Alton Brown

The kitchen's a laboratory, and everything that happens there has to do with science. It's biology, chemistry, physics. Yes, there's history. Yes, there's artistry. Yes, to all of that. But what happened there, what actually happens to the food is all science.

Although I don't take myself very seriously, I do take my work extraordinarily seriously.

A home cook who relies too much on a recipe is sort of like a pilot who reads the plane's instruction manual while flying.

You know we fixate on the food so much itself: “Oh, the ultimate brownie or the ultimate this or that” -- well, let me tell you something: It’s all poop in about 12 hours, okay? The real power that food has is its ability to connect human beings to each other -- that’s the stuff right there and, to me, everything else is secondary to that.

Cooking is an observation-based process that you can't do if you're so completely focused on a recipe.

Everything in food is science. The only subjective part is when you eat it.