Culinary Perfection Quotes

The true gourmet, like the true artist, is one of the unhappiest creatures existent. His trouble comes from so seldom finding what he constantly seeks: perfection.

The art of the cuisine, when fully mastered, is the one human capability of which only good things can be said.

Millions of American women, and some men, commit that outrage every summer day. They are turning a superb treat into mere provender. Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef’s ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish. American women should themselves be boiled in water.

The workman mindful of success, therefore, will naturally direct his attention to the faultless preparation of his stock, and in order to achieve this result, he will find it necessary not merely to make use of the freshest and finest goods, but also to exercise the most scrupulous care in their preparation, for, in cooking, care is half the battle.

For me, thats one of the important things about cooking. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today.

I have to be honest and say that I never really feel like there's one person that I really want to cook for. I just want my food to always get better and always be evolving and for there to always be movement in what I make. I would say I strive for that more than anything else.

The perfect borscht is what life should be but never is.

Creating deluxe cuisine is like playing a sport. Always competitive. Always challenging. And if you slow down a bit, you can no longer return to the top level.

Chef Michel Richard is always at the top of his game.

Of all the items on the menu, soup is that which exacts the most delicate perfection and the strictest attention.

This wasn't food - it was what food became if it had been good and gone to food heaven.

A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.

Ultimately, I want to prepare food that will be recognized equally in Tokyo, London, and Paris. I am after that universality, that transcendence.

If you have extraordinary bread and extraordinary butter, it's hard to beat bread and butter.

When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about.

The holy grail of recipe developing is the recipe that turns out so much more impressive than you would expect from the effort it took to produce.

Jiro Ono serves Edo-style traditional sushi, the same 20 or 30 pieces he's been making his whole life, and he's still unsatisfied with the quality and every day wakes up and trains to make the best. And that is as close to a religious experience in food as one is likely to get.

If you're doing a recipe on national television, there's really no room for being sloppy or a nonperfectionist.