quotations about cooking
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
If god had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn't have given us grandmothers.
LINDA HENLEY
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Grandmothers
Even a miser does not refuse meat to the cook.
EFIK
attributed, Day's Collacon
Drink while you cook. Make it fun.
GWYNETH PALTROW
My Father's Daughter: Delicious
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
Mother doesn't cook, Ignatius said dogmatically, She burns.
JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE
A Confederacy of Dunces
In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.
JULIA CHILD
New York Times, Nov. 26, 1986
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
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
Bambi--see the movie! Eat the cast!
HENRY KELLY
Daily Telegraph, Feb. 26, 1994
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
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
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
I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W.C. FIELDS
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul
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
"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
When people think science and cooking, they have no idea that it's not correctly expressed. We're actually applying the scientific method. People think chemistry and physics are science, but the scientific method is something else.... It's the science that the world of cooking generates: science of butter; science of the croissant.
FERRAN ADRIA
interview, Toronto Life, Mar. 13, 2014
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