103 Delicious Food Quotes

Food has an unparalleled ability to bring people together, evoke cherished memories, and tantalize our taste buds. Whether it's the sizzle of a perfectly grilled steak, the comforting aroma of freshly baked bread, or the sweet decadence of a chocolate dessert, food is a universal language that speaks to all of us. In this blog post, we’ve curated a delightful array of the top 103 delicious food quotes to celebrate our shared love for culinary delights. So, sit back, relax, and let these quotes whet your appetite for all things delicious and delectable. Prepare to be inspired, amused, and perhaps a little bit hungry!

1. “You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. “Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.” - Alice May Brock

3. “The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.” - Calvin Trillin

4. “Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.” - G. K. Chesterton

5. “A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.” - James Beard

6. “The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.” - Julia Child

7. “A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.” - Elsa Schiaparelli

8. “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” - Charles de Gaulle

9. “No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.” - Laurie Colwin

10. “The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living…” - Dione Lucas

11. “Seating themselves on the greensward, they eat while the corks fly and there is talk, laughter and merriment, and perfect freedom, for the universe is their drawing room and the sun their lamp. Besides, they have appetite, Nature's special gift, which lends to such a meal a vivacity unknown indoors, however beautiful the surroundings.” - Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

12. “I'm a man. Men cook outside. That outdoor grilling is a manly pursuit has long been beyond question. If this wasn't understood, you'd never get grown men to put on those aprons with pictures of dancing weenies on the front, and messages like 'Come 'n' Get It!” - William Geist

13. “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart.” - Erma Bombeck

14. “There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will.” - Robert Frost

15. “He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.” - Jonathan Swift

16. “Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!” - Roald Dahl

17. “Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” - Sophia Loren

18. “Toward the end of February 1954, James Beard was at work in his Greenwich Village kitchen doing what he most loved to do: cooking delicious meals.” - Laura Shapiro

19. “Parsley is gharsley.” - Ogden Nash

20. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” - Michael Pollan

21. “Perhaps this war will make it simpler for us to go back to some of the old ways we knew before we came over to this land and made the Big Money. Perhaps, even, we will remember how to make good bread again.It does not cost much. It is pleasant: one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with peace, and the house filled with one of the world's sweetest smells. But it takes a lot of time. If you can find that, the rest is easy. And if you cannot rightly find it, make it, for probably there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.” - M.F.K. Fisher

22. “To experience biophilia is to love a diversity that, as limitless as it is fragile, both haunts us and fills us with hope. ” - Adam Leith Gollner

23. “In my food world, there is no fear or guilt, only joy and balance. So no ingredient is ever off-limits. Rather, all of the recipes here follow my Usually-Sometimes-Rarely philosophy. Notice there is no Never.” - Ellie Krieger

24. “No plaque reminds the passer-by of these glories, although there should be one; for those who invent biscuits bring great pleasure to many.” - Alexander McCall Smith

25. “Simple,' Tummeler replied.' Blueberries is one of the great forces o'good in the world.' How do you figure that?' said Charles. Well,' said Tummeler, 'have you ever seen a troll, or a Wendigo, or,' he shuddered, 'a Shadow-Born ever eating a blueberry pie?' No,' Charles admitted. There y'go,' said Tummeler. It's cause they can't stand the goodness in it.' Can't argue with you there,' said Charles. Foods is good and evil, just like people, or badgers, or even scowlers.' Evil food?' said Charles. Parsnips,' said Tummeler, 'Them's as evil as they come.” - James A. Owen

26. “A Paradox, the doughnut hole. Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that. A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible. I wondered if they might be used-metaphorically, of course-to demonstrate the existence of God. Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?” - Margaret Atwood

27. “She felt so lost and lonely. One last chile in walnut sauce left on the platter after a fancy dinner couldn't feel any worse than she did. How many times had she eaten one of those treats, standing by herself in the kitchen, rather than let it be thrown away. When nobody eats the last chile on the plate, it's usually because none of them wants to look like a glutton, so even though they'd really like to devour it, they don't have the nerve to take it. It was as if they were rejecting that stuffed pepper, which contains every imaginable flavor; sweet as candied citron, juicy as pomegranate, with the bit of pepper and the subtlety of walnuts, that marvelous chile in the walnut sauce. Within it lies the secret of love, but it will never be penetrated, and all because it wouldn't feel proper.” - Laura Esquivel

28. “She felt about her zester the way some women do about a pair of spiky red shoes--a frivolous splurge, good only for parties, but oh so lovely.” - Erica Bauermeister

29. “The moon people do not eat by swallowing food but by smelling it. Their money is poetry - actual poems, written out on pieces of paper whose value is determined by the worth of the poem itself.” - Paul Auster

30. “If only the know-how could be equalled by the will-to-serve, by compassion for human suffering cause by hunger and deficiency diseases, there is no reason why fully balanced diets consisting largely of plant-foods should not be made available for hundreds of millions of undernourished people in the West as well as in the Third World.” - Robert Hart

31. “The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.” - Jasper Fforde

32. “If we are going to start calling industrial corn sustainable, then we might as well say that petroleum is a renewable resource if you're willing to wait long enough.” - Catherine Friend

33. “The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.” - Erma Bombeck

34. “The elevator shaft was a kind of heat sink. Hot food was cold by the time it arrived. Cold food got colder. No one knew what would happen to ice cream, but it would probably involve some rewriting of the laws of thermodynamics.” - Terry Pratchett

35. “Amen,' I exclaim, accidentally spitting out a Raisinet. I pick up the chocolate with a Kleenex and stuff it in my purse. Ten bucks says a month from now I'll have forgotten about it and will finally have said heart attack when I assume a rat shat in there.” - Jen Lancaster

36. “Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.” - Chris Bohjalian

37. “Every now and then, I'll run into someone who claims not to like chocolate, and while we live in a country where everyone has the right to eat what they want, I want to say for the record that I don't trust these people, that I think something is wrong with them, and that they're probably - and this must be said - total duds in bed.” - Steve Almond

38. “It is good to dress in fair clothes to dine with friends. It honors your host, if you are a guest; and your guest if you are a host. And both adorn the feast, and so celebrate the gifts of the world.” - Alison Croggon

39. “The fact is, I love to feed other people. I love their pleasure, their comfort, their delight in being cared for. Cooking gives me the means to make other people feel better, which in a very simple equation makes me feel better. I believe that food can be a profound means of communication, allowing me to express myself in a way that seems much deeper and more sincere than words. My Gruyere cheese puffs straight from the oven say 'I'm glad you're here. Sit down, relax. I'll look after everything.'- Ann Patchett, "Dinner For One, Please, James” - Jenni Ferrari-Adler

40. “Mom has the Touch. She knows what flowers go with what occasions, what hors d'oeuvres work with what people. She believes passionately in the power of food to heal, restore, and stimulate relationships, and she has built a following of loyal customers who really hope she's right. If she's wrong, says Sonia, no one wants to know.” - Joan Bauer

41. “What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?” - Lin Yutang

42. “I can't be a cream puff.” - Buddy Valastro

43. “If you seek for supreme predator, go find God. He hunts the prime killer of mankind, the Satan.” - Toba Beta

44. “always serve too much hot fudge sause on the hot fudge sundaes.It makes people overjoyed,and puts them in your debt” - Judith Olney

45. “I hate France. It's like the whole country's on a diet” - Gordon Korman

46. “I hate the notion of a secret recipe. Recipes are by nature derivative and meant to be shared - that is how they improve, are changed, how new ideas are formed. To stop a recipe in it's tracks, to label it "secret" just seems mean.” - Molly Wizenberg

47. “I remember an hypothesis argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, 'Whether supposing that the flavour of a big who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremem) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting an animal to death?' I forget the decision.” - Charles Lamb

48. “She glanced down at the contents of her plate. Just tell him what it is. Simple. Look at it and say what it is. "Sloppy Joe," she managed."Hmm," he said, sounding doubtful. "May he rest in peace.” - Kelly Creagh

49. “To speak only of food inspections: the United States currently imports 80% of its seafood, 32% of its fruits and nuts, 13% of its vegetables, and 10% of its meats. In 2007, these foods arrived in 25,000 shipments a day from about 100 countries. The FDA was able to inspect about 1% of these shipments, down from 8% in 1992. In contrast, the USDA is able to inspect 16% of the foods under its purview. By one assessment, the FDA has become so short-staffed that it would take the agency 1,900 years to inspect every foreign plant that exports food to the United States.” - Marion Nestle

50. “For desert, maybe we can split a couple of crumbs.” - Nicholas Sparks

51. “I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure” - Anthony Bourdain

52. “Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.” - Anthony Bourdain

53. “I just inhaled kimchi ramen. Nose on fire. Next chapter may be obscured by tears.” - MCM

54. “For us hunting wasn’t a sport. It was a way to be intimate with nature, that intimacy providing us with wild unprocessed food free from pesticides and hormones and with the bonus of having been produced without the addition of great quantities of fossil fuel. In addition, hunting provided us with an ever scarcer relationship in a world of cities, factory farms, and agribusiness, direct responsibility for taking the lives that sustained us. Lives that even vegans indirectly take as the growing and harvesting of organic produce kills deer, birds, snakes, rodents, and insects. We lived close to the animals we ate. We knew their habits and that knowledge deepened our thanks to them and the land that made them.” - Ted Kerasote

55. “The tantrums of cloth-headed celluloid idols are deemed fit for grown-up conversation, while silence settles over such a truly important matter as food.” - Clifton Fadiman

56. “If God gives you a Quiznos, can I have a bite? No way. You have to pray for your own food.” - Michael Grant

57. “You have to be a romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese.” - Anthony Bourdain

58. “I make my way back whistling. Gerry nods towards Mrs Brady who is standing beside the trolleys.Morning, Mrs Brady, I say cheerfully.I push her provisions out to the car.Things are something terrible, she says. You can't trust anybody.No.It's come to a sorry pass.It has.There's hormones in the beef and tranquillizers in the bacon. There's men with breasts and women with mickeys. All from eating meat.Now.I steer a path between a crowd of people while she keeps step alongside.Can you believe it - they're feeding the pigs Valium. If you boil a bit of bacon you have to lie down afterwards. Dear oh dear.Yes, I nod.The thought of food makes me ill.The pigs are getting depressed in those sheds. If they get depressed they lose weight. So they tranquillize them. Where will it end?I don't know, Mrs Brady, I say. I begin filling the boot. That's why I started buying lamb. Then along came Chernobyl. Now you can't even have lamb stew or you'll light up at night! I swear. And when they've left you with nothing safe to eat, next thing they come along and tell you you can't live in your own house.I haven't heard of that one, Mrs Brady.Listen to me. She took my elbow. It could all happen that you're in your own house and the next thing is there's radiation bubbling under the floorboards.What?It comes right at you through the foundations. Watch the yogurts. Did you hear of that?No.I saw it in the Champion. Did you not see it in the Champion?I might have.No wonder we're not right.I brought the lid of the boot down. She sits into the car very decorously and snaps her bag open on her lap. She winds down the window and gives me 50p for myself and £1 for the trolley.” - Dermot Healy

59. “Revel in grossness. Leave food in your teeth. Proudly display feminine hygiene products.” - Jennifer Ziegler

60. “Sanabalis never seemed to eat, and he deflected most of her questions about Dragon cuisine. Then again, he deflected most of her questions about Dragons, period. Which was annoying because he was one, and could in theory be authorative.” - Michelle Sagara West

61. “The true socialist utopia turns out to be a field of F-1 hybrid plants.” - Michael Pollan

62. “Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, flaky scones. Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavoured and quite delectable, and that very special gingerbread. Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins. There was enough food there to keep a starving family for a week.” - Daphne du Maurier

63. “Man was designed in a way in which he must eat in order to give him a solid reason to go to work everyday. This helps to keep him out of trouble. God is wise.” - Criss Jami

64. “I don't drink coffee I take tea my dearI like my toast done on one side ..."(Englishman in New York)” - Sting

65. “In any case, muffins that are only imaginary aren't liable to get stuck.” - Thomas M. Disch

66. “This magical, marvelous food on our plate, this sustenance we absorb, has a story to tell. It has a journey. It leaves a footprint. It leaves a legacy. To eat with reckless abandon, without conscience, without knowledge; folks, this ain't normal.” - Joel Salatin

67. “Benton had a strong interest in helping to ensure that Warren's home life wasn't greatly disturbed: his wife was Cornish, and that morning Warren had arrived with six Cornish pasties of remarkable flavour and succulence.” - P.D. James

68. “Stephanie, I'm begging you. Eat some doughnuts. I can't keep going like this." - Morelli” - Janet Evanovich

69. “This kind of mixing of ingredients happens all the time at fast-food places... You know when you order french fries and there's a rogue onion ring at the bottom. You know, at first you're alarmed but you eat it. It all comes from the same place! You just have to go for it.” - Chelsea Handler

70. “You know, the act of feeding someone is the ultimate act of care and affection...sharing yourself with someone else through food." He held another mouthful of cake under her nose. "Think about it. We are fed in the Eucharist, by our mothers when we are infants, by our parents as children, by friends at dinner parties, by a lover when we feast on one another's bodies...and on occasion, on another's souls.” - Sylvain Reynard

71. “That eating should be foremost about bodily health is a relatively new and, I think, destructive idea-destructive not just the pleasure of eating, which would be bad enough, but paradoxically of our health as well. Indeed, no people on earth worry more about the health consequences of their food choices than we Americans-and no people suffer from as many diet-related problems. We are becoming a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.” - Michael Pollan

72. “If hot food is they key to maintaining an expedition's stamina, then low grade gut-rot alcohol is the key to sustaining its sense of pleasure.” - Tahir Shah

73. “I act delighted, but I have zero interest in these Capitol people. They are only distractions from the food.” - Suzanne Collins

74. “And yes, we do have some food. Maybe you'd like to join us? Unless you want to stick with your sheep sushi.” - Michael Grant

75. “By the 1920s if you wanted to work behind a lunch counter you needed to know that 'Noah's boy' was a slice of ham (since Ham was one of Noah’s sons) and that 'burn one' or 'grease spot' designated a hamburger. 'He'll take a chance' or 'clean the kitchen' meant an order of hash, 'Adam and Eve on a raft' was two poached eggs on toast, 'cats' eyes' was tapioca pudding, 'bird seed' was cereal, 'whistleberries' were baked beans, and 'dough well done with cow to cover' was the somewhat labored way of calling for an order of toast and butter. Food that had been waiting too long was said to be 'growing a beard'. Many of these shorthand terms have since entered the mainstream, notably BLT for a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, 'over easy' and 'sunny side up' in respect of eggs, and 'hold' as in 'hold the mayo'.” - Bill Bryson

76. “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.” - H.R.H. Prince Philip

77. “Life is too short not to eat raw and it's even shorter if you don't.” - Marie Sarantakis

78. “I would love a sandwich,' said Tybalt, with enough gravity to make it sound like a formal proclamation. Resolved: that we will have ham and cheese sandwiches.” - Seanan McGuire

79. “This is the body's nurse; but since man's witFound the art of cookery, to delight his sense,More bodies are consumed and kill'd with itThan with the sword, famine, or pestilence.” - John Davies of Hereford

80. “The potatoes were starch grenades. The canned carrots were revolting because that is their nature.” - David Mitchell

81. “...eating is the purest mode of consumption. Our purchases are statements about our social class, our friends, and our beliefs. Buying something as continually necessary as food is an ongoing act of self-definition.” - Evan D.G. Fraser

82. “My Oneness will stop the machine that overtakes people's minds. Do we really need new clothes, or new cars, or new TVs? Should we really ingest food made from chemicals not of this earth? Should we really give our money to people who don't need it but want it to fill the evil greed inside of their body? No, we don't, but people need me to show them how to be free." Jimmy, "The One” - Teresa Lo

83. “We pass Tinsley's Fried Chicken with the big sign that reads, TRY OUR BIG, JUICY BREASTS.” - Donna Cooner

84. “I could have killed you.”“Or I could have killed you,” Percy said. Jason shrugged. “If there’d been an ocean in Kansas, maybe.”“I don’t need an ocean—”“Boys,” Annabeth interrupted, “I’m sure you both would’ve been wonderful at killing each other. But right now, you need some rest.”Food first,” Percy said. “Please?” - Rick Riordan

85. “Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education.” - Alice Waters

86. “Perhaps a past of bingeing, restricting, or purging comes back to haunt you from time to time. Maybe you have to fight hard battles against vanity, gluttony, and shame. But with God’s saving power, every new day is a gift, an opportunity to detach yourself from tormenting thoughts about food or how you look and to attach yourself to God. Remember, we all hunger for God, more than we hunger for a big bowl of ice cream or a perfect physique.” - Kate Wicker

87. “Μια από τις κυριότερες αποστολές κάθε ηγεμόνα ήταν κατά την άποψη (του Κομφούκιου) η επάρκεια διατροφής για όλους τους ανθρώπους.” - Martina Darga

88. “It's woman's power, food is. You be sure you know where'n the hook is before swallerin' it, Dru. You mind me, now.” - Lili St. Crow

89. “I would like to coin the phrase alimentary theology, a theology that is more attentive to and welcoming of the multiple layers contained and implied in the making of theology. This is a theology that not only pays closer attention to matters related to food and nourishment, and the many ways they can relate, inspire, and inform theological reflection. Most importantly, it is an envisioning of theology as nourishment: food as theology and theology as food. Alimentary theology is envisioned as food for thought; it addresses some of the spiritual and physical hungers of the world, and seeks ways of bringing about nourishment.” - Angel F. Mendez Montoya

90. “I always tell my kids to cut a sandwich in half right when you get it, and the first thought you should have is somebody else. You only ever need half a burger.” - Louis C.K.

91. “I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one's hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as "Oh, I don't know how to cook...," or "Poor little me...," or "This may taste awful...," it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one's shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, "Yes, you're right, this really is an awful meal!" Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed -- eh bien, tant pis! Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile, as my ersatz eggs Florentine surely were, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile -- and learn from her mistakes.” - Julia Child

92. “A block of blood should not have the word "cake" after it...they might as well say "shite gateau” - Karl Pilkington

93. “To me, chocolate was the sole reason we on this earth.” - Esi Edugyan

94. “What do you most wish for, Izzy?" "Herbs and salads, and fish straight from the river. A man needs no more than such pleasures.” - Mary Novik

95. “Love is a banana. First you peel it, and then you roll on the condom.
” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo

96. “By becoming aware of God’s Spirit, by slowing down and paying attention to the tastes and sounds and smells of the food we make and eat, we infuse our meals—and by extension our hearts—with a sense of awe, a depth of prayer that cannot help but transform our mindless eating into moving meditations.” - Mary DeTurris Poust

97. “When we link our eating and our prayer and begin to see food as part of a much bigger picture, rather than the focal point of our entire lives, we reshape the way we think, the way we act, and the way we interact.” - Mary DeTurris Poust

98. “How we prepare our food, how we consume our food really makes a difference in how our food satisfies us and shapes the role we give food in our lives. Is it something we stuff in to satisfy an urge or something we savor to feed us physically and sustain us spiritually?” - Mary DeTurris Poust

99. “Is it just a coincidence that as the portion of our income spent on food has declined, spending on health care has soared? In 1960 Americans spent 17.5 percent of their income on food and 5.2 percent of national income on health care. Since then, those numbers have flipped: Spending on food has fallen to 9.9 percent, while spending on heath care has climbed to 16 percent of national income. I have to think that by spending a little more on healthier food we could reduce the amount we have to spend on heath care.” - Michael Pollan

100. “People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand there must be a reason for this.” - Fran Lebowitz

101. “Vilket korkat jävla idiotland det här var. Alla unga kvinnor drack vatten i sådana mängder att det sprutade ur öronen på dem, de trodde det var 'nyttigt' och 'fräscht', men det enda som hände var att antalet unga inkontinenta i landet sköt rätt upp i höjden. Barn åt fullkornspasta och fullkornsbröd och allsköns märkvärdiga grova rissorter som deras magar inte kunde tillgodogöra sig riktigt, men det spelade ingen roll för det var 'nyttigt', det var 'fräscht', det var 'hälsosamt'. Å, de förväxlade mat med själ, de trodde att de kunde äta sig till att bli bättre människor utan att fatta att mat är en sak, de föreställningar mat väcker något annat. Och sa man det, sa man något i den vägen var man antingen reaktionär eller bara norrman, det vill säga en människa som är tio år efter.” - Karl Ove Knausgård

102. “Beans are a warm cloak against economic cold.” - John Steinbeck

103. “We moderns are great compartmentalizers, perhaps never more so than when hungry.” - Michael Pollan