Quotes About Food And Culture

#1. I'm sure one of the frustrations of being a Western enthusiast of Japanese food and culture is you're confronted every day with the absolute certainty that you will die ignorant.

Anthony Bourdain

#2. Food is a big part of my culture, so everyone knows how to cook. When I came to America and asked a babysitter to softboil an egg for my son and she didn't know how, I was shocked.

Isabella Rossellini

#3. Food culture is like listening to the Beatles - it's international, it's very positive, it's inventive and creative.

Alice Waters

#4. My main goal, and it's a big one, is that every child has a chance to get close to music - as a right - that as they have access to food, health, and education, they get the chance to have art and culture - especially music.

Gustavo Dudamel

#5. In China, because China is gaining wealth, rice consumption is way down. Rice is a poor person's food, and they're eating less of it. To wait in line at a fast food chain is cool. And they haven't historically had weight problems. So they don't have this culture of, "I need to lose weight."

Neal Barnard

#6. No, the founders of our culture didn't just fall into a lifestyle of total dependence on agriculture, they had to whip themselves into it, and the whip they used was this meme: Growing all your own food is the best way to live. Nothing less could imaginably have done this amazing trick.

Daniel Quinn

#7. America is a country of abundance, but our food culture is sad - based on huge portions and fast food. Let's stop with the excuses and start creating something better.

David Chang

#8. Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection have molded our nature, so too can our culture.

Peter Singer

#9. Hong Kong and Macau are both very dynamic cities. I am always inspired about the culture, people and food in these two cities. There is always so much to do and so much to explore!

David Beckham

#10. I think that the Japanese - and I do love Japanese cuisine and adore Japanese food culture - I think that they're going to plow through the entire world's fishing. They're going to eat everything anyways.

David Chang

#11. Indian food has been huge in the UK forever and ever, but that's because it has a historical rooting. America, I think is really ripe for it. There's been so much interest in Indian culture.

Aarti Sequeira

#12. How a people eats is one of the most powerful ways they have to express, and preserve, their cultural identity...To make food choices more scientific is to empty them of their ethnic content and history; --Harvey Levenstein

Michael Pollan

#13. I like to say, 'Chop suey's the biggest culinary joke that one culture has ever played on another,' because chop suey, if you translate into Chinese, means 'tsap sui,' which, if you translate back, means 'odds and ends.'

Jennifer Lee

#14. For the vast majority of world history, human life - both culture and biology - was shaped by scarcity. Food, clothing, shelter, tools, and pretty much everything else had to be farmed or fabricated, at a very high cost in time and energy.

Martha Beck

#15. The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that's what's happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal.

Michelle Obama

#16. My mother always cooked, every day, proper food. We didn't have fast food. It was probably pretty much meat and two veg, but as time went on and new things came into the culture, she embraced all of that. I grew up with mealtimes and sitting around the table with proper cooking and eating.

Lesley Manville

#17. But what I'm very interested in, whether it's writing, whether it's hosting a show, whether it's cooking food, I'm just into the discussions of identity, culture and the politics of culture.

Eddie Huang

#18. Farms and food production should be, I submit, at least as important as who pierced their navel in Hollywood this week. Please tell me I'm not the only one who believes this. Please. As a culture, we think we're well educated, but I'm not sure that what we've learned necessarily helps us survive.

Joel Salatin

#19. In this country, the health concerns and the environmental concerns are as deep as in Europe. All the surveys show that. But here, we didn't have the cultural dimension. This is a fast-food culture.

Jeremy Rifkin

#20. Florentine cuisine is surely something worth discovering. I believe I learned a lot about Florentine culture and traditions from observing how they live their relationship with food.

Elaine Bertolotti

#21. The crusade is never off my mind
the exercise I do, the food I eat, the thought I think
all this and how I can help make my profession better-respected. To me, this one thing
physical culture and nutrition
is the salvation of America.

Jack LaLanne

#22. In a lot of ways I think food is starting to take the place in culture that rock and roll took 30 years ago.

Jonathan Gold

#23. Racism always exists cheek by jowl with, inside, and alongside culture and class. As a rule, it is inseparable from them. That is why, for example, food, language and names assume such importance in racial prejudice.

Martin Jacques

#24. What makes cookbooks interesting is to find out about the people and the culture that invented the food.

Vincent Schiavelli

#25. I know it sounds weird, but the food that I eat, it doesn't make a big difference, and it never has. So, I've saved a ton of money not buying a lot of alcohol, not going out to restaurants too much. So, I think it's part of our culture, and it's part of a social activity more than anything else.

Aaron Patzer

#26. We might have reason to be driven! We live for a short stretch of time in a world we share with others. Virtually everything we do is dependent on others, from the arts and culture to farmers who grow the food we eat.

Amartya Sen

#27. The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization.

Fredric Jameson

#28. In the future, women will have breasts all over. In the future, it will be a relief to find a place without culture. In the future, plates of food will have names and titles. In the future, we will all drive standing up. In the future, love will be taught on television and by listening to pop songs.

David Byrne

#29. In terms of fast food and deep understanding of the culture of fast food, I'm your man.

Bill Gates

#30. Making food a commodity to be owned was one of the great innovations of our culture. No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key - and putting it there is the cornerstone of our economy, for if the food wasn't under lock and key, who would work?

Daniel Quinn

#31. The decline of true taste for food is the beginning of a decline in a national culture as a whole. When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they lose their personality and become the instruments of other people's wills.

Robert Graves

#32. We reject certain food because it is rotten. Certain food we can see is fresh. But there is this creative space between fresh food and rotten food where most of human culture's most prized delicacies and culinary achievements exist.

Sandor Katz

#33. Nothing mitigates the throes of depression like a steaming plate of spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce and grated parmasan cheese, with a good fresh bread to wipe up.

Paul Clayton

#34. From politics and business to music and food to culture, African-Americans have helped to shape our state's colourful past and its future.

Mary Landrieu

#35. In countries like the U.S. and Great Britain, we exist in a wholly sexualized culture, where everything from cars to snack food are sold with a healthy slathering of sex to make them more commercially appealing.

Alan Moore

#36. Food keeps us alive, as we all know. Nourishment allows us to grow and be healthy. But good cooking takes us beyond survival and into the realms of culture and pleasure.

Fernando Divina

#37. Quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing.

Fidel Castro

#38. Puerto Rican culture is very lively; very lively people; very warm people; and the food is really great. We're all about cooking a lot of food and having family around, we're kind of loud. It's that sort of vibe and it's great.

David Lambert

#39. Of all the hardships and deprivations a people can suffer, I am not sure if the deprivations of art and culture are not the most devastating. As meat and rice are food for the body, art and culture are food for the soul. Starve the body and the person dies; starve the soul and the spirit dies.

Gerard De Marigny

#40. French culture is known for many great attributes, some of which probably have nothing to do with food, wine, and romance.

Leonard Mlodinow

#41. Much of the way food has been shaped and formed in prisons is due to the cultural thought about prisoners in general, and how they should be treated by society and by the state. Food in prison is a reflection of culture and cultural thinking about criminal justice and reform.

Erika Camplin

#42. There is a lot of food culture that goes on in the home and in the community in non-traditional ways. Food is a lot more than restaurants.

Eddie Huang

#43. I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.

Salma Hayek

#44. I had come to the conclusion that I must really be French, only no one had ever informed me of this fact. I loved the people, the food, the lay of the land, the civilized atmosphere, and the generous pace of life.

Julia Child

#45. The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.

Michael Pollan

#46. I feel it is an obligation to help people understand the relation of food to agriculture and the relationship of food to culture.

Alice Waters

#47. Culture and tradition have to change little by little. So 'new' means a little twist, a marriage of Japanese technique with French ingredients. My technique. Indian food, Korean food; I put Italian mozzarella cheese with sashimi. I don't think 'new new new.' I'm not a genius. A little twist.

Masaharu Morimoto

#48. We have to bring children into a new relationship to food that connects them to culture and agriculture.

Alice Waters

#49. It wasn't until I came to New York and started to see the African American community, but also the Ethiopian community here, and started to eat the food, started to understand the music. I said, you know, I got to go and understand the culture. So me and my sister went.

Marcus Samuelsson

#50. I fell in love with food because of my mother. So, I will definitely be sharing and expanding more recipes from my culture (as well as many other cultures), and will be sharing recipes that I have experienced from my whole culinary life.

Wolfgang Puck

#51. [On Los Angeles:] This city is a hundred years old but try and find some trace of its history. Every culture is swallowed up and spat out as a franchise. Taco Bell. Benihana of Tokyo. Numero Uno Pizza. Pup 'N' Taco. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Fast food sushi. Teriyaki Bowl.

Anne Finger

#52. In response to our fast-food culture, a 'slow food' movement appeared. Out of hurried parenthood, a move toward slow parenting could be growing. With vital government supports for state-of-the-art public child care and paid parental leave, maybe we would be ready to try slow love and marriage.

Arlie Russell Hochschild

#53. Food is not just what we put in our mouths to fill up; it is culture and identity. Reason plays some role in our decisions about food, but it's rarely driving the car.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#54. Japan is the most intoxicating place for me. In Kyoto, there's an inn called the Tawaraya which is quite extraordinary. The Japanese culture fascinates me: the food, the dress, the manners and the traditions. It's the travel experience that has moved me the most.

Roman Coppola

#55. News is like food: it is the cooking and serving that makes it acceptable, not the material itself.

Rose Macaulay

#56. Rationally, factory farming is so obviously wrong, in so many ways. In all of my reading and conversations, I've yet to find a credible defense of it. But food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, and identity.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#57. There's certain things in life that I love. One is architecture. And music, culture, food, people. New Orleans has all of that.

Lenny Kravitz

#58. Spain is a fascinating mix of people, languages, culture and food, but if there is one thing all Spaniards share, it's a love of food and drink.

Jose Andres

#59. It sounded so weird when people called shoyu "soy sauce." It made it sound like Tabasco or something instead of the clean and perfect thing that it was.

Cynthia Kadohata

#60. Food is very representative of a city's culture. In order to really get to know a place and the people, you've got to eat the food.

Emeril Lagasse

#61. Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.

John Cage

#62. Moving to the US was quite a transition for me, to say the least! There were, and still are so many new things to get used to: the language, food, culture, even the style of basketball is different here!

Yao Ming

#63. I think every culture is passionate about food; some are just passionate about food and the food is shitty.

Jonathan Gold

#64. Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, craving and identity.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#65. We can have all the food and water we need, but without the sustenance of
real story, real art - without the wisdom, insight, and "life instruction" it brings - we will stagnate as a culture and become a swamp where quality life can no longer be sustained. So share your gifts! Share your art!

Derek Rydall

#66. Food is a central activity of mankind and one of the single most significant trademarks of a culture.

Mark Kurlansky

#67. I know the community mostly for its art and culture ... and of course its food, I eat at their restaurants." "They make you feel like taking off your shoes ... it feels like home.

Erykah Badu

#68. Culture is the intersection between people and dealing with the journey of life itself. How to deal with life, how a people deals with life is literally manifested in its culture, in its food, in its music, in its art, in the way you dance, the way you communicate.

Wendell Pierce

#69. People don't think that bread is part of Asian culture or Asian food culture, but it's quite prevalent in Northern China, and you see it throughout Japan and as you go to Taiwan.

David Chang

#70. Mitt Romney has won the 2012 presidential nomination by promising Republicans that he would end a so-called 'culture of dependency' on welfare - welfare defined as 'free stuff' and food stamps for poor folks, not tax breaks for Big Oil or tax shelters for Bain executives.

Christine Pelosi

#71. Our food is a sign of what we've lost in general. I think if we could start slowing down for food, and rebuilding the quality of our plates, we could start rebuilding what we've lost in our culture. As my boss says, culture starts in the kitchen, not in the opera house.

Rod Dreher

#72. I think globalization actually maintains and fosters various elements of national and cultural identities. I don't think everything is being homogenized. If anything, your food, your culture, and your ethnicity might become part of the globalized world, and thus absorbed by other countries.

Nouriel Roubini

#73. Beer culture is a part of the world of food and drink. It's not just a commodity in cans and bottles, but has a value as an agricultural product with good ingredients.

Michael Jackson

#74. New York is fast paced, with enthusiastic fans and lots of media attention. Houston's slower paced, and there's more of a southern culture to the city. But both cities have unbelievable food.

Jeremy Lin

#75. You can attract the best smart creatives with factors beyond money: the great things they can do, the people they'll work with, the responsibility and opportunities they'll be given, the inspiring company culture and values, and yes, maybe even free food and happy dogs sitting desk-side.

Eric Schmidt

#76. Putting food under lock and key was one of the great innovations of your culture. No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key - and putting it there is the cornerstone of your economy.[ ... ] Because if the food wasn't under lock and key, Julie, who would work?

Daniel Quinn

#77. As a culture, we've become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing. And we could make a claim that the toll taken on the public health by a poor diet rivals that taken by tobacco.

Michael Moss

#78. I have slipped chile under your skin
secretly wrapped in each enchilada
hot and soothing
carefully cut into bitefuls for you as a
toddler
increasing in power and intensity as
you grew
until it could burn
forever

Carmen Tafolla

#79. This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and families are suffering from hunger and malnutrition.

Pope Francis

#80. Our culture tries to convince us on just about every front that more is better. More is a sign of wealth, luxury, power. Gone are the days when meals were moments of connection and conversation; now it's all about consumption and calories.

Mary DeTurris Poust

#81. In Buddhist culture, offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spirituality, then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness.

Nhat Hanh

#82. Fermented foods contain natural probiotics, or healthy bacteria, that can take your health to the next level. Nearly every culture has a version of a fermented food: yogurt, kefir, miso, and fermented vegetables, including sauerkraut, pickles, and kimchi.

Sara Gottfried

#83. I swear, I didn't really go in thinking, 'I'll be the Simon Cowell' of 'Top Chef.' I was just used to being a judge on British food shows where people are much more outspoken and rather rude. That's the culture over here.

Toby Young

#84. If we speak of direct means for the culture of the imagination, the whole is comprised in two words
food and exercise.

George MacDonald

#85. I think the place fed me completely. Not only was I in Uganda, but I was around many people who had a personal relationship with Idi Amin. I was eating the food constantly. I was culturally hanging out with the people. You can't help but absorb the energy, and try to get inside the culture.

Forest Whitaker

#86. Once you become an elaborate and well-developed culture, anything from Rome or the Etruscans, for that matter, the food starts to become a representation of what the culture is. When the food can transcend being just fuel, that's when you start to see these different permutations.

Mario Batali

#87. Food serves two parallel purposes: it nourishes and it helps you remember. Eating and storytelling are inseparable - the saltwater is also tears; the honey not only tastes sweet, but makes us think of sweetness; the matzo is the bread of our affliction.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#88. My mum is Brazilian and very proud. I'd love to do a Brazilian film. I've been brought up in the Brazilian culture. My mum brought me up on my own, I cook Brazilian food, I've never spoken a word of English to my mother.

Kaya Scodelario

#89. The moral, then, is that familiar categories of behavior - marriage customs, food taboos, folk superstitions, and so on - certainly do vary across cultures and have to be learned, but the deeper mechanisms of mental computation that generate them may be universal and innate.

Steven Pinker