quotations about cooking
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
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
A good cook has great power to assuage grief by his art.
MOUCHY
attributed, Day's Collacon
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 cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W.C. FIELDS
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Wine Lover's Soul
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
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
Do not taste food while you're cooking. You may lose your nerve to serve it.
PHYLLIS DILLER
The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes
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
Mother doesn't cook, Ignatius said dogmatically, She burns.
JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE
A Confederacy of Dunces
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
There is not a good or a bad cuisine, just the one you like the best.
FERRAN ADRIÀ
book signing, Sep. 29, 2011
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
Cooking for others had often been my way of offering care. So why, when I was alone, did I find myself trying to subsist on cereal and water?
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
"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
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
Sascha had decided she liked cooking. Unfortunately, cooking didn't like her back.
NALINI SINGH
Branded by Fire
The saddest thing in life is to marry a woman who looks like a cook--and isn't.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
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