Culinary Discovery Quotes

When I got to France I realized I didn't know very much about food at all. I'd never had a real cake. I'd had those cakes from cake mixes or the ones that have a lot of baking powder in them. A really good French cake doesn't have anything like that in it - it's all egg power.

I would try doing a dish 30 different ways.

When I was 16 and arrived in France, I discovered chocolate mousse. I was crazy about the bread, too. Every morning, I'd go to the bakery and get a fresh croissant. It made me feel very sophisticated.

In a strange city, I connect through food and fantasy.

Cooking is a philosophy; it's not a recipe.

I am attracted by almost any French word - written or spoken. Before I knew its meaning, I thought 'saucisson' so exquisite that it seemed the perfect name to give a child - until I learned it meant 'sausage!'

It was in 'Esquire' in the 1970s that I first learned Nora Ephron's recipe for borscht - certainly an editorial first for that manly magazine.

Chef's choice is my favorite. I'm super adventurous.

Usually I love preparing. It's really the time I prefer, because it's a time of reflection and of possibility of growth - to let it cook inside.

The single greatest pleasure that I have in doing ('Bizarre Foods') is when I meet families with 6, 7, 8-year-olds, or teenagers, who say, 'It's something the whole family can watch, and it lets us show our younger children that one man's 'weird' is another man's 'wonderful,' and we all kind of live in the same place.' It's just the best part of my day.

I wasn't passionate about food until I'd been cooking for a while. I started long before food became part of the mainstream media. I just wanted to cook, period.

I'll eat anything, even foods I've always shunned, when a friend cooks it.

On some subconscious level, I've been prejudiced against turnips, parsnips, swedes and other roots. Do they taste of much? Are they really special? How wrong I was.

Going to Southeast Asia for the first time and tasting that spectrum of flavors - that certainly changed my whole palate, the kind of foods I crave. A lot of the dishes I used to love became boring to me.

Once you start cooking, one thing leads to another. A new recipe is as exciting as a blind date. A new ingredient, heaven help me, is an intoxicating affair.

There's nobody you can call and say, 'So, can you maybe send me your formula for frying Hollandaise?' because to the best of my knowledge, it didn't exist before we did it.

My favorite thing to do in a new city is find new fast food. I seek it out. I'll tweet and ask people what their favorite local place is, and if I get four or five with the same answer, then I'll check it out.

I never really knew what fine cuisine was when I was a little boy in Canada. For me, Italian food was 'Kraft Dinner' or pizza. When I moved to New York, that's when I discovered all the Italian food.

I learned that if I could read, I could cook. I surprised myself I like it.

The first time I had sushi, I hated it. And the second time was no different, and then, I just started loving it. I actually crave for sushi. It's one of the healthiest meals. My experiments with food began when I was working in New York as an architect, be it Korean or Ethiopian food or fusion food.

I had a baptism of fire when I cooked in the Little Paris Kitchen.

The real evolution is to learn something new every day - it's very important for chefs to share what they have discovered.

I want e by Jose Andres to be a discovery, to be a journey. I want people to find it and be astonished.