James Beard Quotes

The only thing that will make a souffle fall is if it knows you're afraid of it.

The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it… If you’re convinced that cooking is drudgery, you’re never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen.

If I had to narrow my choice of meats down to one for the rest of my life, I am quite certain that meat would be pork.

Too many simple green salads suffer from a lack of imagination.

When you cook, you never stop learning. That's the fascination of it all.

I don't like gourmet cooking or 'this' cooking or 'that' cooking. I like good cooking.

Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.

There is absolutely no substitute for the best. Good food cannot be made of inferior ingredients masked with high flavor. It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.

The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it.

Too few people understand a really good sandwich.

A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.

I believe that if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around.

Good bread and good butter go together. They are one of the perfect marriages in gastronomy, and they never fail to cheer me.

I'm really enamored of the potato in all its guises.

Grilling, broiling, barbecuing - whatever you want to call it - is an art, not just a matter of building a pyre and throwing on a piece of meat as a sacrifice to the gods of the stomach.

Hands are our earliest tools. Cooking starts with the hands which are so sensitive that when they touch something they transmit messages to your brain about texture and temperature.

Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing.

I am still convinced that a good, simple, homemade cookie is preferable to all the store-bought cookies one can find.

Goodness, how much there is to learn about food!

I am so happy to see more and more people in this country are becoming addicted to cheese.

Be simple. Be honest. Don't overcook and don't undercook, but it's better to undercook than overcook.

If you have never tasted a braised vegetable, you'll find it is a revelation.

Good cheese needs good companions.

In a house without a genuine kitchen, one of the delights of growing up is lost.

It's foolish to go through life bemoaning the fact that you can't have this or that. Twaddle! You can omit certain foods and still enjoy eating.

I’ve long said that if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs.

No vegetable exists which is not better slightly undercooked.

It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.