quotations about cooking
If god had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn't have given us grandmothers.
LINDA HENLEY
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Grandmothers
Cookbooks have all become baroque and very predictable. I'm looking for something different. A lot of chefs' cookbooks are food as it's done in the restaurants, but they are dumbed down, and I hate it when they dumb them down.
MARIO BATALI
Food & Wine interview
My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, Make 'em Laugh: The Funny Business of America
I cook to inspire my husband to pay attention to me.
SONIA RUMZI
Simple Conversation
'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.
What dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook?
How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,
And serve it thus to me that love it not?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Taming of the Shrew
I really don't limit myself in any way. I just search for great flavors and marriages wherever they come from.
GEOFFREY ZAKARIAN
interview, Rappler
What we need is a big big cooking pot
Big enough to cook every wonderful
Beautiful, trust worthy, lovely idea we've got
HAPPY MONDAYS
"Harmony"
If you are not working in a fast food restaurant or bakehouse, the same dish will never turn out in exactly the same way twice.
PHILIP DUNDAS
Cooking Without Recipes
To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a “home” might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation.
EMILY POST
Etiquette
Mother doesn't cook, Ignatius said dogmatically, She burns.
JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE
A Confederacy of Dunces
The repetitive phases of cooking leave plenty of mental space for reflection, and as I chopped and minced and sliced I thought about the rhythms of cooking, one of which involves destroying the order of the things we bring from nature into our kitchens, only to then create from them a new order.
MICHAEL POLLAN
The Omnivore's Dilemma
We may live without poetry, music, and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
He may live without books--what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope--what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love--what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?
OWEN MEREDITH
Lucile
Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way.
PAUL THEROUX
Sir Vidia's Shadow
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
I think preparing food and feeding people brings nourishment not only to our bodies but to our spirits. Feeding people is a way of loving them, in the same way that feeding ourselves is a way of honoring our own createdness and fragility.
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Bittersweet
Cooking is revelation and creation; and a woman can find special satisfaction in a successful cake or a flaky pastry, for not every one can do it: one must have the gift.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
Second Sex
'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
ALEXANDER POPE
Imitations of Horace
There is not a good or a bad cuisine, just the one you like the best.
FERRAN ADRIÀ
book signing, Sep. 29, 2011
One of the delights of life is eating with friends; second to that is talking about eating. And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends. People who like to cook like to talk about food. Plain old cooks (as opposed to the geniuses in fancy restaurants) tend to be friendly. After all, without one cook giving another cook a tip or two, human life might have died out a long time ago.
LAURIE COLWIN
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen