My favourite food quotes and extracts by Paul Sandford.

Some years ago I offered to put together my favourite food quotes for a friend’s magazine. Of course I never got round to it- until now. I had intended to provide 10 but somehow, the 10 stretched to 13, a baker’s dozen. They are not listed in order of preference as my preference is for all 13.

All except possibly one of the people mentioned below i.e. “Neil” are first rate writers and I could have easily provided multiple quotes for each of them. And then of course there are the any number of equally talented food writers who have inadvertently been omitted. I hope that some of the pieces resonate. All comments, likes, dislikes, reposts et cetera gratefully received. For obvious reasons some names and locations have been omitted. The inclusion of two extracts containing references to pickles is purely coincidental.

1.“I had a meal of gristle and baked wiffle ball at a place called-aptly-called Chuck’s. I didn’t think it was possible to get a truly bad meal anywhere in the Midwest, but Chuck managed to provide it. It was the worst food I had ever had - and remember, I’ve lived in Britain. It had all the attributes of chewing- gum, except flavour.”

Bill Bryson on dining out in the American Midwest in his travelogue “The Lost Continent”.

2.“The fatted calf scarcely ranked amongst the hors d’oeuvres”

Clive James in “Unreliable Memoirs ”, reminiscing on his childhood Australian Christmas lunches.

3.“I like lentils”

The Neil character in the seminal early 1980s UK television comedy series, “the Young Ones”.

4.

“My broth was distinctly icky. The stock had a dishwater hue and texture, the dumplings were on the turgid side. John went down on his seaweed. I began to feel distinctly icky. I felt that if we set any longer in… Truly unpleasant things will begin to happen. I might get sucked into the corporate atmosphere and find myself performing some mindless but essential role in the quality control department, like looking up adjectival synonyms for tomorrow’s menus. The bill arrived at the same time as the main course dishes. I’m not saying it was a big bill, but I’ve seen smaller figures cited as salaries for middle management”.

Will Self, one time food critic for the UK Observer Newspaper on eating in an unnamed restaurant aimed at the corporate market.

5. “It was an unequalled year for tomatoes. There was a glut of them and they were selling for only a few pence a pound, so Rose and I lived off fresh tomato sandwiches and ratatouille-for the first time a dish that we could reasonably afford to make. We also made huge quantities of tomato chutney and passed jars onto our friends.”

An extract from “Jams Pickles and Chutneys” by David and Rose Mabey, published by Penguin many years ago.

6. “An entire shelf of the fridge is home to the sour and the salty: fat-bellied jars of sliced pink onions in vinegar; thin coins of skinny cucumbers with soy and ginger; blackberries in a marinade the colour of Beaujolais. Each jar is a testament to my love of the piquant. There is very little summer food that isn’t improved by a spoonful of something sour. The cucumber with dill and mustard seeds served with a wedge of cold salmon; the crunch of a radish with a scoop of rose-pink chicken liver paté or perhaps rhubarb that has been steeped in red wine vinegar and black peppercorns with the glistening fat of a grilled pork chop.”

A representative extract from Nigel Slater, the inspirational UK Observer food writer. As well as being a first-rate cook, he is a very fine writer who uses his adjectives to very good effect.

7. “I must confess to liking more sauce than pasta”.

Colin Spencer in his seminal early 1980s cookbook, “Gourmet Cooking for Vegetarians”

8.

“As soon as you leave [ ] look for a stone horse trough. It belongs to the [ ] one of those precious Spanish restaurants that actually go out of their way to serve regional specialities, dishes that are usually long forgotten or ignored by the restaurant trade. Indeed, there is something not quite right, something uncomfortable, about preserving local traditional dishes in this way, as if they were museum pieces. But if the alternative is that they are forgotten and I suppose we should be grateful, though I will never be happy eating such country food of expensive China with two or three waiters forever at my elbow with their linen cloths and bow ties.”

Spanish cookery writer Nicholas Butcher in “The Spanish Kitchen” on eating so-called “peasant food” in a very smart restaurant in central Spain.

9.

“This is a menu that demands to be gobbled up, rather than cogitated over for three and a half hours.”

A nicely phrased vignette written by Grace Dent, restaurant critic for the UK Guardian newspaper. She really does have a nice turn of phrase, using few words to say a lot.

10.

“In order to reduce my impact on the planet, I cook with local ingredients. You will only find a minimal amount of imported produce in these recipes. I use key wholefoods that might not already have their spot on your kitchen shelf, but which I hope will in future….”

An extract from “The Natural Cook” written by the in my view very important UK based restauranteur, writer and food waste activist Tom Hunt. It gives a very good idea of what he is about.

11.

“In this book we have not attempted to cook only the highest points, the most exquisite achievements of native cuisine-the court banquets and huge feasts served only on days of great celebration. We do not believe that Western cooks want to prepare huge banquets every night and doubt that they have the five cooks and 50 kitchen helpers available …. We also believe that one can have as much reverence for a humble breakfast as for a ceremonial feast: both are life-sustaining acts of different but equal importance. Cooking is an attitude and a way of life. The spirit of simple cooks lies in the knowledge that they are not simply pleasing pallets but also filling a basic function that is part of the will to live”.

An extract from the introduction to “The People’s Cookbook” by Huguette Couflignal, first published as long ago as 1978 and in my view far ahead of its time.

12. “lashings of ginger beer.”

If you're a fan of Enid Blyton and someone asked you to quote her most famous line, you'd probably mention this quote but you'd be wrong. The author of the Famous Five didn't actually write this - it appeared in the Channel 4 television film, “ Five Go Mad in Dorset.”

13.

“Honey or condensed milk with your bread?” he [Pooh Bear] was so excited that he said, “Both,” and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “but don't bother about the bread, please.”

An extract from “Winnie the Pooh” by AA Milne.