quotations about cooking
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
In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.
JULIA CHILD
New York Times, Nov. 26, 1986
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
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
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
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
If cooking becomes an art form rather than a means of providing a reasonable diet, then something is clearly wrong.
TOM JAINE
London Daily Telegraph, Oct. 19, 1989
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
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
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
Sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.
TERRY PRATCHETT
The Fifth Elephant
Like all disciplines where information is shared and work contributes to their advancement, cuisine should be no different. The kitchen is our life, and we are available to share. We want to share our work so that future generations can cook and create a more efficient, easy and unquestionable quality.
FERRAN ADRIA
The Vancouver Sun, Mar. 4, 2014
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
There is not a good or a bad cuisine, just the one you like the best.
FERRAN ADRIÀ
book signing, Sep. 29, 2011
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
CHINESE PROVERB
The saddest thing in life is to marry a woman who looks like a cook--and isn't.
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
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