James Beard
James Beard
James Andrew Beardwas an American cookbook author, teacher, syndicated columnist and television personality. Beard was a champion of American cuisine who taught and mentored generations of professional chefs and food enthusiasts. His legacy lives on in twenty books, other writings and his foundation's annual James Beard awards in a number of culinary genres...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChef
Date of Birth5 May 1903
CityPortland, OR
CountryUnited States of America
James Beard quotes about
Food is our common ground, a universal experience.
I believe that if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around.
A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.
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.
I don't like gourmet cooking or 'this' cooking or 'that' cooking. I like good cooking.
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.
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.
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.
No vegetable exists which is not better slightly undercooked.
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.
Be simple. Be honest. Don't overcook and don't undercook, but it's better to undercook than overcook.
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.
It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.