Alton Brown Revealed The Most Common Misconception About Southern Food

Food Network star Alton Brown is Southern through and through. He grew up in Georgia, where he studied film in college and still lives today — and where his hit show "Good Eats" was filmed (via Good Eats Fan Page).

He created the show because he thought cooking-TV shows in the late 1990s was boring, per Bitter Southerner, and he quickly became well known for taking a scientific and pop culture-obsessed approach to his ingredients. He even dedicated an entire episode of the show to digging up the truth behind common culinary myths, such as adding oil to pasta water and not washing mushrooms.

Brown also regularly divides Twitter with his Culinary Truths or his hot takes on subjects ranging from how much garlic is too much to his legendary disdain for kitchen gadgets that only do one job (via NPR). When it comes to his native Southern food, there's another major truth Brown wished more people would stop getting wrong.

In a recent interview, Alton Brown revealed one major thing people always get wrong about Southern food. "This whole Southern food thing that's all about 'Woo! Let's eat some fried food and fried chicken and have us some bourbon' is pretty much what's been made up by people," he said (via AL.com). "Most of Southern cuisine is agrarian. It comes out of vegetables. It comes out of crops. And people don't think about that or sometimes remember that."

The food Brown really eats also reflects his view of Southern food. While he's said some of his favorite foods are fried chicken and biscuits, he also eats plenty of nutrient-rich produce and legumes like avocados, chickpeas, and leafy greens. And he does have a soft spot for bourbon and whiskey — two of his go-to drinks are Old Fashioned and Boulevardiers, he told Eater.

In the Bitter Southerner interview, Brown spoke more pointedly on the dangers of reducing Southern food and culture to a stereotype. "I do not appear Southern. I'm not Larry the Cable Guy or Paula Deen, nor do I seem to fit that," he said. "I would say that one of the things that makes me Southern is that I appreciate living in a culture that embraces its darkness as well as its light. I don't want to forget slavery. I don't want to forget the bad things we've done because those are the things we have to live with."