"There's not a tradition here of people saying, 'You know, I just bought that chicken and it wasn't very good,'" Kimball says. "There's no tradition of that because there's no taste memory of saying, 'I grew up with a certain food and I know what it's supposed to taste like.'"

Leonard had his own "Test Kitchen" revelation last year, watching the hosts explain how to avoid something that he had never before realized was avoidable: soggy biscuits on fruit cobbler. (Don't just plop the dough atop the fruit and bake it all at once! Bake the biscuits separately.) "ATK" shines at such moments of epiphany, offering the viewer a sense that a better culinary world is possible.

"The best e-mails or notes are when people say, 'I could never cook, and I've always been a failure at cooking, and I started reading Cook's or I watch your show, and now, I actually cook and I like to cook, and the stuff's coming out,'" says Kimball. "It does give them something, confidence that they can actually do this, and they start doing more of it. That's my goal, of course. I'm insidiously trying to get everybody to go back in the kitchen."

On the other hand, "Good Eats" host Alton Brown is out to entertain more than to edify. In each episode of his show, using a variety of conceits (from morning talk show to detective story), Brown focuses on a type of food (from yellow cake to egg to barbecued pig) and explores ways to turn it into "good eats." Jokes, from subtle to slapstick, complement his focused and hyperarticulate commentary.

"My first and foremost goal is to make a half-hour of entertaining television," Brown explains. "That is the No. 1, all-time, best kind of compliment, which is that I'm making a family television show that's not boring or pablum."

But he's still teaching. Using more science than his "Test Kitchen" counterparts, Brown moves smoothly between theory and practice in every scene. Both shows throw out conventional wisdom when a cheaper, better or faster option seems obvious. Brown goes further, improvising ingredients and even equipment more often. Why buy a grill when you can make one from hardware-store parts? And at every step, we learn the chemistry and physics of the process, and thus how to vary the instructions to produce a different result. The "Test Kitchen" is a dedicated committee, but Brown is a crabby and brilliant tinker.

Brown does create unconventional dishes using the principles he's induced, inspiring his followers to do the same. (Leonard's inventions include date-fudge baklava and ice cream with strawberries and balsalmic vinegar -- both of which are much tastier than you might think.) But Brown, like the "Test Kitchen" cooks, focuses on improving familiar dishes. He says he's a "hacker, not an inventor."

"I don't have a great creative mind. I am not the guy that's going to say, 'I am going to create monkfish liver tureen with kumquat compote truffled with ...' I just don't think that way," he says. "I'm not hungry for new things. I'm hungry for good versions of things I've already had! I'm about, 'Man, let's get a better hamburger. Let's have a better slice of pizza. Let's have better bread. Better coffee.'"

Brown and Kimball seek neither novelty nor authenticity but rather aim for good food via a non-onerous recipe. If "Iron Chef" is fantasy and the pretty-chef shows are food porn, "America's Test Kitchen" and "Good Eats" are science nonfiction. Instead of an elite arena for high priests, the kitchen, as they see it, is another lab. And they make for excellent lab partners.

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