This chef thrives on playing with his food

When Alton Brown arrives for a lunch meeting sporting motorcycle duds and heavy stubble, it’s hard not to imagine he’s about to launch into a comic sketch from “Good Eats,” his popular Wednesday Food Network series. (Check listings for frequent additional airings.)

Maybe it’ll be “Greasy Rider,” an episode about frying foibles, or a pork-related half-hour called “High on the Hog.”

Nope, turns out the 42-year-old cable celebrity is just in the middle of a typically busy day. During the last year, in addition to hosting “Eats,” Brown has provided color commentary for an Americanized special based on the Japanese cult hit “Iron Chef,” and he’s put the finishing touches on his latest book, a guide to baking due out in the fall.

And, of course, whenever he can, he draws large crowds with his personal appearances and book signings around the country.

“When you make a TV show for cable, you achieve a kind of quasi-celebrity,” he says dryly. “Ten percent of the population thinks I’m Elvis, while the other 90% have no idea who I am.”

The Los Angeles native, a former theater major, worked behind the scenes on commercials and corporate films until his disappointment in what he saw as a lack of imagination on television cooking shows prompted him to take action.

“I was frustrated watching the cooking shows, because they weren’t really teaching me anything,” he says. “A lot of the shows on PBS were just trying to sell cookbooks. It was all recipes.”

“I remember watching a show by Ming Tsai that was about cooking monkfish liver, and I’m thinking, ‘Where am I supposed to find monkfish liver? What does this have to do with me?’ A lot of chefs make shows to highlight their restaurant. Well, I don’t have a restaurant.”

What he did have was an idea for a show that would dispense practical knowledge about the science of cooking and, after attending the New England Culinary Institute to polish his skills, he and producer-wife DeAnna concocted the concept for “Good Eats.”

“I think [the Food Network] bought ‘Good Eats’ because it wasn’t just a ‘plop and stir,’ as we call it,” says Brown of the show’s launch in 1999. “It looked different and quirky. But what people respond to is its practicality.”

Starting with “Steak Your Claim,” Brown began to crank out funny, often downright subversive half-hours characterized by punny titles (“Mussel Bound,” “Ear Apparent”) and a visual style that was part Ernie Kovacs, part “Ask Mr. Wizard.”

Operating in something of a vacuum in the show’s suburban Atlanta production offices, Brown had no clue that he was riding a rocket until he went to his first book signing, also in Atlanta. He recalls fretting on his way to the store that no one would show up.

“We went into the store and I didn’t see a line of any kind, anywhere,” Brown says. “A guy from the store came up, and I said, ‘I’m sorry, let’s just get this over with, and I won’t take up any more of your time.’

“He pointed up to a balcony level I hadn’t noticed, and there already were 770 people waiting for me. I looked at my wife and said, ‘Oh. My. God.’ We went upstairs and my brain kind of just melted. It was just a very humbling experience.”

Fans seem to appreciate the sardonic wit that underscores almost every episode, including Brown’s personal favorite, a show on garlic seen from the perspective of a visiting (but unseen) vampire, Count Vlad. “I have a thing for comedy that comes out of physical violence. A lot of people, including myself, do a lot of suffering during most episodes.”

His penchant for breaking down the process of what happens during cooking also makes “Good Eats” a magnet for computer geeks, Brown has discovered.

“Somebody at Wired magazine described me as a food hacker. I didn’t know what that meant at first, but the more I learned about hackers, I understood that, yeah, it’s about figuring out what you need to get someplace and also figuring out other ways to get there. I embrace that.

“I know I’m lucky that I am living at a time when I was able to customize my resume in such a way as to be singularly suitable for a job. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t remember that. Generally, one’s 15 minutes of fame are over about the same time that one becomes too big for one’s britches.”

John Crook writes for Tribune Media Services.

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‘Good Eats’

When: 10 to 10:30 p.m. Wednesdays

Where: Food Network

Rating: Unrated