Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by John Torode
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Australian chef John Torode.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
The most used thing I have is my wok. I prefer it to a pan or pot. It is my wonder. They're really easy to clean, I am a lazy cook like that, so it appeals.
Cooking steak is a joy because it is a terrific piece of meat that has great flavour whether it is grilled or pan-fried.
I'm an Australian - I grew up in Melbourne and Sydney - but as a kid you don't learn much about the Kimberley.
In our family a whole ham on the bone would be bought three days before Christmas, and then stored in a pillow case and left in the fridge so anyone can take the huge thing out and slice it.
Sydney-siders don't drive.
I can't understand why anyone would want to reduce vinegar.
I cooked, which was pretty un-Australian. And I didn't really like Australian music... I preferred the New Romantics and punk and stuff like that.
My father did lots of things. He had an orange-juice factory. He did real estate. He did commercial selling. He was always up and about doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things and being adventurous. I always admired his self-discipline. He was very good at getting everything done. He was very tidy.
I like all my jackets to be on wooden coat hangers, all facing the same direction.
When you grow up in a family where you have lost a parent, everybody joins together to instil the correct values in you, to give you guidance and and show you the moral ways of the world. Most important to my father and grandmother was the idea of treating people as you would like to be treated.
How could you live without chips? I could do without bread easily.
I have to admit to not being a great turkey fan unless they come from Paul Kelly at Kelly Turkeys.
Sunday lunch should be about sociability, about conversation, about general stimulation and the education of the youth.
There are three types of palate. There's the palate that can't taste anything, there's the normal palate, and there's the Super Palate. I don't think I've got a Super Palate, but it's pretty good.
I do think about how different my life might have been had my mother not died so young, but I try not to delve into it too deeply, as it's like 'Sliding Doors,' isn't it? You just don't know.
People sometimes forget that Sydney is a harbour and it's the ferries that make it unique.
I don't worry about the camera adding pounds, I am who I am.
What I'm trying to do as an Australian is to say to people, 'You've got to go back out to Australia,' because there are rural communities that really rely upon tourism to continue to go.
Vegetarian' is just another word for 'bad hunter.'
I got quite into Spam once, in Korea. On their Thanksgiving, they give boxes of it to their friends. I fry it in batter with herbs wrapped around.
I grew up in a world with my father where you learnt to iron, you learnt to cook, you learnt how to clean the toilet... I want my children to be the same... I want them to be anywhere in the world and be able to cope.
Fish and chips by nature are greasy, so we put vinegar on it and we like it because it helps our digestive system. The vinegar breaks down the fat.
Those who know me well will tell you that I love a market, and when I say market, I mean food market. No matter where in the world, they allow me to soak up the culture, to hear the rhythmic chattering of the local people and traders, and take in the all-important smells, pungent and intoxicating.
The culinary world is a fascinating place that has been influenced over the centuries by culture, religion, fashion, war, art, science and, more recently, globalisation.
If you go to a restaurant and you go with people you like, your food will always taste really good.
My grandmother would let me stand on a stool stirring gravy in a large roasting dish in front of a wood-fired stove at the age of six. She wasn't worried about the whole health and safety stuff.
Marriage is a very difficult thing and sometimes everyone can be a bit stubborn; it is what it is.
I love Moroccan food, but I don't want to eat a goat or sheep's head, thanks.
Growing up in Australia, we didn't really go on holiday. We lived beside the beach, so when I walked out of the back gate I was on the sand.
I have no qualms with people who want to be vegetarians; it's just foolish. They are missing out on the best things in life: meat, cheese, proper Christmas pudding.
When I'm on holiday I want to clear my head and I found Marrakech too 'in your face' and busy.
I want people to throw on a hat, head out into the outback and see the real Australia. You can do it how you want - independently in a 4WD, camping under the stars, or being treated like a king in a luxury homestead or on a cruise.
I'm pretty conscious of what I eat because of my age.
For the children it will always be a lemonade float at the Christmas table as a special treat.
Few people think about the Top End of Australia as a travel destination.
My food hero would be someone like Elizabeth David, because I think what she did for Britain was amazing. Also David Thompson, an Australian chef who does Thai food and really understands the basis of it, has always been very inspiring.
In winter I love a pasty.
The inspiration to cook came from my grandmother and my father who were both wonderful home cooks. But I would say I taught myself. You travel, you discover the world, you explore books - it is these things that make a great cook.
I'm definitely not a nerd, not a nerd at all.
The most important ingredient of Sunday lunch is the conversation. Without that, it's dead and gone.
Restaurant kitchens are highly pressurised environments, with lots of young men, and that means one thing: testosterone. It's not brutal - it's military. It is regimented, tough. People are put into compartments and have to do exactly what they're told or the whole thing falls apart.
Fact is, I'm a carnivore.
I ate some really amazing food in Thailand. I had river turtle, and dried rat, which was quite chewy and interesting and a bit like biltong.
I think that most things, if you want to use them properly, take quite a lot of time and I don't necessarily have the patience to sit down and read the instructions and follow the first bits to actually get the starting point.
Cooking is a great leveller. You can be a sports star, an actor, an entrepreneur, anything, but cooking strips it all away.
I like to reactivate my body after a long journey by getting the sun in my eyes.
On Christmas morning breakfast is always thick slices of ham, thick white toast, butter and pepper - oh and a glass of fizz!
My nanna was an extraordinary lady, and a good old-fashioned cook. She'd just be pottering around, cooking dinner for 25 people on a wood-fired stove without a problem.
I think a robot butler would be a great idea for certain things. But the idea of anybody coming into my bedroom and doing stuff for me, besides my wife and I - such as giving you tea in the morning - I just find a bit irksome.
Cutting out meat or fish I could maybe just about manage - living without either? I can't see myself doing that ever, ever, ever.
Sydney has the world's best swimming pool. Walk through the Botanical Gardens and you come to the Andrew 'Boy' Charlton Pool on Mrs Macquaries Road, with incredible views of Finger Wharf and the Harbour.
Let's be honest, we all love a roast, but Sunday lunch could be a huge plate of salade nicoise; it could be eggs benedict; it could be a barbecue. The important thing is you're making an effort, and you're all together.
I don't like to eat in front of people.
I like to introduce people to new things without scaring them.
Men and women are not the same in the kitchen. Women tend to be uninhibited and instinctive. Men are inconsistent, egotistical show-offs.
We're all so busy we don't make time to enjoy our lives, good company and good food.
I'm a culture person when I'm working, so my downtime is beach time: sand, surf and a barbecue.
My earliest memory of cooking is my grandmother showing me how to make chicken gravy on the big combustion stove in her kitchen. I still use Nana's gravy recipe.
Under-mature beef with no fat through the meat will be a dry and tasteless disappointment and you will get little yield from it.
There is no way in the world that a vacuum cleaner will ever be obsolete - they use them for swimming pools, they use them for houses, they use them for industrial purposes. They're fantastic things.
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