quotations about cooking
What the modern bride doesn't know would fill a book--a cookbook.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W.C. FIELDS
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul
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
There's a battle between what the cook thinks is high art and what the customer just wants to eat.
MARIO BATALI
Humanities, 2004
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
ALEXANDER POPE
Imitations of Horace
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
The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.
JULIA CHILD
attributed, Recipes from Historic New England
'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
It must be hard to cook if you anthropomorphisize your vegetables.
BILL WATTERSON
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
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
"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
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"
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
There is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.
MARY FRANCES KENNEDY FISHER
Conversations with M. F. K. Fisher
Bambi--see the movie! Eat the cast!
HENRY KELLY
Daily Telegraph, Feb. 26, 1994
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
In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.
JULIA CHILD
New York Times, Nov. 26, 1986
If you're preparing a dinner for friends or a holiday dinner, make sure to only prepare recipes you are comfortable with and have cooked before. Cooking for others is not the time to try out a recipe for the first time. You end up spending all your time in the kitchen instead of enjoying your company.
RACHEL RAY
QVC Quisine eNewsletter
Oh, I adore to cook. It makes me feel so mindless in a worthwhile way.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
Summer Crossing