Culinary Profession Quotes

Murder is commoner among cooks than among members of any other profession.

Chefs aren't celebrities: they're chefs.

Cooking today is far greater than it ever was, and more importantly, a chef's role today has changed dramatically over the last decade.

Chef: Any cook who swears in French.

When you'd get a note from someone, the government, it meant something was wrong. This was the way it was. Just goes to show you the way that being a chef has changed, you know - being on the bottom of the social scale and now being what we are, it's incredible, it's terrific.

The margins for restaurants to make money are very, very narrow. It's a tough business, and to be a chef is a little bit masochistic.

Cooks are an undervalued, awesome profession.

We used to be referred to as bakers and then we became known as cake decorators and now we are known as cake designers. I teach at the French Culinary Institute in New York and cake design is a legitimate profession.

Gastronomy is the French Foreign Legion. You don't need any qualifications. Just walk through the door and keep your head down. Be respectful - "Yes chef!" - and you'll be given a trade. One day you'll be in a position where you can put a roof over your children's heads, you can put food on their table, create security for them.

Historically in restaurants, the service staff is awarded significantly higher wages than cooks and other staff who prepare the food on which a restaurant's reputation is based. The gap in pay is so great that it is becoming increasingly difficult for young cooks to pursue their passion at the rate of pay restaurants are able to afford.

I don't do my mother's cooking. Because I am a professional and she isn't. Even if she is a better cook.

When we talk about chefs, we often talk about their love of food or their passion for it, but cooking is also about making a living; it's a job.

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.

I'm a chef, I own restaurants, and there's a behavior in the kitchen you have to have.

I didn't realize I was living in a very unique situation until I became a culinary professional. For me, there was nothing out of the ordinary about spending half my day in Mexico, and the other half in California.

Ever since I read 'Kitchen Confidential,' I saw a little light bulb go off. Being a chef is like being on a pirate ship; it's not like 'Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?' or whatever my impression was as I was growing up.

At 15, I had to choose a vocational school, and I was delighted, of course, to go to culinary school. But learning the basics was not as exciting as being the chef I am today.

I'm a little old-school in that I think there's some value in the classics and the steps of achieving a certain profession. If we start slanging the word 'chef' on anybody and everybody who cooks, it takes away a lot.

Television in the '80s was very limited. There was no Food Network. When I opened Spago, I had the kitchen in the dining hall. It was probably the first restaurant to do so. The dining scene became more casual. All these cooking shows have transformed our profession one-hundred percent.

Don't take a butcher's advice on how to cook meat. If he knew, he'd be a chef.

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.

When chefs like Wolfgang Puck became household names, that became a compelling reason for an intelligent young person to go into the cooking profession. There have been no waiters who have turned into household names. The service and hospitality aspects have clearly lagged behind the kitchen.

Thirty-five years ago, being a cook was the same as being a used-car salesman.

I guess technically I am a female chef, but I don't really think of myself as such.