Culinary Roots Quotes

I grew up in Italy, so for me, Naples pizza is the only type of pizza that there really is.

Culture, when it comes to food, is of course a fancy word for your mom.

Regular readers will know that curries are my favourite thing, and I wanted to go back to the start and really research the history and philosophy of Indian cuisine, rather than just toasting spices, slow-cooking onions. I was hungry to understand this food that I love so much.

You know, my parents had a restaurant. And I left home, actually, in 1949, when I was 13 years old, to go into apprenticeship. And actually when I left home, home was a restaurant - like I said, my mother was a chef. So I can't remember any time in my life, from age 5, 6, that I wasn't in a kitchen.

My mom, who left Iran in 1976, steeped us in the smells, tastes, and traditions of Persian cuisine.

My grandfather's family used to own a pasta factory in Naples and they would go door-to-door selling their pasta. So his love of food came from his parents, which was then passed down to my mother and then again to me.

My childhood favourite is mum's shepherd's pie, Yorkshire pudding and roasted potatoes. I remember coming home from school and going to the kitchen to help her. It's because of her that I discovered my love for cooking.

I was always a person on my mother's hip in the kitchen. My mom really wanted her kids at her side as much as possible, and she worked in restaurants for over fifty years. And my grandfather had ten children, and he grew and prepared most of the food. My grandmother, on my mother's side, was the family seamstress and the baker. So my mom, the eldest child, was always in the kitchen with my grandpa and I was always in the production and restaurant kitchens and our own kitchen with my mom. And it's just something that has always spoken to me.

I think it's important to recall... what you remember your grandmother making, where you're from and the foods you enjoyed as a child yourself, and pass that information off to your kids.

My mom had Julia Child and 'The Fannie Farmer Cookbook' on top of the refrigerator, and she had a small repertoire of French dishes.

Usually I wear my grandma's old aprons, or others I have collected in my travels. When I was young, I would sit and watch my grandma prepare stuff. She wasn't Italian, but she did really good Italian food.

We all have hometown appetites.

Today we take New England clam chowder as something traditional that makes our roots as American cooking very solid, with a lot of foundation. But the first person who decided to mix potatoes and clams and bacon and cream, in his own way 100 to 200 years ago, was a modernist.

My biggest cooking influence, my No. 1, is my grandma. Then it's the farmers. When I go to the farm stand and see what's available, that's where I get most of my inspiration.

People cooked with a certain integrity before fast food, 50 or 60 years ago. When the cheap food arrived, and we didn't have the education and deep cultural roots to hold on, we got swept away by fast, cheap and easy.

My grandmother was the genesis of my connection and passion to food.

I like to cook, and I tend to make those one-pot meat dishes of my Hungarian ancestors. Also, I make a great Bolognese.

Food is all about the story of a people through the ages.

A chef's palate is born out of his childhood, and one thing all chefs have in common is a mother who can cook.

Brittany might not boast the biggest collection of Michelin stars in France, but when it comes to produce, you quickly realise that some of the key building blocks of French cuisine have their roots here.

I grew up with that farm-to-table dining before it was sweeping the nation. I do think there's some value to really throwing yourself into food and embracing where it comes from.

I'm a California girl, right? I grew up with that farm-to-table dining before it was sweeping the nation.

I inherited my 1960s copy of 'French Provincial Cooking' by Elizabeth David from my mother Gabrielle, who in turn inherited it from her mother Frances. It was my bible when I first moved to Paris aged 26.