Cuisine Quotes

“Her cuisine is limited but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman."

[Sherlock Holmes, on Mrs. Hudson's cooking.]”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

“A culinary triumph: the ingenious use of food as an offensive weapon.”
― James Hamilton-Paterson, Cooking with Fernet Branca

“Stop that! I am not a corn dog!”
― Tatsuki Fujimoto, チェンソーマン 15 [Chainsaw Man 15]

“Fine food is poison. It can be as bitter as antimony and bitter almonds and as repulsive as swallowing live toads. Like the poison the emperor took every day to stop himself being poisoned, fine food must be taken daily until the system becomes immune to its ravages and the taste buds beaten and abused to the point where they not only accept but savour every vile concoction under the sun.”
― Lisa St. Aubin de Teran, The Palace

“brown-capped porcini, yellow chanterelles, and oysters, every hillside ablaze with multicolored mushrooms, tasty and not nourishing in the slightest.”
― Ioanna Karystiani, The Jasmine Isle

“Culinary history is rife with controversy and debate. Ketchup on steak and pineapple on pizza are quaint discussions compared to outright fights over adding salt to the water when boiling pasta or the balance of peanut butter and jam in a sandwich. Foodies now wonder whether a Pop-Tart can be considered a ravioli.”
― Jeff Swystun, TV DINNERS UNBOXED: The Hot History of Frozen Meals

“The meteorologist sent more LA restaurant recommendations as they occurred to him: mapo tofu lasagna, cheese wheel pasta just for the spectacle of it, pupusas, cha gio, tahdig from his uncle's sit-down establishment, neither of us dwelling on whether these restaurants still existed.”
― C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

“Food is language; cuisine is a dialect.”
― Odale Cress, Cuisine is a Dialect, A Leisurely Stroll Through the Edible History of Provincetown

“Bon VoyApetit!”
― Odale Cress, Cuisine is a Dialect, A Leisurely Stroll Through the Edible History of Provincetown

“Some may go so far as to label these pleasures vices, but I would not, for what is a vice after all, but a pleasure with a bad reputation?”
― Odale Cress, Cuisine is a Dialect, A Leisurely Stroll Through the Edible History of Provincetown

“I knew there would be a talk coming, but obviously we couldn't let the food get cold. Or warm, in the case of the tuna tartare with benne seeds I finally got to compare to Jada Knox's review. It really did taste a little bit like coffee, which, contrasted with the cold, clean chunks of tuna and hits of acid, was the perfect mellowing factor. The red stew, with a tender chicken thigh nearly falling apart in the spicy, sharp broth, was both hearty and exciting, the bland, fluffy fufu it was served over the perfect contrast. And the curried goat with roti and crispy potatoes? The whole fried red snapper with jerk seasoning? All the contrasts of flavor and texture made me want to eat and eat and eat until I burst.”
― Amanda Elliot, Best Served Hot

“There is an expectation difference when eating frozen meals. They have long been maligned and ridiculed. Early ones were said to taste metallic or bland or salty or a combination of the three. Their association as a lower-income staple has impacted perceptions. This is why even the most mediocre experience is elevated. The Swanson TV Dinner mostly satisfies but will never be confused with fine dining.”
― Jeff Swystun, TV DINNERS UNBOXED: The Hot History of Frozen Meals

“The sight of the pale-yellow façade of 82 Queen with the large golden numerals on the small black awning over the narrow entrance always made me smile. It was one of the grand dames of the Charleston restaurant scene. Opened in 1982 and comprised of three adjoining eighteenth-century town houses and a courtyard, it was the first restaurant to combine the local African, French, Caribbean, and Anglo-Saxon tastes to create a new culinary genre known as Lowcountry cuisine.”
― Victoria Benton Frank, My Magnolia Summer

“Many of the featured establishments have been around for generations, some for hundreds of years. The reason is that whilst Kyoto is a modern city, it is also an ancient city where much of Japanese culture sprouted and developed, including many aspects of the Japanese kitchen. Visiting these establishments, experiencing their hospitality, and sampling their wares is literally taking a tour through a significant part of Japanese culinary history, often in the original setting. It’s a unique opportunity for anyone with an interest in Kyoto and Japanese culture more generally. Through these establishments, you can feel the Kyoto style and by extension a core aspect of Japanese style.”
― Chikashi Miyamoto, An Insider’s Guide to Authentic Kyoto for Foodies: A Curated List of Where to Eat and Drink in Kyoto

“One of the recurring themes mentioned in this guide is the quality of well water in Kyoto. Their soft water is an essential ingredient in making many of their gastronomic creations exceptional. However, it takes people to recognise its importance and use the resource appropriately and responsibly. It requires care. It requires sensibility. The availability of their superior well water is happenstance, but the creative use of it is hardly an accident. It’s because of the crafts practised by the people.”
― Chikashi Miyamoto, An Insider’s Guide to Authentic Kyoto for Foodies: A Curated List of Where to Eat and Drink in Kyoto

“This little place is a jewel that is quite possibly my #1 eatery in the world. Pre-publication, I said that [O] is in my global top five, but after actually giving the notion some thought, I don’t think there is another restaurant anywhere in the world that I would rather visit.”
― Chikashi Miyamoto, An Insider’s Guide to Authentic Kyoto for Foodies: A Curated List of Where to Eat and Drink in Kyoto

“His cuisine struck me as delicate, for the Pudding, which had always been known for its delicious but none-too-daring gentleman's club cuisine, the richer, the better. Gus's dishes included dabs of steak tartare placed on top of thinly peeled cucumbers and studded with quail eggs; poached sea bass on top of a scoop of asparagus puree; potatoes mousseline whipped so smooth you could not detect even the flecks of pepper.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“Un simple plat en sauce peut avoir un effet tranquillisant, quasi maternel. Même si, en vérité, c’est souvent meilleur avant de le manger. Les promesses trahies des spécialités locales qui, une fois en bouche, se révèlent originaires de Barquette-en-Alu me font le même effet qu’un copain qui vous raccroche au nez.”
― Fabien Maréchal, L'Attendeur (de Première classe)

“La Lauze est l’un de ces restaurants à la mode depuis quelques années à Paris. Sièges anguleux, ambiance en nuances de gris avec la signature bien en vue du designer au coin d’un comptoir patiné pour paraître authentique, et une assiette dressée autant pour le goût que pour les réseaux sociaux avec son voile de curry, son trait de jus de bette- rave et sa compotée de carotte bleue, comme si une sculpture de Niki de Saint Phalle s’était échappée du centre Pompidou pour se soulager dans votre hors-d’œuvre. On appelle cela la « bistronomie », je suppose qu’elle finira par envahir jusqu’à Limoges, et le boudin aux pommes jettera les armes aux pieds des légions gustatives du XXIe siècle, tel Vercingétorix devant Jules César.”
― Fabien Maréchal, L'Attendeur (de Première classe)

“Tsuyahime rice from Yamagata-extra-big portion of that. Pork miso soup on the side. Plenty of root vegetables in there too, even if they're not all fancy Kyoto specialties. Now, the large platter is a fusion of Japanese and Western cuisine. That there is deep-fried hamo eel with sour plum pulp and perilla leaf. The Manganji peppers are deep-fried too. Try those with my homemade Worcestershire sauce. The small bowl is miso-simmered mackerel with a shredded myoga ginger dressing. The roast beef is Kyoto stock- best enjoyed with a drizzle of the wasabi-infused soy sauce and wrapped in a sheet of toasted nori. As for the teriyaki-style duck meatballs, you can dip those in the accompanying quail egg yolk. Chilled tofu garnished with the minced skin of the hamo eel and, finally, deep-fried Kamo eggplant with a starchy curry sauce. Enjoy!”
― Hisashi Kashiwai, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes

“Ultimately, the taco is a vehicle for food. It is designed, as naan is in India, to aid in transporting food from the plate to the mouth.”
― Aleph Molinari

“There is a pot of coarse oat porridge with bilberries, a whole side of smoked salmon on a waney-edged plank and venison black pudding as crumbly as chocolate cake. Nettles are pressed into crispbread like leaves on a frozen pond. A sleigh ride from Lapland, snow falling and faced with the breakfast of my dreams, I spoon cakes of potato and kale onto my plate to eat with slices of beetroot-cured salmon. I drink glowing red lingonberry juice from a shot glass that feels like a transfusion and stir a compote of berries into my yoghurt.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“It angered her all her life that immigrant food always had to be cheap. Tacos, papusas, dumplings, pho, gyros, kimchi, pad thai... she could keep going. These were all foods worthy of double digits. Of dignity.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“And bundles upon bundles of fresh ferny herbs in shades of pine green, pickle green and pistachio green-- a whole color chart of green. Dill, tarragon, parsley and coriander, in contrast to raisin-colored purple basil.
In restaurants, what comes to the table? First, wine and bread--- in the shape of a slender Venetian gondola that has been baked in a round clay oven called a tone. The bread is crusty, but soft within, charred a bit on the bottom. Then, a dozen or more fragrant things. Rabbit soup made with walnut, pepper and garlic. Oyster mushroom and coriander soup. Beetroot quarters in sunflower oil and dill. Catfish in vinegar and coriander sauce. Bean stew and pickled vegetables. Chicken roulade in walnut sauce. Lobiani, which is a flatbread-- possibly the finest of all flatbreads-- filled with mashed kidney beans. Gebjalia, fresh cheese rolled in mint. Flowering coriander in hazelnut pesto and spicy green adjika. A whole stubby cucumber (peeled). Fermented forest jonjoli-- samphire-like, tasting of capers and with bell-shaped flowers, harvested in spring-- dressed with Kakhetian sunflower oil. Fried sulguni cheese, salty and chewy. Pink-hued Georgian trout. Tarragon panna cotta topped with blue cornflower. Matsoni, impossibly good homemade yoghurt, tart and cool, served with an inky and elegant black walnut preserve.
And heaps of herbs. Always herbs. Herbs are flavor, herbs are a whole salad bar; herbs are medicine, a salve. Invasive, weedy and rampant, like mint and goutweed, they are also pagan charms to attract friendship or fortune. Free-growing and bountiful, they have been survival food during the darkest periods of war, and verdant ornaments during the happiest days.”
― Caroline Eden, Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels

“The flavors and food of the Baltics, generally reasonably priced and rich with variety and imagination, can often rival Nordic cuisine (which influences it), yet it is not held in the same esteem. I can still taste the sea buckthorn cheesecake I ate in Klaipėda-- the whole berries set in jelly on top, their sharpness slicing through the full-fat cream cheese-- and the snow-white fillets of pike perch, caught in Pärnu Bay, baked with butter and capers. The exceptional farmstead dairy produce-- in particular, herby butters packed with the power of meadow grasses and flowers. Smoked sprats, cloudberry jam, and bread as nut-brown as the soil. And I think of the birch forests we drove past and how, at this time of year, Latvians would be out tapping the thin white trees to bottle the nutrients stored in their roots that each spring filter up through their trunks, carried by the rising sap, like magic.”
― Caroline Eden, Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels

“On the night before our anniversary, Jack and I prepare a feast of herb-roasted gizzards topped with nightshade berry jam, spider-silk pasta, and hemlock brew, and finish off the evening with a decadent graveyard cake topped with black sugar crumbles.”
― Megan Shepherd, Hour of the Pumpkin Queen

“Historically, national cuisines have been remarkably stable, and resistant to change, which is why the immigrant's refrigerator is the very last place to look for signs of assimilation.”
― Michael Pollan

“Each recipe was from a different island in the Crescent Islands Empire, selected by the librarian in charge of the food history section of the Great Library. There were crab puffs from Dault, stuffed figs from Tirza, marinated beef skewers with pearl onions from Blaye.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Enchanted Greenhouse

“They ordered a parade of tapas and shared everything: petal-pink yellowfin tuna with bright orange habanada peppers drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt crystals the size of snowflakes; melt-in-your-mouth clams drenched in butter, white wine, and a confetti of parsley, and when the clams had been eaten, Gabe read her mind and ordered extra bread to sop up the sauce; a small bouquet of crispy shrimp heads--- at first glance Iris recoiled at their black eyes unseeing beneath a heavy dusting of red spice, but Gale dug right in, crunching as carelessly as a lion. Iris stalled and hesitated over trying one, laughing as Gabe cheered her on, yelping when the whiskery antennae tickled her nose, until she finally gave one a hasty chomp. Gabe was right, it was delicious--- a riot of different textures and tastes such that she savored her next bites--- even if she did leave the eyes uneaten. And finally the piri piri half chicken, the aroma alone evoked a future longing before the first bite was taken.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“Chef Simone is clearly inspired by classical French cooking but she's totally making it her own. SHE'S so cool.
For instance, her "half-cooked" potatoes are shredded, poached in oil, drained, and tossed with a lip-smacking homemade XO sauce, and then topped with a perfect piece of steamed turbot. It's not your traditional, beautifully plated French meal, but I swear it has raw sex appeal and it's so good.”
― Amy Rosen, Off Menu