons on the history of blueberry cultivation (with help from a nutritional anthropologist) and the vitamins and other benefits of eating blueberries.
| 10/10 (2 Votes cast) |
Episode Info
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Episode number: 11x11 Production Number: EA1108 Airdate: Wednesday November 14th, 2007 |
Recap
In the produce section of a local mega-mart, there is a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke and suddenly, Alton is there, warning a strangely wired helmet and standing on a machine constructed from an old bathroom scale. The scale’s balance arms are calibrated in months and other dials adorn it. Leaping off, Alton accosts a nearby customer, asking when it is! The man tells him it’s summer and he’s ecstatic, dancing around peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, heirloom tomatoes, avocadoes, and the berries... raspberries, boysenberries, marionberries, “those round things over there” and of course... blueberries. Equal parts tart and sweet, blueberries, Alton says, are tiny little time bombs of flavor...Read the full recap
Episode Notes
Cards
- Native Americans called the blueberry the “star-berry,” due to its ruffled, five-pointed calyx.
- The first buckle recipe on record is from Elsie Masterton’s 1959 Blueberry Hill Cookbook.
- British WWII pilots were said to have better night vision because they ate jam made from blueberry’s close cousin, the bilberry.
- Tapioca flour is a starch made from the root of the cassava or yuca plant.
Locations: Happy Berry Farm, Six Mile, SC; Whole Foods Market, Atlanta, GA; Atkins Pharmacy, Marietta, GA.
The episode takes it’s name from the blue color of blueberries, the subject, and from the fact that in the initial scenes, Alton is “blue” (unhappy) because blueberries aren’t available in the winter time – a problem he solves during the episode.
Amylose is a giant molecule composed of linearly joined glucose units that form a sort of helical chain. Amylopectin contains many branches and looks more like a tree. Specific enzymes polymerize glucose in specific ways for storage by plant and animal cells; which form a particular plant’s starch takes depends on the relative quantities of enzymes its cells produce.
Following the production company logo, we see Alton drain the last dregs of his blueberry soda. As the camera pans out, we see that he is now a child! The restorative properties of blueberries, he says, are a real time machine!
Episode Quotes
Alton: Blueberries... bursting with aroma, flavor, and a... a color found nowhere else in the food spectrum. Equal parts tart and sweet, each berry a tiny little time bomb of juicy goodness, waiting to go off!
Alton: If we can figure out where to find them, when to find them, and how to maximize their culinary potential, we will never have a case of the blues! (He boards his time machine.) And now... to go... back to the... (Good Eats theme plays).
Alton: What are you doing here? All right! Which one of you at home said, “nutritional anthropologist?”
Deb Duchon: That guy, there... naugahyde chair, green pants.
Alton: Yeah, well... (through megaphone) thanks a lot, Mr. Talks-to-his-television!
Deb Duchon: That guy, there... naugahyde chair, green pants.
Alton: Yeah, well... (through megaphone) thanks a lot, Mr. Talks-to-his-television!
Alton: All right, Blue Team, Red Team... I want you to grab your snakebite kits and head over to the wood line. We’re going to pick in the forest. Let’s go!
Alton: Remember, cake flour is a fine mill, and it will compact a great deal and that will throw things off, so... I really would weigh it, if I were you.
Alton: There you see all the little nooks and crannies that give the buckle its name. You know, I just can’t think of anything better for breakfast, unless... pie!
Alton: Yes, homemade dough would be best. But I’d rather you make your pie with store bought dough than to not make your pie at all.
Alton: If, in an act of craven greed, you were to breach the crust [of the hot blueberry pie] and accost the cooling mass below, you would be punished! Because if it shifts even a little while it’s hot, the filling will not jell and you would be left with blueberry soup! How do I know? Trust me. I know.
Alton: A wise man once asked, “Where’s the blue food?” Well, I ask, “Where’s the blue beverage?”
Alton: Be it winter, spring, summer or fall, there is no reason you can’t enjoy fresh, or nearly fresh, blueberries all year long.
Young Alton Brown: Now that’s what I call a time machine!
Cultural References
Alton’s appearance at the beginning of the episode – white coat, dark goggles, frizzed hair – suggests the character of Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) from the three Back to the Future films. Brown, a stereotypical mad scientist, devised the flux capacitor that made time travel possible. Alton's time machine, built on more of a budget, uses a bathroom scale and not a DeLorean as its framework.
Alton, describing the buckler, asks America to “riddle me this.” This catchphrase is usually associated with long running Batman foe, The Riddler. Gifted with a twisted sort of genius, the Riddler’s fatal flaw is his obsessive need to leave clues for Batman. Often he introduces these with some version of the phrase, “Riddle me this, Dynamic Duo...” Although the Riddler’s clues are usually obscure and often misleading, Batman’s own intellect always pierces the conundrums to reach the mad puzzle man’s plot.
Comparing cake to pie, Alton suggests pie reminds one of Huck Finn. Amercian writer Samuel Langhorn Clemens (aka Mark Twain) created Huckleberry Finn in 1876 for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The character, perhaps based on someone Clemens knew growing up, fled a drunk and abusive father, and shared in his friend’s adventures. Alton also says pie reminds him of Aunt Bee. Aunt Bee was a supporting character in The Andy Griffith Show. The paternal aunt of Sheriff Andy Taylor, she ran his house and was effectively a maternal influence for Opie Taylor, Andy’s son. Among her many homemaking skills was the ability to bake delicious pies.
Episode References
Alton also used frozen blueberries in season two's Urban Preservation I: Jam Session
He shared another method for quick freezing fruit in season six's Strawberry Sky when he froze strawberries with dry ice.
Analysis
A nice outing that explores a number of facets of the blueberry, including ways to store them for extended periods and ways to use them even frozen. Considering the growing body of evidence supporting the nutritional value of anthocyanins like those that give the blueberry its color, this episode is a worthy entry that offers several tasty ways to get the berries where they'll do the most good!
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