Alice Waters Quotes

Let things taste of what they are.

I guess I don't really believe in retirement. I believe in shorter days and maybe in weekends!

When I first went to Paris in 1965, I fell in love with the small, family-owned restaurants that existed everywhere then, as well as the markets and the French obsession with buying fresh food, often twice a day.

I used to do calligraphy, and I'm afraid that has lapsed, but I've always been interested in book printing.

It's a comfort to always find pasta in the cupboard and garlic and parsley in the garden.

The problem with living in a fast-food nation is that we expect food to be cheap.

I'm focused on the next generation, because I think it's very hard to break the habit of adults who've got salt and sugar addictions and just ways of being in this world. It's very hard even for the most enlightened people at famous universities that are very wealthy to spend the money that it takes to feed the students something delicious.

I just hope Americans come to understand that food isn't something to be manipulated by our teeth and shoved down our gullet, that it's our spiritual and physical nourishment and important to our well-being as a nation.

I believe there should be breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack, all for free and for every child that goes to school. And all food that is good, clean and fair.

I really am at a place where I think we need to feed every child at school for free and feed them a real school lunch that's sustainable and nutritious and delicious. It needs to be part of the curriculum of the school in the same way that physical education was part of the curriculum, and all children participated.

To have a basic ingredient that can be prepared a million different ways is a beautiful thing.

I know once people get connected to real food, they never change back.

When you have good ingredients, cooking doesn't require a lot of instruction because you can never go very wrong.

Whenever I want to know how to cook something, I can't ask one chef - I have to ask six.

I came to all the realizations about sustainability and biodiversity because I fell in love with the way food tastes. That was it. And because I was looking for that taste I feel at the doorsteps of the organic, local, sustainable farmers, dairy people and fisherman.

Good food depends almost entirely on good ingredients.

I used to think that I wanted to be a hat maker, but I don't think that would have worked out.

I'm an optimist. I'm hopeful.

I think if you buy from people who are taking care of the land, you're supporting the future of this country.

We eat every day, and if we do it in a way that doesn't recognize value, it's contributing to the destruction of our culture and of agriculture. But if it's done with a focus and care, it can be a wonderful thing. It changes the quality of your life.

The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger than a salad, and that's insane. It's pure government policy.

The biggest thing you can do is understand that every time you're going to the grocery store, you're voting with your dollars. Support your farmers' market. Support local food. Really learn to cook.

I want every child in America to eat a nutritious, delicious, sustainably sourced school lunch for free.

The fact that most kids aren't eating at home with their families any more really means they are eating elsewhere. They are eating out there in fast food nation.

I am an optimist of the first order.

Always explore your garden and go to the market before you decide what cook.

I'm unwilling to eat food that has been adulterated.

I really like having someone who knows about food and what goes well together make a meal for me.

It's about children cooking themselves, growing themselves. When kids grow it and cook it they eat it.

Basically, the person in the White House should be principled, should have a philosophy about food that relates directly to organic agriculture. I will continue to push for that.

Go to the farmers market and buy food there. You'll get something that's delicious. It's discouraging that this seems like such an elitist thing. It's not. It's just that we have to pay the real cost of food. People have to understand that cheap food has been subsidized. We have to realize that it's important to pay farmers up front, because they are taking care of the land.

I once had an Early Girl tomato at my friend Jay's house, and I thought that was the best thing I'd ever had. But then I visited friends in Senegal, and I ate sea urchin pulled fresh out of the sea. It tasted like the ocean.

He understands that creating a meal means creating your own reality ...

I feel like old age in America is a very sad thing. I have been many different places around the world where getting older is something you look forward to.

People have become aware that way that we've been eating is making us sick.

It is a fundamental fact that no cook, however creative and capable, can produce a dish of a quality any higher than that of its raw ingredients.

I think you have to plan ahead. When I go to the market on a Saturday, and I'm buying for family and friends, I'm thinking about what I'm going to eat on the weekend but also about what I'm going to make for the following week.

I think health is the outcome of eating well.

Our full humanity is contingent on our hospitality; we can be complete only when we are giving something away; when we sit at the table and pass the peas to the person next to us we see that person in a whole new way.

The decisions you make are a choice of values that reflect your life in every way.

My mother made a lot of things because she thought they'd be healthy for us. There were some very unfortunate experiences with whole wheat bread and bananas. I always tried to get rid of that sandwich and eat one of my friends' lunches.

I'm always changing my work, as there are endless ways to think about food.

If we don't preserve the natural resources, you aren't going to have a sustainable society. This is not something for Chez Panisse and the elite of San Francisco. It's for everyone.

I can remember the three restaurant experiences of my childhood. All I wanted to do on my birthday was to go to the Automat in New York ... but I don't know if you consider that a real restaurant.

We need to have a course in school that teaches about ecology and gastronomy. I could imagine that all children could eat at school for free and that the cafeteria would become part of the school's curriculum.

I don't want food that comes from animals that are caged up and fed antibiotics. I am really suspicious of that kind of production of meat and poultry.

I was a very picky eater.

I feel it is an obligation to help people understand the relation of food to agriculture and the relationship of food to culture.

Usually, cheap food is not nutritious. You're feeding people, but you're not really feeding people something that is good for them.

I think the biggest impediment to fixing the food system in the United States is that we expect food to be cheap. We want to by other things with our money. We're so disconnected from agriculture - from the culture in agriculture.

Let things taste the way they are.

I am confident that we will see a growing consensus about the most effective way to transform food in America: building a real, sustainable and free school-lunch program.

If I've gone to the market on Saturday, and I go another time on Tuesday, then I'm really prepared. I can cook a little piece of fish; I can wilt some greens with garlic; I can slice tomatoes and put a little olive oil on. It's effortless.

We all need to know how to cook. I can buy a chicken and have many meals come from it. Is it affordable? Yes. Cheap? No. I want to pay the farmers the right price for food. They deserve it. They are the most important people in the country besides our teachers.

We have to bring children into a new relationship to food that connects them to culture and agriculture.

When you don't have much money, cooking can be incredibly reassuring. You feel like you're doing meaningful work.

I wanted people to come to the restaurant and feel at home, so I put it in a house.

Hard-boiled eggs are wonderful when they're really done right. I bring the water to a boil, and then I put in the eggs. And then I boil them for - well, it depends on the size of the egg - maybe eight minutes.

Food should be cheap, and labor should be cheap, and everything should be the same no matter where you go; whether it's a McDonald's in Germany or one in California, it should be the same. And this message is destroying cultures around the world. Needless to say, agriculture goes with it.

I try not to do anything that's immoral.

I believe that every child in this world needs to have a relationship with the land ... to know how to nourish themselves ... and to know how to connect with the community around them.

I really appreciate the many neighbourhoods of Berkeley. There is still the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. And it has the University of California, which is the greatest gift, to my mind, to be close to it. It keeps the place alive.

Food isn't like anything else. It's something precious. It's not a commodity.

How we eat can change the world

You have to take it upon yourself and preserve and can foods that you'll want for the winter.

A whole set of values comes with fast food: Everything should be fast, cheap and easy; there's always more where that came from; there are no seasons; you shouldn't be paid very much for preparing food. It's uniformity and a lack of connection.

Americans don't have deep gastronomic roots. They wanted to get away from the cultures of Europe or wherever they came from. We stirred up that melting pot pretty quickly.

Food culture is like listening to the Beatles - it's international, it's very positive, it's inventive and creative.

Organize yourself so you aren't struggling to shop at the last minute. When you have real food, it's very easy to cook.

I have a love affair with tomatoes and corn. I remember them from my childhood. I only had them in the summer. They were extraordinary.

In countries around the world, people spend more money on food because they know how precious it is.

Change the food in the schools and we can influence how children think. Change the curriculum and teach them how to garden and how to cook and we can show that growing food and cooking and eating together give lasting richness, meaning, and beauty to our lives.

Buy foods from nearby farms and have that food served in the cafeteria.

You do need some dispensation for local farmers, because the fast food industry will promote the unsanitary conditions of farming. With vegetables, you have to be careful where they come from; you have to know the farmers and trust them. If you buy from the farmers' market, it's already been investigated.

I have been talking nonstop about the symbolism of an edible landscape at the White House. I think it says everything about stewardship of the land and about the nourishment of a nation.

I don't think it ever works to tell people what they can't eat. They can do it for so long, and then they fall off. You have to bring them into a new relationship with food.

It's hard to come into a new relationship with food unless you're engaged in an interactive way at an early age; it's hard to change your values.

It's around the table and in the preparation of food that we learn about ourselves and about the world.

We have to understand that we want to pay the farmers the real price for the food that they produce. It won't ever be cheap to buy real food. But it can be affordable. It's really something that we need to understand. It's the kind of work that it takes to grow food. We don't understand that piece of it.

The things most worth wanting are not available everywhere all the time.

Grass-fed cattle are leaner. But it's not true that they are less flavorful.

I eat meat, but no meat that isn't pastured is acceptable, and we probably need to eat a whole lot less.

It's so important to that we go into the public schools and we feed all of the kids something that is really good for them.

I think America's food culture is embedded in fast-food culture. And the real question that we have is: How are we going to teach slow-food values in a fast-food world? Of course, it's very, very difficult to do, especially when children have grown up eating fast food and the values that go with that.

Because only slow food can teach us the things that really matter - care, beauty, concentration, discernment, sensuality, all the best that humans are capable of, but only if we take the time to think about what we're eating.

The act of eating is very political. You buy from the right people, you support the right network of farmers and suppliers who care about the land and what they put in the food.

I feel that good food should be a right and not a privilege, and it needs to be without pesticides and herbicides. And everybody deserves this food. And that's not elitist.