“Cooking will never be good if it isn’t made with love for the person it’s being made for.” - Paul Bocuse
Just like any other facet of life, cooking is an activity that sometimes calls for motivation and inspiration. Those who don't like cooking very much can do with some motivation to get through, while those who adore the culinary arts can enjoy motivating quotes that make them feel seen.
In this article, we’ve picked some motivational cooking quotes, sayings, and proverbs to hopefully inspire you. If you're looking for some kitchen wisdom and great quotes about food and the culinary arts, look no further! Feast your eyes on some of our favourite inspirational cooking quotes and quotes from famous chefs.
1. “You can’t cook if you don’t like people.” - Joël Robuchon
Joël Robuchon holds the record for the most Michelin stars of any chef, with an astounding 31 stars awarded to his 17 restaurants and workshops, you can’t argue that this French chef doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s never been shy about sharing his knowledge of cooking and loves to make cooking accessible to everyone. His love of quality products and traditional recipes shines through in his cooking and you can find plenty of quotes about cooking from him.
2. “Gastronomy is the art of using food to create happiness.” - Théodore Zeldin
Théodore Zeldin isn’t a chef but rather a historian and philosopher who thinks that in order to have self-confidence, you need to eat well, and taste and savour your cooking. Whether you’re creating traditional food or haute cuisine, you have to believe that happiness is an inherent part of food and eating.
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3. “Real cooking is more about following your heart than following recipes.” - Unknown
This anonymous quote reminds us that cooking is an intuitive and passionate art. Most people learn their first dishes from family members such as their mother or grandmother. Lots of times, there are no measurements and simply adding the amount "that feels right" is how you know to recreate the recipe. Learning how to estimate amounts and understand how ingredients come together without tasting them is the art and science of cooking.
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4. “Cooking is a bit like cinema. It’s the emotion that counts.” - Anne-Sophie Pic
This quote from Anne-Sophie Pic, the chef and owner of Maison Pic, has a similar idea to Joël Robuchon when it comes to cooking and feeling. You can’t be selfish when it comes to home cooking or haute cuisine. When creating dishes, you need to consider the tastebuds of the people you’re cooking for.
Currently holding an impressive total of 10 Michelin stars across her restaurants, Anne-Sophie Pic is the most acclaimed female chef in the world.
If you’ve put a lot of feeling into your creations, you might feel like people aren’t taking the necessary time to taste your food. Everyone remembers the great food they've had throughout their lives. We remember the texture, the taste, and the look. Something as simple as a smell can bring back all these feelings. These types of quotes from chefs help us remember to bring passion to the kitchen.
Even something as simple as toast. Warm butter, jam, and the feeling of the toast crunching in your mouth can be enough to bring back fond memories. When a chef manages to do this, their work is done.
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5. “Cooking is multisensory. It’s made for the eyes, the mouth, the nose, the ear, and the soul. No other art is as complex.” - Pierre Gagnaire
The French sure do love good food! The famous French chef Pierre Gagnaire explained this perfectly as he mentions that all your senses need to be at work when enjoying your food. Whether you’re making or consuming food, it’s important to use your entire palette to get the most out of culinary masterpieces. A dish is judged on how it looks, smells, and, of course, tastes. A chef needs to keep all of this in mind when making their meals. Gagnaire gives one of the best chef quotes for inspiring the chef within us all.
6. “In the childhood memories of every good cook there’s a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot, and a mom.” - Barbara Costikyan
The American food critic Barbara Costikyan reminds us that even the best chefs probably started learning how to cook at home. Each chef has their own culinary heritage going back to their childhood which set them on the path to becoming the great chefs they are today. Bit by bit, we learn and improve and turn our weaknesses into our strengths. We need to be grateful for the push in the right direction we were given as children.
7. “You can only become a chef by mastering your five senses.” - Muriel Barbery
The dying food critic in Muriel Barbery’s novel Gourmet Rhapsody is trying to remember the best food experiences of his life. During this time, he says some great things about food, cooking, and eating. After all, eating takes up a large portion of our lives! When it comes to cooking, you need to love and share.
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8. “Cooking is a love story. You need to fall in love with the ingredients and then with the people who cook them.” - Alain Ducasse
Alain Ducasse understood that great chefs “fall in love” with their ingredients. Not just artichokes have hearts! Ducasse learned the basics on his family farm. He had vegetables, fish in the river, and meat. The only thing his family bought was butter. It explains why he loved local produce so much. He understood that the love of cooking needed to also encompass love for yourself and your fellow chefs as well.
9. “A bad cook seeks to hide the flavour of the original ingredient rather than awakening it.” - Guillaume Musso
Muriel Barbery wasn’t the only author to have written a novel about the world of cooking. Guillaume Musso, in his book, Call From the Angel, has plenty of great quotes on cooking. Remember that when you cook, the goal is to celebrate your ingredients. Otherwise, why did you use it?
Don’t leave anything to chance. You need to be able to explain why you used each ingredient. Whether you’re using apple juice to add tart flavours, flambéing with Armagnac to bring out the flavour of meat, or adding some eau d'orange for an extra spark of flavour, you need to have a motive. If you’re trying to hide a flavour with something else, it’s unlikely your dish will be a success.
10. “Great cooking can be boiled turkey, crawfish, or lettuce picked from the garden and hastily seasoned.” - Paul Bocuse
While we often think that you need to spend hours preparing a top dish, Paul Bocuse believes it’s the opposite. We’re inclined to believe him since he has 3 Michelin stars, is the king of cooking, and is the chef of the century. He provides a lot of good advice to budding chefs with this entry in the chef quotes inspirational genre. Simple and minimalist dishes can be as good as haute cuisine.
The important thing is the reasoning behind your cooking. There's some truth to the secret ingredient in a lot of great dishes being love. Learn what cooking tools you should have in your kitchen.
11. “This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!.” - Julia Child
Julia Child, the pioneer in making French cooking accessible to other audiences (mainly American), gave us many inspirational food quotes over the years. Her can-do attitude towards cooking is inspiring because she acknowledges that even if you're unsure of yourself, you just have to give it a shot! She tells people that even if they make a mistake, it's okay, you live and you learn and you might even be able to save your dish if you just use more butter. You can find a lot of chef motivational quotes from Julia Child.
12. "I watch cooking change the cook, just as it transforms the food." - Laura Esquivel
The Mexican novelist and screenwriter, author of Like Water for Chocolate, speaks passionately about food and cooking in a 1993 interview featured in The New York Times. She talks about how working with traditional ingredients reminds her of her childhood and her grandmother and how the act of preparing and cooking changes the ingredients into something more, just as working with those ingredients helps ground the chef in reality and be more attuned to the world.
13. "Cooking is all about people. Food is maybe the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together. No matter what culture, everywhere around the world, people get together to eat." - Guy Fieri
Guy Fieri is frequently teased by the public as a whole, but he is actually a pretty decent chef, and more importantly, has a lot of wise words about the philosophy of food. It's true that no matter where you go in the world, food is a pivotal part of everyone's lives and culture, even though there are a lot of differences. Being able to tap into that energy as a cook or chef is very special.
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14. "No rules. Don't be afraid to do whatever you want. Cooking doesn't have to have rules. I don't like it that way." - Masaharu Morimoto
Chef Morimoto, aka the Iron Chef, entered the world of professional cooking in the 80s, primarily creating sushi dishes and other Japanese/Japanese-fusion cuisine. He is known for his creative and unusual creations, like making a natto & Coca-Cola dessert on the Iron Chef show. His style shows that being creative, inventive and having fun with cooking is a great approach.
15. “A recipe is a guideline. Adding, subtracting, evolving it - that is part of the pleasure.” - Gordon Ramsay
As many other chefs have said, recipes are not the be-all-end-all of cooking. Cooking is an art, a craft, and a science, and being able to stray from the recipe is a great joy and skill. Of all the famous chef quotes, this one is simple and gives permission to explore.
There are also inspiring quotes about cooking from Julia Child, Mark Twain, Anthony Bourdain, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Johnson, too. Whenever you feel like you need a bit of inspiration, you should go through these food quotes or look up some of the other names we mentioned.
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