Favorite Food Quotes

[liuzhou]

7 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Celery.

 

 

A few pages further on is an explanation of the celery's presence.

Quote

All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of compliment to Aunt Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had been left for him. Freddy Malins also took a stalk of celery and ate it with his pudding. He had been told that celery was a capital thing for the blood and he was just then under doctor’s care.

 

 

 

[liuzhou]

 

Quote

ON EATING AND DRINKING

 

Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, Speak to us of Eating and Drinking. And he said:

 

Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.

 

But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship.

 

And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.

 

When you kill a beast say to him in your heart:

 

‘By the same power that slays you, I too am slain; and I too shall be consumed.

 

‘For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.

 

‘Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.’ And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart:

 

‘Your seeds shall live in my body,

 

‘And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart, ‘And your fragrance shall be my breath,

‘And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.’

 

And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the wine- press, say in your heart:

 

‘I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress, ‘And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels.’

 

And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;

 

And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vine- yard, and for the winepress.

 

from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
 

Edited November 28, 2018 by liuzhou (log)

[Orbit]

"My food tastes better than yours. I use shallots, and you use onions". --Anthony Bourdain

 

I always like the bold truth...

[eugenep]

This isn't  a favorite quote necessarily but one that stayed with me and changed my beliefs a little 

 

From  the book "Yes Chef" by Marcus Samuelson 

 

[from his stage/intern period working at 3 star Michelin French restaurant of Georges Blanc]..."I got caught in the walk-in refrigerator with a chef who decided to go off on his Japanese commis. The chef was a few years younger than the commis, and the commis, like most of the Japanese who came to work for Blanc, was an excellent worker, meticulous and fast. The chef was just a cocky guy showing that he was boss. He had not only called him a fucking idiot and an amateur, he had upended the commis’s mise en place, creating a holy mess inside the refrigerator. And when his screaming wasn’t enough to fully express his rage, he punched the guy in the stomach. Right in front of me.

 

The commis didn’t say a word. He’d flexed his stomach in anticipation, practically breaking the chef’s hand. The commis was going to be fine, but I remember watching this and thinking, OK, I’ve gotten all the training I need here. Time to go....This was the dark side of the French tradition. All of the chefs had come up through that same brutal system" 

 

 

I've always imagined these French Michelin guys as full of refinement and culture and a little effeminate...but it was surprising when I read it 

Edited March 13, 2019 by eugenep (log)

[ElsieD]

31 minutes ago, eugenep said:

This isn't  a favorite quote necessarily but one that stayed with me and changed my beliefs a little 

 

From  the book "Yes Chef" by Marcus Samuelson 

 

[from his stage/intern period working at 3 star Michelin French restaurant of Georges Blanc]..."I got caught in the walk-in refrigerator with a chef who decided to go off on his Japanese commis. The chef was a few years younger than the commis, and the commis, like most of the Japanese who came to work for Blanc, was an excellent worker, meticulous and fast. The chef was just a cocky guy showing that he was boss. He had not only called him a fucking idiot and an amateur, he had upended the commis’s mise en place, creating a holy mess inside the refrigerator. And when his screaming wasn’t enough to fully express his rage, he punched the guy in the stomach. Right in front of me.

 

The commis didn’t say a word. He’d flexed his stomach in anticipation, practically breaking the chef’s hand. The commis was going to be fine, but I remember watching this and thinking, OK, I’ve gotten all the training I need here. Time to go....This was the dark side of the French tradition. All of the chefs had come up through that same brutal system" 

 

 

I've always imagined these French Michelin guys as full of refinement and culture and a little effeminate...but it was surprising when I read it 

 

 

Words fail me.

[liuzhou]

edible, adj.

 

Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

                                                 

                                                     Ambrose Bierce ( 1842-1914 ), The Devil's Dictionary

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

I had a whole doe sent me by Mr. Hozier, which is a fine present, and I had the umbles of it for dinner.
 

Samuel Pepys - 1667

[pastameshugana]

[gfweb]

9 hours ago, pastameshugana said:

 

He knew my parents

[Margaret Pilgrim]

1 hour ago, gfweb said:

 

He knew my parents

 Back in the early 1900s, my father used to stay around at mealtime in the home of a playmate with Southern European roots.   He would come home with garlic on his breath, to his Maine bred mother's wry comments.   

[kayb]

I used to cook dinner for 75 every Sunday evening at church with a man who loved garlic more than I did. That congregation was seriously vampire proof.

[ElsieD]

I love garlic but can no longer eat it.  When I realized garlic was the culprit causing acid reflux  I felt rather sad.

[chromedome]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

I love garlic but can no longer eat it.  When I realized garlic was the culprit causing acid reflux  I felt rather sad.

That would be a bad, bad, day.

[ElsieD]

16 hours ago, chromedome said:

That would be a bad, bad, day.

 

It was.

[liuzhou]

‘Each of us tastes the world with a different tongue’. John Thorne, Simple Cooking 1980

[liuzhou]

Quote

I actually don’t know how to cook eggs! I’ve never used an oven or a broiler in my life. It was horribly embarrassing at first, as I scalded soup, tried to stuff a hotdog roll in the toaster (any half-brained fool would have cut it in half!) and burned rolls in the oven.

 

Sylvia Plath - June 26th, 1951

[liuzhou]

Quote

Twenty dinnerguests sucked the last masticated fragments of turkey from their teeth, wiped greasy lips on dry linen napkins, and glowed under the expansive sociable flood of liquor through their blood streams.
 

Sylvia Plath - 8/1/51

 

[liuzhou]

Quote

Going through Leaden-Hall, it being market-day, I did see a woman catched, that had stolen a shoulder of mutton off of a butcher’s stall. The jade was surprised, and did not deny it, and the woman so silly, as to let her go that took it, only taking the meat.

 

Samuel Pepys - 22nd August  1668 - from the Diaries of Samuel Pepys

 

[scamhi]

On 11/22/2018 at 5:29 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Celery.

 

Celery raw gives strength to the jaw

Celery stewed is more quietly chewed.

Ogden Nash

[liuzhou]

Fried sausages are the best;

In your stomach they do rest.

Boiled sausages are the worst;

In your stomach they do burst.

 

Anon

[JoNorvelleWalker]

By way of The Economist, to celebrate the inauguration of the newspaper's new column on cuisine:

 

 

"If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it."

 

Herman Melville

 

[liuzhou]

We were invited down to dinner with the Maids of Honour, namely, Mrs. Ogle, Blake, and Howard, which did me good to have the honour to dine with, and look on; and the Mother of the Maids, and Mrs. Howard, the mother of the Maid of Honour of that name, and the Duke’s housekeeper.

 

And here drank most excellent, and great variety, and plenty of wines, more than I have drank, at once, these seven years, but yet did me no great hurt.

 

Samuel Pepys – March 3rd 1669

Been there done that

liuzhou - March 4th 2022

[Katie Meadow]

On 1/29/2022 at 5:00 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

By way of The Economist, to celebrate the inauguration of the newspaper's new column on cuisine:

 

 

"If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it."

 

Herman Melville

 

On his first night in Nantucket Ishmael goes out for dinner. The server asks him "Clam or cod?" He's afraid he will end up with just one clam, so he orders the cod. He doesn't realize she's talking chowder.

[heidih]

28 minutes ago, Katie Meadow said:

On his first night in Nantucket Ishmael goes out for dinner. The server asks him "Clam or cod?" He's afraid he will end up with just one clam, so he orders the cod. He doesn't realize she's talking chowder.

My Aussie BIL and a US waitress had a hilarious moment like that. She asked "soup or salad?" He replied "yes", she  repeated. It went on a bit with hand signals and emphasis on OR - we intervened. Aussies - everything is "super" as in great, not US supersized either...

Edited March 4, 2022 by heidih (log)

[liuzhou]

I don't know where else to put this, but it's a Sylvia Plath poem from 1959 as recorded in her diary.


If you get hungryI

In the middle of the night

A Snack Bed is Good
For the appetite—

 

With a pillow of bread

To nibble at

And up the head

An automat

 

Where you need no shillings

Just a finger to stick in

The slot, and out come

Cakes and cold chicken.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2022 by liuzhou (log)