French Lessons: Adventures With Knife, Fork, And Corkscrew Quotes
"Food was fuel, and in many cases not very appetizing fuel."
"Speak English forcefully enough, he said, and they will eventually understand you."
"Fish and chips for me. They do a very decent fish and chips in France."
"Fish, a majestic creature that I think was sea bass, was ceremoniously presented."
"Nature must take some of the credit for this."
"Before their Revolution, the best cooking was not available to the general public."
"Fate intervened. I had stopped at a fork in the road."
"The food was like the most satisfying kind of home cooking: simple, generous, and tasty."
"The French have never taken to the Anglo-Saxon habit of the orderly queue."
"Living in the middle of such abundance, it’s not surprising that the Frenchman makes the most of it."
"You haven’t had ‘a little light lunch’ in years. We’d stagger out of the restaurant at three-thirty, looking for somewhere to lie down."
"The chickens being exhibited will be arranged in the halls between four-thirty and seven tomorrow morning."
"I have spent more convivial afternoons than the one that followed."
"Régis looked sideways at me and then, in a tone of icy politeness, turned to the woman. "And chickens, madame? When might one expect to see chickens?""
"In Bourg, however, there is no doubt what the visitor is expected to send home: a poultry card."
"Every bird must possess a fine skin, delicate bone structure, and, in the official phrase, unctuous flesh."
""You see?" Régis kept on saying as he discovered more and more evidence that his beloved France led the world in chicken de luxe."
""His purpose in life is to be a vehicle for garlic—good enough, in his way, but he lacks the finesse of the frog.""
"He was still muttering about lark’s tongues and truffles half an hour later, as we walked back to our hotel in the bitter December night air."
"God listened to their complaints, considering them carefully. Thinking it over, He was obliged to admit that the protesters had a point."
"Mind you, with a bit of luck, lunch can often go on until six."
"They’ve been poking around here for half an hour, making sure there aren’t any kidnappers hiding in the salad."
"What did bodyguards in these circumstances do to keep in touch before they all had cell phones—wave semaphore flags?"
"Their uncle, of course." It takes a Frenchwoman to recognize these distant family connections.
"The air was loud with chirrups of joyful surprise—"Tiens! C’est toi!"
"Cosmetic surgery has its Diors and Chanels, and the informed eye can often identify who did what."
"Simplicity and freshness have been part of the formula at Club 55."
"Nobody comes here to be ignored. It’s a show."
"In contrast to the babble on the beach, the loudest sounds in the boutique were the swish of plastic and the whisper of banknotes changing hands."
"The standard improved around three o’clock, with an influx of older gentlemen and their consorts."
"You’ll never be there at the finish if you swallow everything that’s waved under your nose."
"It was a steady stream of runners sprinting, jogging, or tottering up the red carpet that led to the finish line."
"She took the news bravely. 'Just this once,' she said."
"It is a small industry built on a paradox: eat, drink, and lose weight."
"I can never open a bottle of wine without thinking of the effort and skill and patience that have gone into it, and what a bargain it is."
"It is a most curious feeling to stand naked, poised to flinch, facing a young woman you have only just met while she directs lethally powerful jets of water up and down your body."
"Oh, I put naked men and women up against a wall and give them hell with a high-pressure hose."
"My skin felt as though it had been sluiced down with champagne."
"Life has no rough edges. You are surrounded by people who have been trained to please, and, God bless them, they seem to enjoy doing it."
"Ignoring the example of the couple at the next table, who had ordered two different types of mineral water, I asked for the permitted glass of red wine, and we set to."
"I never weighed myself. But I’m relaxed, clear-eyed, bursting with health, ready for anything."
"And there were some very nice little wines, too. And Armagnac. You should try it sometime. Do you the world of good."
"Advice to the motorist in search of a room for the night: Stop at the door of the hotel, and instruct the porter to leave your bags in the car."
"It was 1900, the year of the first Michelin guide to France."
"The Michelin stars, stylized rosettes that are called "macaroons" by the pros of the industry, are the gold medals of kitchen Olympics."
"This changed by 1920. Cars had become more reliable and pneumatic tires were no longer the novelty they had been twenty years before."
"The inspector’s method of working is a complete contradiction of the tactics normally practiced by food critics."
"A man whose valves and grommets were giving him trouble could hardly be expected to give much thought or attention to a menu."
"It flies in the face of nature. But although I could never do that, I am profoundly grateful to those who can, because they have labored long and hard to produce the definitive bible of the belly."
"We drank to chefs, particularly French chefs. And then we raised our glasses again to that unsung hero of the table, custodian of the nation’s stomach, and seeker after gastronomic immortality, wherever he can find it: Monsieur Tout le Monde."