William Sitwell > Quotes

“Cooking,” she continued, “has a way of cutting through things, and to things, which have nothing to do with the kitchen. This is why it matters.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes

“What I’m doing here,” she once said, “is seeking to offer protection from life, solely through the means of potato, butter and cream. There are times when only mashed potato will do.” The same, of course, goes for cake.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes

“We’re all full of gastronomy and recipes,” he once told a journalist. “Turn on a TV anywhere in the world and you will see an idiot with a spoon. And every newspaper and magazine has recipes and a photo of the dish taken from above like a cadaver. It’s a form of onanism and is masturbatory. We must normalize food rather than put it on a pedestal out of reach.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes

“If we agree that good food is more important than many so-called ‘important things in life,’ and surely no one would dismiss lightly an event which occurs at least twice a day, and which is conducive to happiness or bad temper,” he wrote in his book What Shall We Have Today?, “then we must admit that a cook is an important person in the household, since she dispenses gifts either precious or intolerable.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes

“The cupcake is all the rage. And it’s not difficult to understand why. A cupcake is individual, it’s all yours, it belongs to no one else. It’s a whole cake and it’s your cake.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes

“with Ms. Caulfield proclaiming: “We all agree that Ayds is the most wholesome and natural way to a good figure.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes

“Perhaps his most triumphant recipe, sandwiched between “surprise bananas” and “Tyrrhenian seaweed foam (with coral garnish),” was “Tactile vegetable garden.” Here the salad is eaten “by burying the face in the plate, without the help of the hands, so as to inspire a true tasting with direct contact between the flavors and the textures of the green leaves on the skin of the cheeks and the lips.” As the eater brings the head up from the plate, a waiter sprays his face with cologne. And then before taking another mouthful, “the guests must let their fingertips feast uninterruptedly on their neighbor’s pajamas.” Because, of course, they’re wearing pajamas.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes

“And to help her with these endeavors he has a vast list of remedies for the body, including dealing with “the frenzie.” For this you should squirt beetroot juice up the “frenzied” nose and offer the patient ale.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes

“at this stage of the war must be what I call WHF:”
― William Sitwell, Eggs or Anarchy: The remarkable story of the man tasked with the impossible: to feed a nation at war

“If a man drops his bread in the fondue, he buys a bottle of wine, and if a lady drops hers, she must kiss all the men at the table.”
― William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes