James Beard Quotes

When you cook, you never stop learning. That's the fascination of it all.

Like the theater, offering food and hospitality to people is a matter of showmanship, and no matter how simple the performance, unless you do it well, with love and originality, you have a flop on your hands.

The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it.

The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it… If you’re convinced that cooking is drudgery, you’re never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen.

Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.

The only thing that will make a souffle fall is if it knows you're afraid of it.

If I had to narrow my choice of meats down to one for the rest of my life, I am quite certain that meat would be pork.

I don't like gourmet cooking or 'this' cooking or 'that' cooking. I like good cooking.

There is absolutely no substitute for the best. Good food cannot be made of inferior ingredients masked with high flavor. It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.

Goodness, how much there is to learn about food!

Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing.

A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.

Too few people understand a really good sandwich.

Good cheese needs good companions.

I’m going to break one of the rules of the trade here. I’m going to tell you some of the secrets of improvisation. Just remember—it’s always a good idea to follow the directions exactly the first time you try a recipe. But from then on, you’re on your own.

I'm really enamored of the potato in all its guises.

No vegetable exists which is not better slightly undercooked.

Grilling, broiling, barbecuing - whatever you want to call it - is an art, not just a matter of building a pyre and throwing on a piece of meat as a sacrifice to the gods of the stomach.

Good bread and good butter go together. They are one of the perfect marriages in gastronomy, and they never fail to cheer me.

I believe that if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around.

Be simple. Be honest. Don't overcook and don't undercook, but it's better to undercook than overcook.

Hands are our earliest tools. Cooking starts with the hands which are so sensitive that when they touch something they transmit messages to your brain about texture and temperature.

It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.

I am still convinced that a good, simple, homemade cookie is preferable to all the store-bought cookies one can find.

I have had, in my time, memorable meals of scrambled eggs with fresh truffles, scrambled eggs with caviar and other glamorous things, but to me, there are few things as magnificent as scrambled eggs, pure and simple, perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned.