"Seeing ourselves as others see us would probably confirm our worst suspicions about them."
— Franklin P. Adams

"Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good."
— Alice May Brock

"Health food makes me sick."
— Calvin Trillin

"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found."
— Calvin Trillin

"Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist."
— G.K. Chesterton

"Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside."
— Mark Twain

"You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too. And you've got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Jailbird)

"A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch. "
— James Beard

"There is no love sincerer than the love of food."
— George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman)

"He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise."
— Henry David Thoreau

"Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."
— Mark Twain

"All sorrows are less with bread. "
— Miguel de Cervantes

"There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.
"
— M. F. K. Fisher

"You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans. "
— Ronald Reagan

"I am not a glutton - I am an explorer of food"
— Erma Bombeck

"I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food."
— W.C. Fields

"The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook."
— Julia Child

"A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness."
— Elsa Schiaparelli

"After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relatives."
— Oscar Wilde

"Anything is good if it's made of chocolate."
— Jo Brand

"How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?"
— Charles de Gaulle

"Ice-cream is exquisite.
What a pity it isn't illegal."
— Voltaire

"Food, like a loving touch or a glimpse of divine power,
has that ability to comfort."
— Norman Kolpas

"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

"The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness
of the human race than the discovery of a star."
— Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

"The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness
of the human race than the discovery of a star."
— Craig Claiborne

"Nothing rekindles my spirits, gives comfort to my heart and mind, more than a visit to Mississippi... and to be regaled as I often have been, with a platter of fried chicken, field peas, collard greens, fresh corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes with French dressing... and to top it all off with a wedge of freshly baked pecan pie."
— Craig Claiborne

"The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living…"
— Dione Lucas

"The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude."
— Julia Child

"What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow."
— A.A. Milne

"It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one."
— M. F. K. Fisher (The Art of Eating)

"I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work.
Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm."
— Robert Farrar Capon

"Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion."
— Ambrose Bierce

"As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans."
— Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast)

"Cooking is an art and patience a virtue... Careful shopping, fresh
ingredients and an unhurried approach are nearly all you need. There is one more thing - love. Love for food and love for those you invite to your table. With a combination of these things you can be an artist - not perhaps in the representational style of a Dutch master, but rather more like Gauguin, the naïve, or Van Gogh,
the impressionist. Plates or pictures of sunshine taste of happiness and love."
— Keith Floyd

"The gentle art of gastronomy is a friendly one. It hurdles the language barrier, makes friends among civilized people, and warms the heart."
— Samuel V. Chamberlain

"Red onions are especially divine. I hold a slice up to the sunlight pouring in through the kitchen window, and it glows like a fine piece of antique glass. Cool watery-white with layers delicately edged with imperial purple...strong, humble, peaceful...with that fiery nub of spring green in the center..."
— Mary Hayes-Grieco (Kitchen Mystic: Spiritual Lessons Hidden in Everyday Life)

"I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted
most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them."
— Nora Ephron

"A good meal soothes the soul as it regenerates the body.
From the abundance of it flows a benign benevolence."
— Frederick W. Hackwood

"The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight...

[Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells... there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of
meditation in a music-throbbing chapel. that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread."
— M.F.K. Fisher (The Art of Eating)

"I know the look of an apple that is roasting and sizzling on the hearth on a winter's evening, and I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some sugar and a drench of cream... I know how the nuts taken in conjunction with winter apples, cider, and doughnuts, make old people's tales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting."
— Mark Twain

"Seating themselves on the greensward, they eat while the corks fly and there is talk, laughter and merriment, and perfect freedom, for the universe is their drawing room and the sun their lamp. Besides, they have appetite, Nature's special gift, which lends to such a meal a vivacity unknown indoors, however beautiful the surroundings."
— Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

"New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin."
— Mark Twain

"Always serve too much hot fudge sauce on hot fudge sundaes.
It makes people overjoyed, and puts them in your debt."
— Judith Olney

"You may feel that you have eaten too much...But this pastry is like
feathers - it is like snow. It is in fact good for you, a digestive!"
— M.F.K. Fisher (The Art of Eating)

"The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it… If you’re convinced that cooking is drudgery, you’re never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen."
— James Beard

"Cookery means…English thoroughness, French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means the knowledge of all fruits and herbs and balms and spices; it means carefulness, inventiveness, and watchfulness."
— John Ruskin

"Don't let love interfere with your appetite.
It never does with mine."
— Anthony Trollope

"Watch a French housewife as she makes her way slowly along the loaded stalls… searching for the peak of ripeness and flavor… What you are seeing is a true artist at work, patiently assembling all the materials of her craft, just as the painter squeezes oil colors onto his palette ready to create a masterpiece."
— Keith Floyd