culinary influence Quotes

I went on a diet after 'Daawat-e-Ishq.' It was tough to resist eating because we were in Lucknow and Hyderabad, and the food over there is amazing.

From quite an early age I realised the effect that good food can have on others.

My mother likes what I cook, but doesn't think it's French. My wife is Puerto Rican and Cuban, so I eat rice and beans. We have a place in Mexico, but people think I'm the quintessential French chef.

Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.

Instead of cartoons, I was the kid who was watching Food Network, falling asleep to Emeril and Rachael Ray.

Well, she's so alive, Julia Child. And Margaret is so - is so designed. She's so intent upon making her point. That's the most important thing, is that she win the argument, and there is nothing that stands in the way of that train, you know. But Julia's just alive in front of you. That's part of why people loved her. They lived it with her. They breathed it with her. And the mistakes were all part of it.

There's never been anyone like Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, and there never will be. She is such an important source of inspiration for me, reluctant recipe writer and follower that I am.

A great destiny needs a generous diet.... What can be expected of a people that live on macaroni!

My mind says one thing, but my body says another. Thanks a lot, Indian food and beer.

The wonderful thing about food is you get three votes a day. Every one of them has the potential to change the world.

Food is a passion because I basically grew up in a kitchen. My mother was a gourmet chef and I'm the youngest of five kids. We would always congregate in the kitchen.

I grew up on Julia Child, Paul Prudhomme, Sara Moulton - and obviously, Emeril's first show had a huge impact on my life.

In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiner's Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island Duck, he might have written a masterpiece.

My job the same as carpenter. What kind of house you want to build? What kind of food you want to make? You think your ingredients, your structure. Simple. [Other] Japanese restaurants … mix in some other style of food and call it influence, right? I don't like that. … In Japanese sushi restaurants, a lot of sushi chefs talk too much. 'This fish from there,' 'This very expensive.' Same thing, start singing. And a lot have that fish case in front of them, cannot see what chef do. I'm not going to hide anything, right?

Anyone who knows me knows that I have never been shy about how important Ferran Adria has been in my life; he is a friend, a mentor, an inspiration.

In my early days, I copied the great French chefs, like most chefs do. Copying is not bad. Copying and not recognizing that you are copying is bad. For me, when I go to a restaurant and am served a dish influenced by something we created at elBulli, if it's well done, it makes me extremely happy.

My mother was not the cook in the family. My dad was. I'd watch him behind the grill, and I said, 'If I ever make it and have enough money, I'm going to make sure I dine in the best restaurants.'

And what, for instance, would have happened had Romeo and Juliet lived to middle age, their silhouettes broadened by pasta?

English food writer Elizabeth David, cook and author Richard Olney and the owner of Domaine Tempier Lulu Peyraud have all really inspired the way I think about food.

Sichuan food would not be Sichuanese without the hot chilies that arrived before 1700 from South America.

Everyone talks about Spanish influences, but where is it?...Tell me 10 great Spanish restaurants in London....You can’t give me the addresses. Nor in Paris.

For people in London, Asian flavors are always part of the culture, more than in New York.

Food, like the people who eat it, can be stimulated by wine or spirits. And, as with people, it can also be spoiled.

I believe no chef becomes what he becomes without having many people influence him.

I shop at the market, and that informs what I make.