Top 100 Samuelsson Quotes
#1. Marcus Samuelsson is a chef who inspires me everyday. He has such a deep understanding of flavors and techniques. His food is representative of the diverse world that we live in. What he has done in Harlem with Red Rooster is very special. Marcus is not just a chef, he's a food activist.
Aaron Sanchez
#2. Since the gluten-free diet is not for everyone, it's recommended that you stick with a gluten-free diet for at least 3 weeks first to see if it works for you.
Marcus Samuelsson
#3. Everyone's favorite breakfast dish can be prepared in a moment's time with just a few ingredients and minimum effort.
Marcus Samuelsson
#4. There are almost unlimited possibilities for making discoveries and to uncover the unknown. It is in the nature of the discovery that it can not be planned or programmed. On the contrary it consists of surprises and appears many times in the most unexpected places.
Bengt I. Samuelsson
#6. Larousse Gastronomique has always been the first and last word on classic European techniques and recipes. I love that it has expanded its reach to cover world cuisines and modern culinary innovations, making it more indispensable than ever.
Marcus Samuelsson
#7. There is a risk of becoming linguistically schizophrenic. Because your brain is so fluent in both languages, it is fooled into thinking that the structure you have put together in the target language is correct merely because it is correct in the source language.
Geoffrey Samuelsson-Brown
#8. Between the ages of six and nine, my palette was taking shape as well as my identity as a chef. It was then that I learned the difference between salty, sweet, sour and even spicy.
Marcus Samuelsson
#9. Every time you use the word 'healthy,' you lose. The key is to make yummy, delicious food that happens to be healthy.
Marcus Samuelsson
#10. When I get the chance to make my favorite breakfast on the weekend, I often choose to make pancakes.
Marcus Samuelsson
#11. What makes Harlem special is that at any given time, food seekers can not only find food deeply rooted in Southern, Latin and African traditions, but also can taste the newer Senegalese, Chinese, and Italian influences as well.
Marcus Samuelsson
#12. One of the first things my father taught me was that the library was made for and available to me. It's a place where you not only learn from books but you learn responsibility - how to borrow, take care of, and give back.
Marcus Samuelsson
#13. There shouldn't be an announcement that divides our food between what tastes good and what is good for us.
Marcus Samuelsson
#14. Many popsicles you'll find in a supermarket have a lot of unwanted sugar or preservatives, but with a few ingredients you can make healthier popsicles with any flavor you can imagine.
Marcus Samuelsson
#15. I learned from my grandmother, who grew up in devastating war times, how important it is to keep with tradition and celebrate the holidays during tough times.
Marcus Samuelsson
#16. It's key to know which essential foods will keep you going and help your body recover after hard work.
Marcus Samuelsson
#18. Many people are turned off at eating vegetarian because of the misconception that all dishes are just an arrangement of bland vegetables.
Marcus Samuelsson
#19. Every day, whether I am teaching or entertaining - I absolutely love bringing different people and cultures together.
Marcus Samuelsson
#20. I'm lucky to live in New York, a city that offers so many options for lunch. I can pick up dumplings from a Midtown food truck, grab empanadas by the dozen in Spanish Harlem or get a fantastic bowl of ramen in the East Village.
Marcus Samuelsson
#21. The darker the chocolate is, the more antioxidants it contains. So when eaten in moderation - just a few bites from a well-made dark chocolate bar, for instance - there's no need to feel bad about indulging once in a while.
Marcus Samuelsson
#22. You have to balance, but you can be aggressive as a chef. It benefits the food. You have to be passionate. You can't be angry cooking.
Marcus Samuelsson
#23. Chocolate is one of the world's most beloved discoveries, and when we need a quick boost of energy and endorphins, chocolate is the go-to treat.
Marcus Samuelsson
#24. Egypt is the largest wheat importer in the world. In some part, this is due to irrigation issues and inhospitable climes. Egypt's dependence on wheat is also partially because for decades it has been cheaper to import wheat, corn, soy and barley from the U.S. than to grow it locally.
Marcus Samuelsson
#25. To become a good cook is to know yourself, and I, at this point, know myself. I know myself, and I know the cook I want to be and the cook I am striving to be.
Marcus Samuelsson
#26. Hard work IS its own reward. Integrity IS priceless. Art DOES feed the soul.
Marcus Samuelsson
#27. Even just a few spices or ethnic condiments that you can keep in your pantry can turn your mundane dishes into a culinary masterpiece.
Marcus Samuelsson
#28. Not only does the summer bring warm weather and tons of summer activities, but it also yields a fresh crop of increasingly useful avocados!
Marcus Samuelsson
#29. Where is the stretch? Where is the perfect fit? Where does it make sense? You have to be a Baryshnikov.
Marcus Samuelsson
#30. Healthy can be the new good. Eating delicious should not be sacrificed because it's healthy.
Marcus Samuelsson
#31. Eating vegetarian doesn't mean you have to eat boring, humdrum dishes.
Marcus Samuelsson
#32. The holidays are my favorite time of year! Christmas was always one of the biggest celebrations in Sweden, and I look forward to the festivities each year.
Marcus Samuelsson
#33. Food has always been in my life. Being born in Ethiopia, where there was a lack of food, and then really cooking with my grandmother Helga in Sweden. And my grandmother Helga was a cook's cook.
Marcus Samuelsson
#34. Simple ingredients can be used to make elegant dishes with just a little extra attention to detail.
Marcus Samuelsson
#35. If you're cooking for someone important - whether it's your boss or a date - never try a new recipe and a new ingredient at the same time.
Marcus Samuelsson
#36. People might not protest for overtly political or social causes, but when they can't feed themselves and their family, they will take to the streets.
Marcus Samuelsson
#37. Cooking with your kids and engaging them in hands-on activities are two ways to begin to educate children about the healthy eating, and kick start the important task to help change how the younger generation looks at food and nutrition.
Marcus Samuelsson
#38. I credit my grandmother for teaching me to love and respect food. She taught me how to waste nothing, to make sure I used every bit of the chicken and boil the bones till no flavor could be extracted from them.
Marcus Samuelsson
#39. In Ethiopia, where I was born, all the cooks are women. When I grew up in Sweden, my mom and my grandmother did predominantly all the cooking. Then I changed to restaurant kitchens, where all of a sudden there were just more men than women, and I always thought that was weird.
Marcus Samuelsson
#40. Like all food, whether you're talking about Persian food, or Chinese food, or Swedish food, it's always a reflection of wars, trading, a bunch of good and a bunch of bad. But what's left is always the food story.
Marcus Samuelsson
#41. As a chef and activist, I'm particularly concerned with food politics issues such as the farm bill.
Marcus Samuelsson
#42. The same ten dollars you spend on lunch is all it costs for City Harvest to feed 37 kids who are hungry. That's pretty astounding.
Marcus Samuelsson
#43. The basis of the discovery is imagination, careful reasoning and experimentation where the use of knowledge created by those who came before is an important component.
Bengt I. Samuelsson
#44. I feel fortunate to be part of the cooking community. We learn from each other.
Marcus Samuelsson
#45. 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
#46. While some people may think being a chef only entails making enticing dishes and pushing the culinary boundaries, being a part of the food industry involves much more.
Marcus Samuelsson
#47. I've been lucky to travel and work all over the world through the lens of the back of the house, and I love that monocle. I love that lens, because it's real people.
Marcus Samuelsson
#48. I can take a lot of pride that I can launch cookbooks and there's an audience out there that supports that.
Marcus Samuelsson
#49. As a chef, I could not wash my hands - nor clean pots, pans, utensils, meats or produce, nor make soups and sauces - if I did not have clean water. Were this to happen, of course, these would be the least of my concerns. Because water is the linchpin of survival: without it, not much else matters.
Marcus Samuelsson
#50. I started cooking for the love of cooking, and I am going to keep cooking whether there's a celebrity aspect to it or not.
Marcus Samuelsson
#51. Not only are pasta dishes delicious, but they are also great, easy options for a quick dinner during a busy weekday.
Marcus Samuelsson
#52. While you can find zucchini in markets in most places year-round, allowing you to make everything from breakfast dishes like zucchini and onion frittatas to snacks like zucchini-stuffed crab cakes, the onset of fall marks the beginning of hard squash season.
Marcus Samuelsson
#53. Sweden was once a very homogenous society, but no more. For decades, people have been coming into Sweden from all over the world, and that's changed the way we cook.
Marcus Samuelsson
#54. Salad can get a bad rap. People think of bland and watery iceberg lettuce, but in fact, salads are an art form, from the simplest rendition to a colorful kitchen-sink approach.
Marcus Samuelsson
#55. I always suggest something fast and simple so you have more time to share with friends; and when we think of the ultimate food to serve for a football game, only one thing comes to mind - wings!
Marcus Samuelsson
#56. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite American traditions. I quickly picked it up when I moved to the U.S. from Sweden.
Marcus Samuelsson
#57. Whether you're on a diet, or you're looking for a go-to one bowl dinner recipe, salads should be thought of as crowd-pleasers, not a dreaded component of a meal.
Marcus Samuelsson
#58. As a chef, I always have in mind how to properly feed the public, but at times it's easy to forget that some people have trouble even getting any food, much less adequate nutrition.
Marcus Samuelsson
#59. Childhood nutrition and healthy eating is a cause that is extremely close to my heart.
Marcus Samuelsson
#60. There are so many times there could have been a left turn instead of a right turn in all people's lives. I think mine are pretty crystal clear, because of being adopted, being born in Ethiopia, being adopted to Sweden.
Marcus Samuelsson
#61. In Africa, you have no clean water, but you have good food options. In Harlem, everyone can shower and get fresh water, but you often have bad food options.
Marcus Samuelsson
#63. I learned at a young age what chasing flavors meant, and I've been doing that my whole life.
Marcus Samuelsson
#64. I am a chef through and through. Everything I do - whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment - all my days are consumed by food.
Marcus Samuelsson
#65. Clean water and access to food are some of the simplest things that we can take for granted each and every day. In places like Africa, these can be some of the hardest resources to attain if you live in a rural area.
Marcus Samuelsson
#66. Just like keeping a healthy diet is important to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, eating the right foods is just as important for getting the most out of your workout.
Marcus Samuelsson
#67. I want to make sure the cooking industry becomes more and more diverse.
Marcus Samuelsson
#68. I came into this environment where there was so much love, so much positive energy. I never heard my parents say, 'We have adopted kids.' The minute my sister Linda and I landed in Sweden, we were their kids.
Marcus Samuelsson
#69. America has been very open to immigrants in terms of laws, getting loans - it has been helping immigrants more than it's been helping African Americans in starting a small business. That's key, whether you're starting a restaurant or a laundromat.
Marcus Samuelsson
#71. I love chicken. But, like a lot of chefs and cooks, I get tired of preparing it the same way.
Marcus Samuelsson
#73. When you're in Portuguese-African Brazil, or Lisbon, or Mozambique, sometimes piri piri is used as a condiment. Sometimes piri piri is just spices from a jar, and sometimes it's made with garlic, olive oil, cilantro, parsley, and some light chilies.
Marcus Samuelsson
#74. People come up to me all the time and ask how I stay the way I am, and it's no secret. The first lesson a chef needs to learn is how to handle a knife; the second is how to be around all that food.
Marcus Samuelsson
#76. For many sports fans, the onset of fall only means one thing: It's football season!
Marcus Samuelsson
#77. The opportunity here in the U.S. is so unique because we are so diverse, with so many different cultures living together. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists, all with their own connections to the spiritual aspects of food and with lessons that we can learn from each other.
Marcus Samuelsson
#78. I'm OK with firing people when they fuck up, but canning them when they've done nothing wrong - that's painful. [on the layoffs needed after 9/11 hit the business]
Marcus Samuelsson
#79. I happen to love coconut, particularly for that sweet and crunchy texture it adds to any dish.
Marcus Samuelsson
#80. The dialogue and conversation about food is everywhere - television, chat rooms, social media outlets and among everyday conversations.
Marcus Samuelsson
#81. Cooking is in an honest profession where you cannot hide and let others do the work for you. You have to show up, work hard and prove you can do it faster and better. And find a mentor who will recognize your talent and push you in the right direction.
Marcus Samuelsson
#82. The avocado is native to the Mexican state of Puebla, which helps explain why it's so popular in Mexican cooking.
Marcus Samuelsson
#83. They say never trust a skinny chef, but the fact is, to stay healthy when you're a chef means you have to work twice as hard.
Marcus Samuelsson
#84. What I love about the term 'salad' is that it can appear in so many different forms and says a lot about the cook. It could be a simple as fresh green lettuces tossed with a basic vinaigrette, or it could be as hearty as a couscous salad with grilled shrimp.
Marcus Samuelsson
#85. Packing lunches and going over menus is a great way to make small changes in the way your kids eat.
Marcus Samuelsson
#86. As people of color, it took a whole generation in many ways to get us out of the kitchen, and it's gonna take us the same whole generation to get us back into the kitchen and have ownership of restaurants, hotels and stuff like that.
Marcus Samuelsson
#87. For me, brunch is such a versatile meal since you can play on both the sweet and savory in your dishes.
Marcus Samuelsson
#89. I've lived all over the world, but Harlem is very special to me, and when I decided to open a restaurant near my home, I didn't want it to be business as usual.
Marcus Samuelsson
#90. I think that if you grind your spices and keep them in small batches, you can use them in endless ways. The key thing is to have a spice mill or a coffee grinder, and to keep your spices cold and in tightly lidded boxes.
Marcus Samuelsson
#91. We can all agree that government can't solve the obesity crisis alone. It's an ongoing issue that will require a collaborative effort across private and public sectors if we want to see some long-term success.
Marcus Samuelsson
#93. If it's done really well, you don't want big portions because you think, 'That was so fulfilling. I'm not stuffed. I feel great.'
Marcus Samuelsson
#94. Cooking turkey every year doesn't have to be monotonous - I want people to always mix it up using different spices and preparations.
Marcus Samuelsson
#95. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday - it's a day that's American to the core and it's a day that's all about what and how we eat.
Marcus Samuelsson
#96. Pot lucks are fun, especially when you encourage your guests to bring dishes that represent their families or cultures.
Marcus Samuelsson
#97. I have never seen a picture of my mother. My mother's family never owned a photograph of her, which tells you everything you need to know about where I'm from and what the world was like for the people who gave me life.
Marcus Samuelsson
#98. In Europe I couldn't be anything but a black cook working for somebody. My inspiration was to own, to be the chef.
Marcus Samuelsson
#99. With all the endless varieties and toppings you can add to burgers, there's no need to keep munching on the boring burgers and ketchup found at all the tailgating events and BBQs.
Marcus Samuelsson
#100. The Swedish Christmas is definitely unique, even throughout Scandinavia. Like Christmas everywhere, it's a very family-centered holiday.
Marcus Samuelsson
