COOKING QUOTES IV

quotations about cooking

I wish my stove came with a Save As button like Word has. That way I could experiment with my cooking and not fear ruining my dinner.

JAROD KINTZ

Who Moved My Choose?


You may say, "Oh, no. You can't touch a traditional recipe." But we ask: why can’t you? Back in 1350, a vinaigrette was a stew, so we ask, why not? This can be applied to any kind of cooking, and that's the shocking part of it. It kind of bends all the traditions. It's a good thing.

FERRAN ADRIA

interview, Toronto Life, Mar. 13, 2014


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


A good cook has great power to assuage grief by his art.

MOUCHY

attributed, Day's Collacon


Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way.

PAUL THEROUX

Sir Vidia's Shadow


Unless you live alone in a cave or hermitage, cooking and eating are social activities: even hermit monks have one communal meal a month. The sharing of food is the basis of social life, and to many people it is the only kind of social life worth participating in.

LAURIE COLWIN

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen


I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.

W.C. FIELDS

attributed, Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul


There is not a good or a bad cuisine, just the one you like the best.

FERRAN ADRIÀ

book signing, Sep. 29, 2011


Do not taste food while you're cooking. You may lose your nerve to serve it.

PHYLLIS DILLER

The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes


The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.

ALEXANDER POPE

Imitations of Horace


It is the art of cooking that makes the distinction of man and the lower animals; and a good cook who has a thorough knowledge of his art, should be entirely devoted to the gratification of taste, and the preservation of health.

M. UDE

attributed, Day's Collacon


No one here will be surprised to hear me say that the Promethean fire which first raised humanity above the animal was the cooking fire.

BRIAN STABLEFORD

The Last Supper


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


"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


Just remember--it's always a good idea to follow the directions exactly the first time you try a recipe. But from then on, you're on your own.

JAMES BEARD

The Best of Beard: Great Recipes from a Great Cook


The saddest thing in life is to marry a woman who looks like a cook--and isn't.

EVAN ESAR

20,000 Quips & Quotes


If anything goes wrong at the table, the cook is forever dishonored; he survives not the disgrace; let him welcome death.

VATEL

attributed, Day's Collacon


Cooking is like poetry, a combination of ingredients, ideas and concepts in no particular order. If your creativity is influenced by what you've read, eaten or seen cooked, then it's a good thing, something to be applauded.

PHILIP DUNDAS

Cooking Without Recipes


Because cooks love the social aspect of food, cooking for one is intrinsically interesting. A good meal is like a present, and it can feel goofy, at best, to give yourself a present. On the other hand, there is something life affirming in taking the trouble to feed yourself well, or even decently. Cooking for yourself allows you to be strange or decadent or both. The chances of liking what you make are high, but if it winds up being disgusting, you can always throw it away and order a pizza; no one else will know. In the end, the experimentation, the impulsiveness, and the invention that such conditions allow for will probably make you a better cook.

JENNI FERRARI-ADLER

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant


No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.

LAURIE COLWIN

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen