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
When you cook, you never stop learning. That's the fascination of it all.
The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it.
Good bread and good butter go together. They are one of the perfect marriages in gastronomy, and they never fail to cheer me.
If you have never tasted a braised vegetable, you'll find it is a revelation.
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.
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.
It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.
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.
Goodness, how much there is to learn about food!
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.
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.
Good cheese needs good companions.
Food is our common ground, a universal experience.