Chinese Food Quotations and Proverbs
An old Chinese saying indicates how highly the cuisine of the Guangzhou (Canton) area is regarded:
"To be born in Suzhou
to live in Hangzhou
to eat in Guangzhou
and to die in Liuzhou"
Chinese not only enjoy eating but believe eating good food can bring harmony and closeness to the family and relationships.
Cantonese women believe that "to win a man's heart, she must first learn how to cook a good pot of soup."
"The honorable and upright man keeps well away from both the slaughterhouse and the kitchen. And he allows no knives on his table." (Confucius)
Confucius (551-479 B.C.) once said that the path to your friend's heart and love goes from your cooking.
"(In Canton) the Chinese fondness for snacks and small eats reaches a kind of apotheosis." E.N. Anderson, quoted in Ken Hom's 'The Taste of China'
"To the ruler, the people are heaven; to the people, food is heaven."
(ancient Chinese proverb)
"Talk doesn't cook rice." (Chinese Proverb)
Beneath these green mountains where spring rules the year, the irbarbutus and loquat in season appear, And feasting on lychee - 300 a day, I shouldn't mind staying eternally here." (Su Shih, Chinese poet)
"Fashion is in Europe, living is in America, but eating is in China"
Coarse rice for food, water to drink, and the bended arm for a pillow - happiness may be enjoyed even in these." (Confucius)
"The way you cut your meat reflects the way you live."- Confucius
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Other Food Quotations from Famous People
Food is our common ground, a universal experience - James Beard
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all - Harriet Van Horne
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you want and let the food fight it out inside - Mark Twain
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. - Virginia Woolf
There is no sincerer love than the love of food - George Bernard Shaw
I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead - not sick, not wounded - dead. - Woody Allen
The next time you feel like complaining, remember that your garbage disposal probably eats better than 30 percent of the people in the world. - Robert Orben
This recipe is certainly silly. It says to separate two eggs, but it doesn't say how far to separate them. - Gracie Allen
Never eat more than you can lift. --Miss Piggy
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. - Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
Always take a good look at what you're about to eat. It's not so important to know what it is, but it's critical to know what it was. -Unknown
Watermelon --it's a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face. --Enrico Caruso
Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And, cooking done with care is an act of love - Craig Clairborne
The rich would have to eat money if the poor did not provide food --Russian proverb
Don't take a butcher's advice on how to cook meat. If he knew, he'd be a chef.
- Andy Rooney
"And do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends."
~William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew. In honor of the anniversary of the Bard's date of birth - April 23, 1564
Eat as much as you'd like. My philosophy has always been that all women desire to be as fat as myself but just have a great fear of doing so. Because they think they won't get any men, but you will. You'll get more men, and better men.- Roseanne Barr
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A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.- James A. Beard
Food is our common ground, a universal experience.- James A. Beard
Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die. - Bible - Isaiah 22:13
Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.- - - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
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
He may live without books - what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope - what is hope but grieving?
He may live without love - what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?
- Edward R. Bulwer-Lytton "Lucille"
One can say everything best over a meal. - George Eliot
Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Food is an important part of a balanced diet. - Fran Lebowitz
Kissing don't last: cookery do! - George Meredith
We may live without friends; we may live without books
But civilized men cannot live without cooks. - Owen Meredith
Nothing stimulates the practiced cook's imagination like an egg. - Irma Rombauer
Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. - Carl Sandburg
When men reach their sixties and retire they go to pieces. Women just go right on cooking. - Gail Sheehy
Serenely full, the epicure would say, Fate cannot harm me; I have dined to-day. - Sydney Smith "Recipe for Salad"
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. - Voltaire
Give me a fish, I eat for a day. Teach me to fish, I eat for a lifetime. - Robert Louis Stevenson
There are five elements: earth, air, fire, water and garlic. - Louis Diat
I am not a glutton - I am an explorer of food. - Erma Bombeck
When we lose, I eat. When we win, I eat. I also eat when we're rained out. - Tommy Lasorda
The appetite grows with eating. - Francois Rabelais
When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat. - Mark Twain
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See Also :
Quotations and Poems on Chinese Tea
Poems on Chinese cooking and food
Jokes on Food
