Culinary Fusion Quotes

Chicken Tikka Massala is now a true British national dish, not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences.

I grew up going to bakeries in Tel Aviv; that's where we got our birthday cakes, they were always European baking and butter creams. We have such good baking in Israel, and we have the Diaspora of Jews from all over, and we learned early on to adapt and absorb flavors from all over.

Re-colonizing it and sort of reverse-colonizing it to the point that today the national dish of Great Britain is Chicken Tikka Masala.

I'm more comfortable weaving Indian flavors into American classics.

So, fortune cookies: invented by the Japanese, popularized by the Chinese, but ultimately consumed by Americans. They are more American than anything else.

I've always loved burritos, and I've always loved breakfast, and when I learned that some smart person had combined the two, it was a real sun-peeking-through-the-clouds moment.

It always freaks me out when I go to a sushi place and there's a Mexican.

People keep saying I'm westernizing Chinese food. No I'm not. McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, have done it big time, way before me.

Chicken masala is now Britain's true national dish, not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences.

I cook British food, but it doesn't mean I'm jingoistic about it. People can cook very good fusion food.

Taco Bell is going to start selling nachos and chicken nuggets wrapped in a tortilla. In other words, thank God we're going to keep Obamacare.

If America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali -- a collection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each may not mix with the next, but they combine on your palate to produce a satisfying repast.

Europe's the mayonnaise, but America supplies the good old lobster.

Indian spices can find a place in any cuisine. It's just a matter of opening your mind and palate to new flavors.

People love my collard greens. They love my macaroni and cheese. They love the gumbo. They love my Jamaican jerk or my Jamaican curry chicken. They love the jerk, though. And they love my Mexican food.

Fusion food as a concept is kind of trying to quite consciously fuse things that are sometimes quite contradictory, sometimes quite far apart, to see if they'd work.

If there were only one place to eat, I would pick anywhere in Northern Vietnam where you get the French and Vietnamese culinary fusion.

It as if you took a lot of very good food and some dog excrement and blended it all up so that you can't possibly figure out what's good or bad. It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people; they're not stupid.

Wild garlic and crab is a revelatory pairing.

This dish ain't just called Karate Meat because it's got an Asian kick to it. It's called Karate Meat because it will beat you up like a pigeon in prison.

The Japanese have become so smitten with the Western condiment - its texture as silky as a kimono, its tang as understated as the tang of Zen - that today they have a word for mayonnaise junkie: mayora.

People are trying to figure out what American food is; it's certainly an amalgamation.

Tom Friedman says China is so awesome they make kosher pigs.

Americans don't have deep gastronomic roots. They wanted to get away from the cultures of Europe or wherever they came from. We stirred up that melting pot pretty quickly.

My presence in California will bring a new, inspiring culinary environment to life, and I'm delighted to share my creative techniques and evolving fresh ideas with the Beverly Hills community.