Cooking Sayings and Quotes

There are two types of people: those who love cooking and others who prefer to order takeout. We all know someone who struggles to boil water. Regardless of your skill set, everyone deserves to eat well. Below you’ll find a collection of wise and humorous quotes about cooking.

What my mother believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you. Nora Ephron
Cooking today is a young man's game, I don't give a bollocks what anyone says. Gordon Ramsay
I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression. Maya Angelou
The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude. Julia Child
No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers. Laurie Colwin
I think preparing food and feeding people brings nourishment not only to our bodies but to our spirits. Feeding people is a way of loving them, in the same way that feeding ourselves is a way of honoring our own createdness and fragility. Shauna Niequist
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. Calvin Trillin
In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport. Julia Child
Cooking is like snow skiing: If you don't fall at least 10 times, then you're not skiing hard enough. Guy Fieri
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. Harriet Van Horne
If cooking becomes an art form rather than a means of providing a reasonable diet, then something is clearly wrong. Tom Jaine
Cooking is actually quite aggressive and controlling and sometimes, yes, there is an element of force-feeding going on. Nigella Lawson
The greatest dishes are very simple. Auguste Escoffier
Cooking with kids is not just about ingredients, recipes, and cooking. It's about harnessing imagination, empowerment, and creativity. Guy Fieri
Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors - it's how you combine them that sets you apart. Wolfgang Puck
Cooking is not difficult. Everyone has taste, even if they don't realize it. Even if you're not a great chef, there's nothing to stop you understanding the difference between what tastes good and what doesn't. Gerard Depardieu
Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it's too assertive to the naked eye. Gordon Ramsay
Instead of going out to dinner, buy good food. Cooking at home shows such affection. In a bad economy, it's more important to make yourself feel good. Ina Garten
You don't come into cooking to get rich. Gordon Ramsay
Cooking is at once one of the simplest and most gratifying of the arts, but to cook well one must love and respect food. Craig Claiborne
If you think well, you cook well. Ferran Adria
I approach cooking from a science angle because I need to understand how things work. If I understand the egg, I can scramble it better. It's a simple as that. Alton Brown
All cooking is a matter of time. In general, the more time the better. John Erskine
I don't like gourmet cooking or this cooking or that cooking. I like good cooking. James Beard
Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore. Thomas Keller
If you're not the one cooking, stay out of the way and compliment the chef. Michael Strahan
The smells of slow cooking spread around the house and impart a unique warmth matched only by the flavour of the food. Yotam Ottolenghi
Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way. Paul Theroux
Cooking is an observation-based process that you can't do if you're so completely focused on a recipe. Alton Brown
Cooking demands attention, patience, and above all, a respect for the gifts of the earth. It is a form of worship, a way of giving thanks. Judith B. Jones
In cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is the sign of perfection. Curnonsky
Great cooking favors the prepared hands. Jacques Pepin
Cooking is like making love, you do it well, or you do not do it at all. Harriet Van Horne
Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love. Craig Claiborne
Cooking is one failure after another, and that's how you finally learn. Julia Child
I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and say to myself "well, that's not going to happen. Rita Rudner
Oh, I adore to cook. It makes me feel so mindless in a worthwhile way. Truman Capote
My two rules of cooking: keep it fresh and keep it simple. Michael Isabella
Cooking is revolution and creation. Simone De Beauvoir
Cooking is the most succulent of human pleasures. Sylvia Townsend Warner
The most indespensible ingredient of all good home cooking: love for those you are cooking for. Sophia Loren
Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon. H. Jackson Brown
When you hear bacon cooking....that sizzling sound isn't the fat cooking....that's applause. Jim Gaffigan
Working in the kitchen is my soul and my life, and I love it. I'm not there because people expect to see me; I am there because I want to be. Heinz Beck
The person who makes the food—his physique, his food, his soul—is unique. It is like fingerprints or handwriting. Musa Dağdeviren
You have to be yourself when you are creating and cooking. You do what you need to do and you do it to the best of your ability. Leah Chase
My definition of man is a cooking animal. The beasts have memory, judgement, and the faculties and passions of our minds in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook... Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats. James Boswell
Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen. Robert Burton
There are people who claim to be instinctive cooks, who never follow recipes or weigh anything at all. All I can say is they're not very fussy about what they eat. For me, cooking is an exact art and not some casual game. Delia Smith
A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness. Elisa Schiaparelli
To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a "home" might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation. Emily Post
When it comes to cooking, five years ago I felt guilty "just adding water." Now I want to bang the tube against the countertop and have a five-course meal pop out. If it comes with plastic silverware and a plate that self-destructs, all the better. Erma Bombeck
When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking. Gail Sheehy
Non-cooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet. Julia Child
I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. Julia Child
Food imaginatively and lovingly prepared, and eaten in good company, warms the being. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
A good cook is not necessarily a good woman with an even temper. Some allowance should be made for the artistic temperament.... Do not be unreasonable and suddenly announce at 7 o'clock that there will be three extra people for dinner. Cooks are only human beings and cannot work miracles. Marcel Boulestin
Some people make too much of a business of cooking. Properly managed, cooking is the simplest of work, but nowhere is an efficiency expert so needed as in the kitchen. There is nothing I hate more than to see a woman, hot, tired, and untidy from cooking a dinner I am supposed to eat. It takes all the pleasure out of the meal. G.F. Scotson-Clark
The fact is that it takes more than ingredients and technique to cook a good meal. A good cook puts something of himself into the preparation—he cooks with enjoyment, anticipation, spontaneity, and he is willing to experiment. Pearl Bailey
When I come home to my kitchen, I realize it is there that I can best satisfy the eccentricities of my own palate. James Beard
I feel a recipe is only a theme, which an intelligent cook can play each time with a variation. Madame Jehane Benoit
Cookery is not chemistry. It is an art. It requires instinct and taste rather than exact measurements. Marcel Boulestin
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star. Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Poultry is for the cook what canvas is for the painter. Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good. Alice May Brock
I don't even butter my bread. I consider that cooking. Katherine Cebrian
Sour, sweet, bitter, pungent—all must be tasted. Chinese Proverb
Life is too short to stuff a mushroom. Shirley Conran
Salt is the policeman of taste: it keeps the various flavors of a dish in order, and restrains the stronger from tyrannizing over the weaker. Malcolm De Chazal
It does not matter whether one paints a picture, writes a poem, or carves a statue, simplicity is the mark of a master-hand. Don't run away with the idea that it is easy to cook simply. It requires a long apprenticeship. Elsie de Wolfe
If you like good food, cook it yourself. Li Liweng
The fat in meat, fish, ducks and chicken must be kept in the meat and not allowed to run out, else the flavor is all in the juices. Yuan Mei
From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting.... On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain. E.B. White
Cooking is about creating something delicious for someone else. Ayumi Komura
Cooking is one of the greatest gifts you can give to those you love. Ina Garten
Cooking is an art, but you eat it too. Marcella Hazan
Cooking is simply a huge and often very fun puzzle of piecing together techniques with different ingredients. Once you know your basics, the world is your oyster (or your clam, your chicken thigh, block of tofu—whatever makes you happy). Julia Turshen
Good food is always a trouble and its preparation should be regarded as a labour of love. Elizabeth David
The cooking of the Mediterranean shores, endowed with all the natural resources, the colour and flavour of the South, is a blend of tradition and brilliant improvisation. The Latin genius flashes from the kitchen pans. Elizabeth David
Cooking for people is an enormously significant expression of generosity and soulfulness, and entertaining is a way to be both generous and creative. You're sharing your life with people. Of course, it's also an expression of your own need for approval and applause. Nothing wrong with that. Ted Allen
The cool thing is that now that people have made this evolution where cooking is cool, people are doing it on weekends, they're doing their own challenges. It's back to cooking. And it's real cooking. Emeril Lagasse
You can pretty much make fish soup out of anything, but it always tastes better if you include fish. Sten Sture Skaldeman
A comedian I heard recently suggested that the best way to get a man to cook for you is to get him to associate cooking with danger. [...] If cooking involves fire or large knives or a whole fish—preferably all three—he's there. Sydney Biddle Barrows
I believe that precision in cooking is not about who can construct the most meticulously perfect recipe, but who can master their skill and techniques so well that they can apply them to more or less anything with great results. Magnus Nilsson
The tradition of Italian cooking is that of the matriarch. This is the cooking of grandma. She didn't waste time thinking too much about the celery. She got the best celery she could and then she dealt with it. Mario Batali
When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste. Laiko Bahrs
In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. Friedrich Nietzsche
Cooking for some is joy, for others a way to relax after a hectic day at work, and for a few, it’s purely a means to an end. Whatever your feelings are about cooking, it is so rewarding to see friends and family enjoy your food. Chetna Makan
One of the most meditative times of my day is when I'm cooking. Gabrielle Bernstein
Cooking is the art of adjustment. Jacques Pepin
For me, cooking is an expression of the land where you are and the culture of that place. Alex Atala
Like eating your own cooking, / do you favor what you write / Do the words digest completely, / —the stove again to light / As you walk that final mile, / in those shabby cobblers shoes / Will you then embrace at last, / —what was never yours to lose Kurt Philip Behm