Home > Work > Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking QUOTES

Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking QUOTES

1 " Fridays taught me the French philosophy of the leftover, codified (I later discovered) in my Institut Bocuse textbook and older books, such as the 1899 Art of Using Leftovers. There were rules—never store a leftover in a serving dish or a cooking vessel; never store a warm liquid in a closed container without cooling it first; never reuse a preparation made with raw egg; never keep anything for more than three days; and, the most important of all: Never, under any circumstances, use a leftover twice. A leftover has one chance: to be made even better than the original. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

2 " Young people today no longer have gout, but mope around on diets: noodles without butter, butter without bread, bread without sauce, sauce without meat, meat without truffles, truffles without scent, scent without bouquet, bouquet without wine, wine without drunkenness, drunkenness without gaiety….Saints of Paradise! I would rather have gout than deprive myself of all of life’s charms. ÉDOUARD DE POMIANE, VINGT PLATS QUI DONNENT LA GOUTTE (TWENTY DISHES THAT GIVE YOU GOUT), 1938, TRANSLATED BY JESSICA GREEN "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

3 " A recipe is only an introduction. It is the beginning of your relationship with the dish. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

4 " I was corrected on how to stir (“from the bottom up, circling, cleaning the sides as you go”), which I assume everyone else knows but which I never seemed to get right. I was corrected on my whisk (“limp wrist, figure eight, hitting four points of the bowl as if it had corners”), which I hadn’t known and which is both efficient and actually rather flash (you can reach exhilarating speeds). "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

5 " The three principles of a French plate are color, volume, and texture. They are rules of presentation. If your dish uses color strategically, volume (i.e., has height), and texture (mixes soft and hard, or juicy and crunchy), then it will appeal to a diner. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

6 " They are the jammiest of the jammy ingredients. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

7 " Dorothy Hamilton’s Techniques of Classic Cuisine. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

8 " RATATOUILLE. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

9 " The most important lesson: that each ingredient should be cooked separately. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

10 " the ingredients together—in a pot, with shots of red-wine vinegar (an unusual addition, a bright, slightly racy acidity to balance the dish’s summer sweetness)—and heats them gently for a short time. The practice—each vegetable cooked separately—is said to produce a more animated jumble of flavors than if everything had been plopped in at the same time. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

11 " The image was like finding an automobile factory in your closet. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

12 " He was educated in the classics, and many mornings I would find him at the chef’s table reading one, especially Ali Bab’s Gastronomique Pratique, a work largely unknown in the English-speaking world but a bible for many French chefs in the early twentieth century, published in 1907, 637 pages of detailed, practical explanations of the dishes of the French repertoire. But Richard never made a thing from it. Nothing. Why do you read it? I asked. “To be provoked. People think I have such original ideas, but I don’t, not "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

13 " the trail just disappeared: smooshed into nonexistence by what seemed to have been a large herd of elephants suddenly deciding to take a group nap. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

14 " I looked up—a sheer, flat, white rocky face (the kind you would take a ski lift to reach the top of or wear a parachute to jump from)—and thought: Oh, shit. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

15 " Saint Sulpice had only been granted protective status as a national treasure in 1994. But it was now officially a monument, in the fullest sense of the word: It marked a place where something happened which now was gone. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking

16 " I am not difficult. I am happy with the best. "

― Bill Buford , Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking