Quotes from JAMES BEARD

I grew up in a kitchen that was the hub of the house and the crossroads of the entire neighborhood.

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.

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. If you use the best butter, eggs, cream, meat, and other ingredients, and use them carefully and wisely, you will have less waste than if you search for bargains end up with a full garbage pail.

There is much to be said for modern appliances in the kitchen, but there are times when we revert to primitive tools simply because they do the job so much better.

To dine in this kitchen is ever a satisfying experience. My preference for kitchen dining never seems to wane. It is not nostalgia but a natural expression of my love for food and its preparation. It seems to me that the pleasure of eating is heightened if one is there amidst the delightful smells to witness the moment when the finished dish comes out of the pot or the oven. And usually the less time lost between stove and table, the better.

Too few people understand a really good sandwich.

I grew up in a kitchen, and I guess the scent of food is like a perfume. It has stayed with me all my life.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Taste every time you cook, and take nothing for granted--not even your own palate, for it can change. Mine has.... Since doing time on a salt-free diet, I approach a plain baked potato reverently. Maybe I've been missing the truth--the nutty, delicate earthiness of a perfect baked potato. Salt only masks it. In a fancy mood, I heighten it with caviar; in a plain mood, I just give it several grinds of fresh black pepper.

it is one of the great sandwiches of all time and has swept its way around the world after an American beginning. Nowadays the sandwich is bastardized because it is usually made as a three-decker, which is not authentic (whoever started that horror should be forced to eat three-deckers three times a day the rest of his life), and nowadays practically everyone uses turkey and their's a vast difference between turkey and chicken where sandwiches are concerned.

People are also trying to achieve good honest bread in their own kitchens once again, and that is perhaps the healthiest sign of all—a return not only to home baking but also to the most fundamental traditions of American cookery.

Bacon-Fried Chicken

There is absolutely no relationship between an artificially flavored canned pork and a real ham.