James Beard Quotes

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

James Beard

#2. Goodness, how much there is to learn about food!

James Beard

#3. Too few people understand a really good sandwich.

James Beard

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

James Beard

#5. Food is our common ground, a universal experience.

James Beard

#6. The kitchen, reasonably enough, was the scene of my first gastronomic adventure. I was on all fours. I crawled into the vegetable bin, settled on a giant onion and ate it, skin and all. It must have marked me for life, for I have never ceased to love the hearty flavor of raw onions.

James Beard

#7. No vegetable exists which is not better slightly undercooked.

James Beard

#8. I have had, in my time, memorable meals of scrambled eggs with fresh truffles, scrambled eggs with caviar and other glamorous things, but to me, there are few things as magnificent as scrambled eggs, pure and simple, perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned.

James Beard

#9. Like the theater, offering food and hospitality to people is a matter of showmanship, and no matter how simple the performance, unless you do it well, with love and originality, you have a flop on your hands.

James Beard

#10. 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.

James Beard

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

James Beard

#12. 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.

James Beard

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

James Beard

#14. 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.

James Beard

#15. Good cheese needs good companions.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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

James Beard

#18. The roe of the Russian sturgeon has probably been present at more important international affairs than have all the Russian dignitaries of history combined. This seemingly simple article of diet has taken its place in the world along with pearls, sables, old silver, and Cellini cups.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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

James Beard

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

James Beard

#22. 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.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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

James Beard

#25. I'm going to break one of the rules of the trade here. I'm going to tell you some of the secrets of improvisation. Just remember - it's always a good idea to follow the directions exactly the first time you try a recipe. But from then on, you're on your own.

James Beard

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

James Beard