SCENE 1
The Kitchen

GUEST: Substitute Host #1

SUBSTITUTE HOST #1: [obviously trying to imitate AB] A wise and learned man once said, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes you might find you get what you need.” I can’t think of a better credo for the kitchen. Who hasn’t found themselves one egg short of an omelet, or missing a crucial ingredient the moment company arrives. The art of the substitution is ...  is ... um ... an art form onto itself. [increasingly hesitant] Um ... Certainly, no sales job is needed to sell you on the substitution. Surely the most ... ah ... sure-fire way to save something from ...  um ... something ...  [exasperated] Good grief!
AB#1: [enters] Cut! Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. "Good grief"? That’s Charley Brown. I do, “Oh bother”.
SH#1: Sorry. I got it ...  [points to his head]
AB#1: That’s okay. Look, the Stones line; that was taste.
SH#1: Hmm.
AB#1: But you need to dial down those alliterations a little.
SH#1: But you do that all the time.
AB#1: Don’t, don’t, don’t interrupt. Um, you know, whether we’re talking about a fifth grade science teacher, a beloved television personality ... [both men turn and mug to the camera] ... or a favorite spice, substitutes don’t have to be the weak link in the chain.
SH#1: [to the camera] And believe me, with a taste of science and a dollop of know-how, even substitutions can be ... [the opening theme does not play]
AB#1: Yeah, look, the real art to this, is, is ...  To substitute something, you’ve got to really understand the thing that you’re replacing. You got to get inside of it, look at it from every angle. And then when you’ve got it, well, you find that [now to the camera] with just a touch of the scientific, and a wafer-thin slice of know-how, even culinary substitutions can be ...

["Good Eats" theme plays]

SCENE 2
The Kitchen

GUEST: David Traylor, Good Eats Crew Member
                 Substitute Host #2

AB#1: [returning from the theme music] Like that.
SH#1: That’s like, exactly what I said.
AB#1: No. If that’s what you had said, then you would have gotten the hokey music and the lame animation. You didn’t, ‘cause, well, you’re just not me. Heh heh. But that’s okay, we’ve got some lovely car wax for you and some instant rice.
DAVID TRAYLOR: [enters and hands SH#1 the prizes and then hustles him away]
SH#1: But ...
AB#1: Don’t worry, I’ll put away the olives for you.
SH#1: I ...
AB#1: Don’t worry.

    [sighs] Back to the drawing board.

    Now, our next substitute “me” won a “Cook Like a Bee” contest, in, um, ...

AB: ... Grand Rapids?
SUBSTITUTE HOST #2: That’s right. But that’s another show.
AB#1: Hey, nice touch. So, what are you going to be substituting today?
SH#2: Well, I’ve always loved your biscuit recipe.
AB#1: Ahh.
SH#2: That show you did with your grandmother was so sweet.
AB#1: Aww ...
SH#2: Now ...  [turns to the pantry]
AB#1: Now?
SH#2: What if you woke up early one morning to bake biscuits and you discovered, to your horror, that you were out of baking powder? [gasps]
AB#1: That’s your substitution? Baking powder?
SH#2: Is that another show, too?
AB#1: No, but it would take, like, half a second. It’s the simplest thing in the world. All chemical leaveners work on the same basic principle that ...  Oh, here, hold this. Just stand there a second.
SH#2: Okay.

SCENE 3
Outside

    [AB holds a model rocket ship with two liquid chambers, separated by a barrier] All chemical leaveners work on the simple premise that when a base and an acid come together in the presence of water, carbon dioxide is released by the reaction. In this case, the base is baking soda—one of the only bases in the culinary world, I might add. The acid: common white vinegar. Let’s see what happens, shall we? [he stands the rocket on end and the soda and vinegar come together firing  the rocket up and off screen] Uh oh. [a fake bird falls to the ground] Oh, sorry.

SCENE 4
The Kitchen

GUEST: Thing

AB#1: Sweet demo, huh?
SH#2: Nah, I was going to do the rocket thing, but I figured it would be talking down to the audience.
AB#1: [a little perturbed] Now ...
SH#2: [tries to imitate] Now ...
AB#1: Stop that! If you want to make baking powder, there are two different types. There is single-acting and there’s double-acting. The double-acting releases gas twice: once, when the ingredients are mixed, and again when they get hot enough in the oven. Tough to formulate in the home kitchen. Single-acting stuff is easy to make. Two teaspoons of it. We’ll need one teaspoon of cream of tartar ...
SH#2:  ...  an acidic powder, which is traditionally harvested from the insides of wine barrels.
AB#1: Well, that’s pretty good. We’ll also need an alkali. We’ll use half a teaspoon of baking soda, the very same kind that went into our rocket. Now, if you mix that up, you will have a single-acting baking powder. But if you’re not going to use it right away, you’re going to want to add another ingredient, half a teaspoon of cornstarch ...
SH#2:  ... which will prevent the powder from absorbing moisture and setting off the reaction prematurely.
AB#1: Very good. And what else would you put that ingredient in?
SH#2: Kosher salt!
AB#1: [disappointed in her wrong answer] Oh ... no. [takes the faux baking powder mix away]. Confectioners sugar. Thing, show her what she’s won.
THING: [hands her car wax and instant rice]
SH#2: [takes the prizes and then notices Thing, screams and falls down]
AB: [to Thing] Don’t worry about it. We’ll ship it.

    You know, bringing up this whole biscuit thing is interesting, because there’s the whole buttermilk to be dealt with. Good substitution.

    Now in recipes, like, say, biscuits—good southern biscuits—buttermilk adds flavor; this is true. But it also provides acid. And that is very important, because a good baking application will be balanced, like an algebra equation. If you’re going to have proper leavening, the acid needs to be balanced with alkali, which you get from baking soda and certainly to some degree, from baking powder.
    Now, what if you go and just say, “I’m not going to use buttermilk. I’m going to substitute regular old milk?” Well, all of a sudden, the equation starts to go out of balance. Everything goes haywire. And your biscuits end up looking like this [shows flat biscuits], and that’s not good eats.

    Although this already contains all the necessary acids to activate our leavening agents, chilling it down a bit will give it time for the acids to denature some of the milk proteins. And that will thicken it a bit which will make it even more perfect for our biscuits.

The word biscuit comes from the Old French word
bescuit, meaning “twice cooked”.

SCENE 5
The Kitchen

GUEST: Substitute Host #3

    Now, next category on our substitution hit list, health subs. That is, substitutions that must be made because of an intolerance, an allergy, or other peculiarity particular to your person. Now, about 90% of all food-related allergic reactions are caused by ...

SUBSTITUTE HOST #3:  ...  milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat.
AB#1: Wow, that is very impressive ...
SH#3: Thank you.
AB#1:  ...  Substitute #3. Now I understand today, you are going to tell us all about, food allergies.
SH#3: Food allergy. Oh. A food allergy is a reaction to the food that the immune system mistakes as a harmful alien invader. To protect the body, it creates hemoglobin [sic, immunoglobulin] antibodies, that react specifically to that food.
AB#1: [softly] Demo.
SH#3: Demo?
AB#1: [softer still] Demo.
SH#3: Oh, demo. Demo. [hands AB a balloon] Hold this. Now, when an invading protein comes along, the antibody recognizes it. [holds up a sock puppet to represent an antibody] Aha! And releases histamine from cells, called mast cells [bursts the balloon with an ice pick which sprays AB with a light dust of some sort]. And I should know, because I’m deathly allergic to shrimp.
AB#1: That’s great, Substitute #3. You know, we’ve got some lovely parting gifts for you ...
SH#3: No, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I used your coconut shrimp recipe, on my own super-colossal, hypoallergenic, shrimp. [pulls out a coconut shrimp]
AB#1: You’re not going to eat that.
SH#3: It’s perfectly safe.
AB#1: But you said you’re definitely allergic ...
SH#3: Nah, it’s fine. [eats the shrimp]
AB#1: You can’t, you can’t ...  [to the camera] Call 911.

SCENE 6
Front Door

GUESTS: Paramedics #1 and #2
                   Substitute Thing

PARAMEDICS #1 AND #2: wheel SH#3 out on a stretcher]
AB: Careful. Careful. Oh, wait, wait, wait a second. Here you go. [AB puts car wax and rice on the stretcher] There you go. Thanks. And don’t you worry about anything. You’re going to be just fine. Probably. Hhh.

SCENE 7
Kitchen

    Unfortunately, there is no straightforward substitute for peanuts or for peanut butter. Their flavor is simply too unique. But if the issue is specifically a peanut allergy and not an all out nut allergy, we can build a flavor profile very close to it by combining three other pastes.

    Tahini is ground up sesame seeds. It’s very common in Middle Eastern recipes like baba gannouj and hummus. It’s usually found in the ethnic aisle. Number three is in the fridge.
    Ever had miso soup at your local sushi bar? Well, it has been flavored with a fermented soybean paste that is called, oddly enough, “miso”, which comes in several colors or grades from white to red to almost black. Now the red type sort of looks like a deeply roasted fresh ground peanut butter and has that same roasty toasty flavor that is so darn hard to replicate. [looking at a slice of coconut cake in the refrigerator] Ahh, you like the looks of that? That’s another show.

    Since we never got around to making this sauce in our epic one-hour adventure, “Down and Out in Paradise”, and since our last guest–well, I don’t think he’ll be cooking today—I figure, what the heck, let’s take a batch for a spin.

    And there you have it. A fragrant and spicy peanut sauce that doesn’t contain a single peanut. It’s perfect on beef satay, chicken satay, even weiner satay. And of course, there’s the aforementioned coconut shrimp, which will absolutely ...

SUBSTITUTE THING:  [ST is a gripper rod, it holds up a coconut shrimp]

    Oh look, I didn’t know that we had a Substitute Thing today. How delight ...

T: [holding a mallet, menacingly]

    Oh, oh.

T & ST: [descend below the table, and do battle]
AB: Hey hey hey, hey.
T: [re-emerges and takes the coconut shrimp from AB]

    Well, I guess there are some things that you just can’t substitute. Hah hah. Excuse me.

An estimated 1.5 million Americans have peanut allergies.

SCENE 8
The Kitchen

GUEST: Substitute Nutritional Anthropologist
                Deb Duchon, Nutritional Anthropologist

    [AB looking at the FN's webpage, The Chewy] Well, I can see the original chewy chocolate chip cookie application calls for two and a quarter cups of bread flour. Now bread flour contains more protein than all-purpose flour. And that means that when it’s mixed with wet ingredients, more gluten is created. And that gives the cookies considerable chew.
    Now replacing it. Now, starch makes up most of the volume of flour and replacing that ought to be pretty simple. We will go with a combination approach. Brown rice flour has a pleasant flavor, especially in applications calling for brown sugar. But it’s a little on the gritty side and tends to make for crumbly baked goods. Now we could smooth that out to some degree with corn starch which is very smooth stuff. The starch in tapioca flour gelatinizes at a lower temperature than the starches in either rice flour or corn starch and that will help to create a pleasantly chewy tooth and a nice rise. Tapioca flour is used widely in various ethnic cuisines, but I wouldn’t know about that because I’m not a nutritional anthropologist. But, uh, I know someone who is.

SUBSTITUTE NUTRITIONAL ANTHROPOLOGIST: [she is a beautiful, long curly blonde] Well, Alton, cassava has long been a staple in South America, Meso-America, and the Caribbean. The Portuguese took it to their colonies in Central Africa, where it thrived, and soon became the most important food in the slave trade. Other names for cassava include “yuca”, “maniok”, “mandioca”, and “aipim”. There are two main varieties: bitter, and sweet. Although the sweet form can be eaten without further processing, the tapioca we use is made from bitter cassava, which contains cyanogenic glycosides. That can cause prussic acid poisoning if not processed correctly.
AB: [enamored] Absolutely ...  fascinating!
SNA: Nutritional anthropology is my life.
AB: And it shows. This ...  You see. This substituting thing can really work if you just go about it right. Of course, substituting this flour, it means that we’re going to have to also substitute the protein structures. And that will mean, well ...  come here, come here.
    [now at a giant model of a loaf of bread] When you look at any baked good, be it a cookie, or a gigantic loaf of bread, what you see, the mass, is mostly starch. But, if you could look inside, you’d see that the real structure—[to SNA] come here, come here—is protein. Gluten holds everything up, like framing on a building, and it also helps to hold together the fat and water in an emulsion, so to speak.
AB: So, what do you think of my model. Pretty sweet, huh?
SNA: [not impressed] Mmmph.
AB: Uh, yeah. So, what would you replace this structure with?
DEB DUCHON: Xanthan gum!
AB#1: Aaaah! Deb!
SNA: Who is she?
AB: Cleaning lady! [to DD] Go away! Come back tonight!
DD: Cleaning lady? [to SNA]I’m the me you’re trying to be, curly!
AB: And you know what? I think we should give her every opportunity. [to SNA] You go ahead.
SNA: Xanthan gum was discovered back in the 1950’s when scientists at The Department of Agriculture discovered that a bacterium found on cabbage plants, called ...
DD:  ...  Xanthomonas campestris ...
SNA: Thanks.  ... could be fermented in corn syrup to produce a ...
DD:  ... polysaccharide, that can actually be used to stabilize emulsions and suspensions. And when added to bread or gluten-free baked goods, can actually add volume and viscosity and structure, much like gluten.
DT: [enters carrying the prizes, hands them to AB]
AB: [to SH4] Listen, um, thanks for coming. Um, I’ll call you.
SNA: Don’t.
DD: I’ll see her to the door. We wouldn’t want her to GET LOST!
AB: No, no, we, we wouldn’t.

    I realize it sounds a little on the alien side, but xanthan gum is actually pretty simple to find. A lot of megamarts carry it in their baking sections. You can certainly find it in health food stores. And then, of course, there’s that whole world wide web thing.

Other gluten-free flour substitutes include garbanzo
beans, teff, sorghum & quinoa flours.

SCENE 9
The Kitchen

GUEST: BA

    Next, you must chill your batter for one hour in the refrigerator. If you don’t, the cookies will spread unattractively on the pan. You don’t want that.
    Hour’s up. Time to scoop. I like to do six two-ounce portions on each half-sheet pan, or on a cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper. I find that this sure is the best way to do this.

    When the cookies are done, pull them out and let them cool on the pans for two minutes, before transferring to cooling racks.

    Mmm. I dare say this cookie is better than the original. And so we see that sometimes, substituting can lead us to a better place than we were in the first place.

AB: [enters from behind] BA! What are you doing here?

[we are now left with the conundrum of whether we
have been listening to AB or BA for the whole show]

BA: [puts on sunglasses] Parole.
AB: Listen, bro, there is no way on earth that you can substitute for me.
BA: Oh yeah? Watch this. [replaces his shades with AB glasses, to the camera] Well, I hope we’ve inspired you to look beyond the recipe and into the kaleidoscope of culinary possibilities made possible by the artful substitution. Whether you’re trying to avoid a last-minute emergency market run or a trip to the Emergency Room, substitutions can be good eats. See you next time.
AB: [waves]

[closing credits]

SCENE 10
Outtake?

[continues from previous scene]

BA: [holds up the car wax prize] Car wax?
AB: No. Thanks.

Transcribed by Michael Roberts
Proofread by Michael Menninger

Last Edited on 08/27/2010