Thursday, March 13, 2008

Good Eats on the Volga River

I am a big fan of Alton Brown. And of his books I'm Just Here for the Food and I'm Just Here for More Food. And of his show Good Eats. It's a clever cooking show that highlights and stresses the science of cooking, and how that can help you cook, so you're not just following recipes. (Same thing goes for the books.) Although the books and show seem to be based around On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee, (also an excellent book,) they're much more fun to read and watch! The show is really amusing - often/usually in a geeky sort of way.
Anyway, part of the genius of the show is the music and its clever composer, Patrick Belden. There's a very basic theme song:

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But Patrick modifies this music slightly for each episode. For example, "The Egg Files" intro music parodied "The X-Files" intro music:

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Elsewhere in various shows the background music is part of various parodies, etc.
In any case, imagine my surprise when I watched "Pressure" and I heard this during the intro:

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That's right - The Volga Boatmen, yet again! Of course, unlike the Batman episode which used the music, or the Loony Tunes episode, this Good Eats episode had nothing to do with Russia or the Volga river at all. But, always interesting to hear how this tune has infiltrated American culture.

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