Tongue Quotes

“It's not important whether someone is a gourmet. Everyone wants to eat and knows that food is crucial to live. But everyone has his own special reaction toward food. One person can become so excited about a certain dish that his eyes sparkle and his muscles harden, while someone else shovels in the same dish without paying any thought to what he's eating. A gourmet appreciates beauty. Gourmets eat slowly and thoughtfully experience taste—they don't rush through a meal and leave the table as soon as they're done. People who are not gourmets don't see cooking as an art. Gourmandism is an interested in everything that can be eaten, and this deep affection for food birthed the art of cooking. Other animals have limited tastes, some eating only plants and others subsisting solely on but, but humans are omnivores. They can eat everything. Love for delicious food is the first emotion gourmets feel. Sometimes that love can't be thwarted, not by anything.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“The first change is a realization that I am no longer alone. Even when I'm lying in the dark by myself, I now sense other beings hovering near me. It isn't just me living in this house, but unfinished love and my dejection and anger and dead Paulie, and their miraculous presence feels as real as my fingernails digging into my hand. The second change is that I'm not more obsessed with cooking, like the Roman gourmets and their cherished chefs, who wanted to put all things wonderful or special or new or majestic or strange or scary-looking on the table. The cooks back then knew only how to bake or boil, but I understand how a few drops of pomegranate juice can transform a dish. The third change is that with these first two revelations, my sense of taste has become ever more sensitive and sharp, my imagination richer. When I got my ears pierced and walked into the street in the middle of winter, I become one large ear. All sensation and pain were concentrated in my ears. It's that same feeling. Everything about me disappears and I'm only a pink tongue. This is the time to grow into a truly good chef.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“You don't enjoy cooking if you think of it as a duty.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“If loneliness or sadness or happiness could be expressed through food, loneliness would be basil. It’s not good for your stomach, dims your eyes, and turns your mind murky. If you pound basil and place a stone over it, scorpions swarm toward it. Happiness is saffron, from the crocus that blooms in the spring. Even if you add just a pinch to a dish, it adds an intense taste and a lingering scent. You can find it anywhere but you can’t get it at any time of the year. It’s good for your heart, and if you drop a little bit in your wine, you instantly become drunk from its heady perfume. The best saffron crumbles at the touch and instantaneously emits its fragrance. Sadness is a knobby cucumber, whose aroma you can detect from far away. It’s tough and hard to digest and makes you fall ill with a high fever. It’s porous, excellent at absorption, and sponges up spices, guaranteeing a lengthy period of preservation. Pickles are the best food you can make from cucumbers. You boil vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers, then season with salt and pepper. You enclose them in a sterilized glass jar, seal it, and store it in a dark and dry place.

WON’S KITCHEN. I take off the sign hanging by the first-floor entryway. He designed it by hand and silk-screened it onto a metal plate. Early in the morning on the day of the opening party for the cooking school, he had me hang the sign myself. I was meaning to give it a really special name, he said, grinning, flashing his white teeth, but I thought Jeong Ji-won was the most special name in the world. He called my name again: Hey, Ji-won.

He walked around the house calling my name over and over, mischievously — as if he were an Eskimo who believed that the soul became imprinted in the name when it was called — while I fried an egg, cautiously sprinkling grated Emmentaler, salt, pepper, taking care not to pop the yolk. I spread the white sun-dried tablecloth on the coffee table and set it with the fried egg, unsalted butter, blueberry jam, and a baguette I’d toasted in the oven. It was our favorite breakfast: simple, warm, sweet. As was his habit, he spread a thick layer of butter and jam on his baguette and dunked it into his coffee, and I plunked into my cup the teaspoon laced with jam, waiting for the sticky sweetness to melt into the hot, dark coffee.

I still remember the sugary jam infusing the last drop of coffee and the moist crumbs of the baguette lingering at the roof of my mouth. And also his words, informing me that he wanted to design a new house that would contain the cooking school, his office, and our bedroom. Instead of replying, I picked up a firm red radish, sparkling with droplets of water, dabbed a little butter on it, dipped it in salt, and stuck it into my mouth. A crunch resonated from my mouth. Hoping the crunch sounded like, Yes, someday, I continued to eat it. Was that the reason I equated a fresh red radish with sprouting green tops, as small as a miniature apple, with the taste of love? But if I cut into it crosswise like an apple, I wouldn't find the constellation of seeds.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“There is balance in taste, too, and an unbalanced taste can't captivate the eater. In order to create harmony, you have to think about balance, and to get balance in the kitchen you have to follow seemingly insignificant but crucial rules.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“Vẫn còn một điều khủng khiếp hơn sự chia tay, đó là giữ người kia trong trái tim mình dù cả hai không còn bên nhau nữa. Ý tôi là, có lẽ nó là một phép thử, nếu muốn hiểu ai đó, thực sự muốn hiểu ai đó, nên thử chia xa ít nhất một lần, chỉ một lần thôi.”
― Kyung-ran Jo, Tongue

“Khi mối quan hệ xuất hiện những nứt rạn, người ta thường băn khoăn rằng những người khác sẽ làm gì trong tình cảnh tương tự. Tôi nhận ra mình đang cố sức đến kiệt quệ để thể hiện bản thân như một sinh thể không sợ hãi, như một con thú nhỏ giữa trái đất này. Tôi giấu mình đi, tránh lai vãng những nơi chốn cũ từng tới với anh, không ăn những món chúng tôi từng nấu hoặc ăn cùng nhau, chỉ là không dọn đến mộ chỗ ở mới, vì tôi đã có căn bếp và tủ lạnh lớn đúng như ao ước bấy lâu. Người ta thường bảo chẳng ai mê thích người yêu được đến từng giây từng phút trong suốt cuộc đời, nhưng với tôi thì không đúng. Tôi say mê và vẫn nhìn về phía người tôi yêu mỗi giây mỗi phút được ở bên nhau. Và chưa thể chấp nhận thực tế rằng mình không còn anh nữa. Nỗi buồn thực sự chính là khi một người luôn khao khát mà người kia thì không. Tôi chẳng tìm ra từ nào xác đáng hơn để miêu tả, và không thể diễn đạt được cảm giác này thông qua món ăn.
Bởi có một điều chắc ai cũng biết, về nỗi buồn, là nó rất mực cá nhân, riêng tư hết sức.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“...tình yêu có các vị tàn úa, chín nẫu, thối rữa và đắng ngót.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“Eating is an absolute, repetitive activity. The same as love. Once you start you can't stop. So if you can't eat when you're hungry, it's worse than being stricken with the gravest illness.”
― Kyung Ran Jo, Tongue

“The food I eat in my imagination is more powerful and particular than what I consume in reality, just as a dream feels very real seconds after you awake from it, just as a person thinking about killing someone first tries it out in his dreams. You go over it again and again in the imaginary world because you're deprived of whatever it is you want, because there's something in you that misses it—an unfinished piece of art. Human beings sprint toward pleasure. Unfortunately, they feel pain, a joining of sensations, more easily than pleasure.”
― Kyung Ran Jo, Tongue

“A sated person is different from a hungry one. A hungry one can't be persuaded to do anything, but a full person can be given boundaries and convinced... Like most intelligent and creative people, she knew what she wanted and how to focus her whole being on what she wanted. She wasn't avoiding food, she was using food to get over her fear of eating. It was unspoken, but that was what we both wanted for her.”
― Kyung Ran Jo, Tongue

“Love is like a mushroom—when you harvest mushrooms you shouldn’t pull them out of the ground but carefully cut them with a small knife. So they will keep growing.”
― Kyung-ran Jo, Tongue

“A goose has a strong immune system and it’s fairly easy to pull its beak open and force-feed it, allowing for less manpower—but these days, to eliminate even this work, the part in the brain that regulates appetite is removed. All you have to do is paralyze the goose, connect electrodes to the base of its brain, and turn on the electricity. Afterward you cage the goose under artificial lighting and it continues to eat, deep in its hallucinations. Within a week the goose is as fat as if it’s been fed for a month, and so is its liver. If you take out its eyes, you can fatten it up even more.”
― Kyung-ran Jo, Tongue

“If you don’t like mushrooms, you can use an apple instead. Slice an apple into pieces about five millimeters thick. You’ll be able to experience something different, in contrast to the mushroom’s light blandness. It’s a little sweet, but the crunch can be very refreshing.” I wish I’d picked up an eggplant instead. I’ve never tried substituting an apple for mushrooms in a pizza. Lies. Was it his lies I’d wanted? The first taste of an apple, the serpent’s words—as sweet as honey.”
― Kyung-ran Jo, Tongue

“Tôi nghĩ tình yêu giống như cây ô liu, vươn lên mạnh mẽ trong gió bão và cho ra những quả xanh mượt ngay từ khi vừa bén rễ. Tôi buồn, không phải vì tôi không thể nói với anh rằng tôi yêu anh, mà vì tình yêu với tôi không còn là cây ô liu, âm nhạc hay thức ăn ngon nữa. Nhưng có những thứ không thay đổi. Có những tình yêu không thể xoay chiều.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“Tình yêu là gì? Là vàng, kim cương, hay thậm chí là nấm truyp? Tình yêu là thứ mà ai cũng muốn có nhưng không thể tự làm ra được, giống nấm truyp, kim cương, và vàng.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“Bất kể nguồn năng lượng nào từng chảy trong tôi, lúc này cũng đã bị hút ráo như có ai rắc muối ăn kiêng lên khắp tấm thân trần trụi này. Ba ngày là quá dài, đủ để nghĩ về một người hay cố sức tránh nghĩ về người đó. Nếu thấy buồn thì cứ để buồn đi. Tôi không thể xác định cảm giác đang đè nặng xuống mình là nỗi buồn, sự luyến tiếc hay tuyệt vọng. Tôi muốn ngủ. Tôi muốn chìm vào một giấc ngủ sâu và dài, sao cho sáng hôm sau cũng không dậy được. Choi sắp về, nhưng tôi không còn đủ sức để lết vào giường. Tôi héo rũ, như rau bina bị tước khỏi cây.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue

“Nỗi buồn thực sự chính là khi một người khát khao mà người kia thì không. Tôi chẳng tìm ra từ nào xác đáng hơn để miêu tả, và không thể diễn đạt được cảm giác này thông qua món ăn.

Bởi có một điều chắc ai cũng biết, về nỗi buồn, là nó rất mực cá nhân, riêng tư hết sức.”
― Kyung-Ran Jo, Tongue