John Birdsall > Quotes

“The best and most interesting food in America was inseparable from the landscapes that produced it. It was all right there, in country diners and small-town grocers’ shops; in roadside dinner houses and bakeries. All you needed to do was look.”
― John Birdsall, The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard

“Authenticity was tricky; trying to duplicate another country’s food in America was impossible. Wasn’t it better to adapt a cuisine, as he’d begun to do in Fireside with French cuisine bourgeoise? To give it an American identity and make it something new?”
― John Birdsall, The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard