What will not luxury taste? Earth, sea, and air, Are daily ransack’d for the bill of fare. Blood stuffed in skins is British Christians’ food, And France obs marshes of the croaking brood.
—John Gay (1685–1732) English Poet, Dramatist
That food has always been, and will continue to be, the basis for one of our greater snobbism does not explain the fact that the attitude toward the food choice of others is becoming more and more heatedly exclusive until it may well turn into one of those forms of bigotry against which gallant little committees are constantly planning campaigns in the cause of justice and decency.
—Cornelia Otis Skinner (1899–1979) American Actress, Playwright
There is such a thing as food and such a thing as poison. But the damage done by those who pass off poison as food is far less than that done by those who generation after generation convince people that food is poison.
—Paul Goodman (1911–72) American Novelist, Essayist
Condensed milk is wonderful. I don’t see how they can get a cow to sit down on those little cans.
—Fred Allen (1894–1956) American Humorist, Radio Personality
Simple diet is best–for many dishes bring many diseases; and rich sauces are worse than even heaping several meats upon each other.
—Pliny the Elder (23–79) Roman Statesman, Scholar
A cherefull look makes a dish a feast.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goats cheese… get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
Most of us are either too thin to enjoy eating, or too fat to enjoy walking.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.
—Luciano Pavarotti (1935–2007) Italian Musician
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any umber of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven’t yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is o way to capture food?
—Bill Bryson (1951–95) American Humorist, Author, Educator
It is the mark of a mean, vulgar and ignoble spirit to dwell on the thought of food before meal times or worse to dwell on it afterwards, to discuss it and wallow in the remembered pleasures of every mouthful. Those whose minds dwell before dinner on the spit, and after on the dishes, are fit only to be scullions.
—Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French Catholic Saint
A warmed-up dinner was never worth much.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux (1636–1711) French Poet, Satirist, Literary Critic
How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
Clearly, some time ago makers and consumers of American junk food passed jointly through some kind of sensibility barrier in the endless quest for new taste sensations. Now they are a little like those desperate junkies who have tried every known drug and are finally reduced to mainlining toilet bowl cleanser in an effort to get still higher.
—Bill Bryson (1951–95) American Humorist, Author, Educator
Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
He who cannot eat horsemeat need not do so. Let him eat pork. But he who cannot eat pork, let him eat horsemeat. It’s simply a question of taste.
—Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) Russian Head of State, Political leader
It isn’t so much what’s on the table that matters, as what’s on the chairs.
—W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English Dramatist, Librettist, Poet, Illustrator
When the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan, Even before he gets so far As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, At the last of he thirty palace-gates The pet of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, Orders a feast in his favorite room– Glittering square of colored ice, Sweetened ith syrup, tinctured with spice, Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, Limes and citrons and apricots,
And wines that are known to Eastern princes.
—Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) American Writer, Poet, Critic, Editor.
The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and in the passive.
—William Motter Inge (1913–73) American Playwright, Novelist
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
It is a difficult matter to argue with the belly since it has no ears.
—Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) (234–149 BCE) Roman Statesman
A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Hors d’oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me; they remind me of one’s childhood that one goes through wondering what the next course is going to be like — and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d’oeuvres.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (1870–1916) British Short Story Writer, Satirist, Historian
We load up on oat bran in the morning so we’ll live forever. Then we spend the rest of the day living like there’s no tomorrow.
—Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American Businessperson
First come, first served.
—Common Proverb
Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.
—Charles Kuralt (1934–97) American Journalist, TV Personality
Success to me is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each one.
—Barbra Streisand (b.1942) American Musician, Actor, Songwriter
I found there was only one way to look thin, hang out with fat people.
—Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American Comedian, TV Personality, Actor
I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
We plan, we toil, we suffer – in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol’s eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? The empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Critic
Fools make feasts and wise men eat ’em.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
Breadbaking is one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells… there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.
—M. F. K. Fisher (1908–92) American Writer, Publisher
It’s bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.
—Meryl Streep (b.1949) American Actor
Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.
—M. F. K. Fisher (1908–92) American Writer, Publisher
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 (1873–1960) American Writer, Socialite
To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.
—John Tillotson