The 50 Best Cooking Quotes of all Time

Last updated on November 14th, 2019 at 09:58 pm

If your big dream is to be renown chef, here’s a collection of the 50 best cooking quotes of all time to inspire you with your culinary (or “foodie”) dreams.

These cooking quotes are about falling in love with food and the love of cooking from some of the world’s most famous chefs. Feel free to share this collection of top gastronomy quotes with everyone you know who is passionate about the culinary arts and the joys of cooking.

The 50 Best Cooking Quotes of all Time

1. “It’s not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it’s about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then you’ll be a great cook.” – Thomas Keller

2. “I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.” – WC Fields

3. “If God had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn’t have given us grandmothers.” – Linda Henley

4.  “The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.” – Julia Child

5. “Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” – Harriet Van Horne

6. “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well.” – Virginia Woolf

7. “I feel a recipe is only a theme, which an intelligent cook can play each time with a variation.” – Madam Benoit

8. “Cheese–milk’s leap towards immortality.” – Clifton Fadiman

9. “There is no such thing as a little garlic.” – Anonymous

10. “The way you make an omelet reveals your character.” – Anthony Bourdain

11. “Great food is like great sex. The more you have, the more you want.” – Gael Greene

12. “Great cooking is about being inspired by the simple things around you–fresh markets, various spices. It doesn’t necessarily have to look fancy.” – G. Garvin

13. “Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” – Sophia Loren

14. “Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian, wine and tarragon make it French, sour cream makes it Russian, lemon and cinnamon make it Greek, soy sauce makes it Chinese, garlic makes it good.” – Alice May Brock

15. “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” – Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

16. “Cooking is the art of adjustment.” – Jacques Pepin

17. “Food, glorious food!” – Lionel Bart

18. “There is no love sincerer than the love of food.” – George Bernard Shaw

19. “Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” – Michael Pollan

20. “Condiments are like old friends—highly thought of, but often taken for granted.” – Marilyn Kaytor

21. “Cookery is a wholly unselfish art: All good cooks, like all great artists, must have an audience worth cooking for.” – Andre Simon

22. “Love and eggs are best when they are fresh.” – Russian proverb

23. “Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos.” – Don Kardong

24. “A chocolate in the mouth is worth two on the plate.” – Anonymous

25. “If you’re afraid of butter, use cream.” – Julia Child

26. “All sorrows are less with bread.” – Don Quixote

27. “‎A well-made loaf of French bread will leave a thousand crumbs strewn across the table.” – Anonymous

28. “I can’t stand people that do not take food seriously.” – Oscar Wilde

29. “The secret of good seafood stuffing is in starting with cubes of stale bread, rather than breadcrumbs.” – Anonymous

30. “Most seafoods should be simply threatened with heat and then celebrated with joy.” – Jeff Smith

31. “Cookery is not chemistry. It is an art. It requires instinct and taste rather than exact measurements.” – Marcel Boulestin

32. “Cuisine has become too complicated — this is about subject, verb, adjective: duck, turnips, sauce.” – Alain Ducasse

33. “Life is too short for self-hatred and celery sticks.” – Marilyn Wann

34. “A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.” – James Beard

35. “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” – Adelle Davis

36. “Fish, to taste right, must swim three times — in water, in butter and in wine.” – Polish Proverb

37. “You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.” – Julia Child

38. “Banish the onion from the kitchen and the pleasure flies with it.” – Elizabeth Robbins Pennell

39. “When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste.” – Laiko Bahrs

40. “The greatest dishes are very simple.” – Auguste Escoffier

41.”Life is a combination of magic and pasta.” – Federico Fellini

42. “Popcorn for breakfast! Why not? It’s a grain. It’s like, like, grits, but with high self-esteem.” – James Patterson

43. “We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.” – David Mamet

44.”Anything is good if it’s made of chocolate.” – Jo Brand

45.”The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living.” – Dione Lucas

46.”Fat gives things flavor.” – Julia Child

47.”I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.” – Erma Bombeck

48. “Cooking is an observation-based process that you can’t do if you’re so completely focused on a recipe.” – Alton Brown

49. “I think every woman should have a blowtorch.” – Julia Child

50. “Food should be fun.” – Thomas Keller

Maria Vieages

Maria Vieages is known for her variety of exquisite recipes with a New Orleans, Portuguese, and Sicilian flair. When not hanging out with fellow chefs in New Orleans, you can find Maria teaching private cooking classes or as a guest chef on Celebrity Cruises, where she teaches, provides cooking demos, and even headed one of the first passenger culinary chef challenges on the high seas.