Top 37 Quotes & Sayings by James Beard

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American author James Beard.

Last updated on December 21, 2024.

James Andrews Beard was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside, Oregon, and lectured widely. He emphasized American cooking, prepared with fresh, wholesome, American ingredients, to a country just becoming aware of its own culinary heritage. Beard taught and mentored generations of professional chefs and food enthusiasts. He published more than twenty books, and his memory is honored by his foundation's annual James Beard Awards.

American - Author | May 5, 1903 - January 21, 1985

Source: Wikipedia

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

James Beard

Too few people understand a really good sandwich.

James Beard

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

James Beard

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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.

James Beard

I am so happy to see more and more people in this country are becoming addicted to cheese.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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

James Beard

In a house without a genuine kitchen, one of the delights of growing up is lost.

James Beard

The roe of the Russian sturgeon has probably been present at more important international affairs than have all the Russian dignitaries of history combined. This seemingly simple article of diet has taken its place in the world along with pearls, sables, old silver, and Cellini cups.

James Beard

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.

James Beard

Good cheese needs good companions.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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.

James Beard

What comforted me? That is easy. It was a strong cold chicken jelly so very, very thick. My mother's Chinese cook would fix it. He would cook it down, condense it-this broth with all sorts of feet in it, then it would gell into sheer bliss. It kept me alive once for three weeks when I was ill as a child. And I've always craved it since.

James Beard

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.

James Beard

I’ve long said that if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs.

James Beard

If you have never tasted a braised vegetable, you'll find it is a revelation.

James Beard

It's foolish to go through life bemoaning the fact that you can't have this or that. Twaddle! You can omit certain foods and still enjoy eating.

James Beard

I've long said that if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs. There are few sights that appeal to me more than the streaks of lean and fat in a good side of bacon, or the lovely round of pinkish meat framed in delicate white fat that is Canadian bacon. Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing.

James Beard

When I walk into a market I may see a different cut of meat or an unusual vegetable and think, ‘I wonder how it would be if I took the recipe for that sauce I had in Provence and put the two together?’ So I go home and try it out. Sometimes my idea is a success and sometimes it is a flop, but that is how recipes are born. There really are not recipes, only millions of variations sparked by someone’s imagination and desire to be a little creative and different. American cooking is built, after all, on variations of old recipes from around the world.

James Beard

No vegetable exists which is not better slightly undercooked.

James Beard

Too many simple green salads suffer from a lack of imagination.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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

James Beard

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

James Beard

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.

James Beard

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

James Beard

The kitchen, reasonably enough, was the scene of my first gastronomic adventure. I was on all fours. I crawled into the vegetable bin, settled on a giant onion and ate it, skin and all. It must have marked me for life, for I have never ceased to love the hearty flavor of raw onions.

James Beard

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.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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

James Beard

Goodness, how much there is to learn about food!

James Beard

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.

James Beard

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

James Beard

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.

James Beard

Top 37 Quotes & Sayings by James Beard

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