The Food Delivery Job Alton Brown Had In College

Chefs do not emerge from the womb knowing how to cook. It's a fact that every celeb who's wielded a knife on the Food Network started somewhere before rising to television fame. For example, Guy Fieri, a chef whose net worth amounts to $40 million, started off selling pretzels out of a cart, per Guy Fieri Foundation This helped fund his education in France. Rachel Ray, who's now worth $100 million, worked at Macy's selling food and candy. Others, like Trisha Yearwood of "Trisha's Southern Kitchen," came from outside of the culinary realm from places like country music, or "nuclear energy policy"  for Ina Garten, per Vox.

Before hosting four Food Network shows and authoring four cookbooks, Alton Brown had humble beginnings in the service industry. Brown still doesn't consider himself a chef, but he is widely known for his scientific approach to cooking. However, when he began his food career, his job site wasn't a kitchen, according to the Gwinnette Daily Post.

Alton Brown has been educating and entertaining Food Network viewers for several decades, but his culinary beginnings didn't have the most glamorous start. Brown was a pizza delivery driver for a restaurant called Sons of Italy, according to the Gwinnette Daily Post. That was back in 1982, before he started delivering helpful, scientific kitchen know-how to televisions. He drove often on Saturdays during busy football game shifts, chasing 35-cent tips.

Before he was famous, Alton Brown also worked as a cinematographer and director, Under the Radar reported. Per IMDVDb the "Good Eats" host was the photography director for an R.E.M. song called "The One I love." Brown became well known in 1999 when "Good Eats" premiered, but the cinematography and production gigs ultimately pushed his career down the path of food and television. He likely learned production skills that help him on set today.