The Raw and the Cooked Quotes

“A number of years ago I had the notion that I wished to write a poem as immediately fascinating as a recipe or a dirty picture. Fat chance. Art is in no position to duke it out with our baser appetites, appetites that are the cornerstones of our individual pyramids; art is only the pointed, three-comer capstone, signaling finally what we had in mind. Meanwhile, down at the bottom, it is clear that instincts toward sex and food must be aesthetically satisfied, or the pyramid is the usual garbage heap. It is also clear, in a historical perspective, that our current, most active generation-those between twenty and forty-is laying a giant fiber-laden, aerobic turd of greed on the history of the republic.”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“Fast food is zoo food.”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“keep getting asked by letter and on the street by Jane and John Does dressed in spandex how they can prepare simple “gourmet” dinners in ten minutes so as to prolong, presumably, their cross-training and spritzer-drinking binges, massage and colonic appointments, drumming and marriage-counseling sessions, and tarot-card swap clubs. An easy answer here. Scoop ample quantities of Skippy on two paper plates. Handcuff each other and then slam your faces down into the plates with gusto. Good for the gluteus maximus. And it will bring you together at the sink, plus you won’t have to violate your space by answering the phone. Back to the”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“Much earlier in this century an Austrian journalist, Karl Kraus, pointed out that if you actually perceived the true reality behind the news you would run, screaming, into the streets. I have run screaming into the streets dozens of times but have always managed to return home in time for dinner-and usually an hour early so that I can help in the preparation.”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“Of course there is nothing so immediately rewarded in America, in the arts, entertainment, or public life, as a shrill and limited consciousness.”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“A few weeks ago, passing through my grocer’s, I bought a packet of dehydrated French’s pork gravy. The label noted that this gravy was award-winning. Since I have never won an award, who am I to question this gravy?”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“Birthdays are [soul chasers,] ghost bounty hunters that track you down to ask [the usual question], “Qué pasa, baby?”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“Birthdays are [soul chasers,] ghost bounty hunters that track you down to ask [the usual question[, “Qué pasa, baby?”
(The Raw and the Cooked)”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“At my cabin I got so jumpy after saving my young heroine from three older men who resembled my friends that I flipped and conceived of a highly illegal meal, a thirty-pound elephant's asshole shipped FedEx from Zimbabwe, cooked for three days in a rock-lined fire hole in a bleached gunnysack soaked in 151 rum, to which is added thirteen pounds of garlic and an equal amount of fresh hot chiles. Serve with plain white rice. A Bordeaux is a possibility.”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand

“—Søren Kierkegaard”
― Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand