quotations about cooking
The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.
ANTHELME BRILLAT-SAVARIN
Physiologie du Gout
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
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
If god had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn't have given us grandmothers.
LINDA HENLEY
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Grandmothers
Bambi--see the movie! Eat the cast!
HENRY KELLY
Daily Telegraph, Feb. 26, 1994
Even a miser does not refuse meat to the cook.
EFIK
attributed, Day's Collacon
Yet smelt roast meat, beheld a huge fire shine,
And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Drink while you cook. Make it fun.
GWYNETH PALTROW
My Father's Daughter: Delicious
In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.
JULIA CHILD
New York Times, Nov. 26, 1986
I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W.C. FIELDS
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul
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
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
Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way.
PAUL THEROUX
Sir Vidia's Shadow
"Never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink," he said. "Though I guess that presupposes that there is a wine I wouldn't drink."
LEV GROSSMAN
The Magicians
There is not a good or a bad cuisine, just the one you like the best.
FERRAN ADRIÀ
book signing, Sep. 29, 2011
Mother doesn't cook, Ignatius said dogmatically, She burns.
JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE
A Confederacy of Dunces
A good cook has great power to assuage grief by his art.
MOUCHY
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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
Every so often I would look at my women friends who were happily married and didn't cook, and I would always find myself wondering how they did it. Would anyone love me if I couldn't cook? I always thought cooking was part of the package: Step right up, it's Rachel Samstat, she's bright, she's funny and she can cook!
NORA EPHRON
Heartburn