Cookery Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

25 Cookery Quotes
[1-25] 
“Great pity were it if this beneficence of Providence should be marr'd in the ordering, so as to justly merit the Reflection of the old proverb, that though God sends us meat, yet the D------ does cooks.”
Unattributed Author Quotes
Source: Cooks' and Confectioners' Dictionary, or the Accomplished Housewife's Companions, London
“Every investigation which is guided by principles of nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach.”
Unattributed Author Quotes
Source: Cooks' and Confectioners' Dictionary, or the Accomplished Housewife's Companions, London
“Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen.”
Robert Burton Quotes
Source: Anatomy of Melancholy (pt. I, sec. II, memb. 2, subsec. 2)
“Yet smelt roast meat, beheld a huge fire shine, And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared.”
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) Quotes
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 50)
“And nearer as they came, a genial savour Of certain stews, and roast-meats, and pilaus. Things which in hungry mortals' eyes find favour.”
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) Quotes
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 57)
“Hallo! A great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding.”
Charles Dickens Quotes
Source: A Christmas Carol (stave three)
“Ever a glutton, at another's cost, But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost.”
John Dryden Quotes
Source: Fourth Satire of Persius (l. 58)
“Heaven sends us good meat, but the devil sends us cooks.”
David Garrick Quotes
Source: Epigram on Goldsmith's Retaliation
“To make a ragout, first catch your hare. [Fr., Poure faire un civet, prenez un lievre.]”
Hannah Glasse Quotes
Source: attributed erroneously to, but in "Cook Book" (1747) said to have been written by Dr. Hill
“"Very well," cried I, "that's a good girl; I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and so go help your mother to make the gooseberry bye."”
Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
Source: Vicar of Wakefield (ch. VII)
“Her that ruled the rost in the kitchen.”
Thomas Heywood Quotes
Source: History of Women (p. 286), (1624 edition)
“Oh, better no doubt is a dinner of herbs, When season'd with love, which no rancour disturbs And sweeten'd by all that is sweetest in life Than turbot, bisque, ortolans, eaten in strife! But if, out of humour, and hungry, alone A man should sit down to dinner, each one Of the dishes which the cook chooses to spoil With a horrible mixture of garlic and oil, The chances are ten against one, I must own, He gets up as ill-tempered as when he sat down.”
Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith") Quotes
Source: Lucile (pt. I, canto II, st. 27)
“Digestion, much like Love and Wine, no trifling will brook: His cook once spoiled the dinner of an Emperor of men; The dinner spoiled the temper of his Majesty and then The Emperor made history--and no one blamed the cook.”
F.G. MacBeath Quotes
Source: Cause and Effect (vol. I, no. 4), in "Smart Set"
“I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook flogged.”
Marcus Valerius Martial Quotes
Source: Epigrams (bk. VIII, ep. 23)
“A cook should double one sense have: for he Should taster for himself and master be.”
Marcus Valerius Martial Quotes
Source: Epigrams (bk. XIV, ep. 220)
“If your slave commits a fault, do not smash his teeth with your fists; give him some of the (hard) biscuit which famous Rhodes has sent you.”
Marcus Valerius Martial Quotes
Source: Epigrams (bk. XIV, ep.68)
“Of herbs, and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.”
John Milton Quotes
Source: L'Allegro (l. 85)
“The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.”
Alexander Pope Quotes
Source: Satires--Horace (epistle II, bk. II, l. 85)
“I never strove to rule the roast, She ne'er refus'd to pledge my toast.”
Matthew Prior Quotes
Source: Turtle and Sparrow
“A crier of green sauce.”
Francois Rabelais Quotes
Source: Works (bk. II, ch. XXXI)
“The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit, The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell; My mistress made it one upon my cheek: She is so hot because the meat is cold; The meat is cold because you come not home; You come not home because you have no stomach; You have no stomach, having broke your fast; But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray, Are penitent for your default to-day.”
William Shakespeare Quotes
Source: The Comedy of Errors (Dromio of Ephesus at I, ii)
“He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding. Have I not tarried? Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. Have I not tarried? Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening. Still have I tarried. Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word 'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.”
William Shakespeare Quotes
Source: The History of Troilus and Cressida (Pandarus & Troilus at I, i)
“Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.”
William Shakespeare Quotes
Source: Julius Caesar (Brutus at II, i)
“Would the cook were o' my mind!”
William Shakespeare Quotes
Source: Much Ado About Nothing (John at I, iii)
“She would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too.”
William Shakespeare Quotes
Source: Much Ado About Nothing (Benedick at II, i)