Great cooking favors the prepared hands.
Jacques PepinRead
Cooking is the art of adjustment.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Cooking requires flexibility and creativity to adapt to changing circumstances.
Jacques Pepin's quote emphasizes that cooking is not just a mechanical process but an artistic one that requires constant adjustment and adaptability. Just as an artist modifies their techniques to express their vision, a cook must make real-time decisions, alter recipes, and respond to the ingredients available, highlighting the importance of creativity and spontaneity in the culinary arts.
Themes
CookingArtAdjustmentCreativityFlexibility
In practice
Example use cases
A chef reflecting on their culinary journey during a cooking class.
More from Jacques Pepin
All quotes →The idea of old was to conform yourself to a style of cooking, it was not to create a style of cooking. Now the chef is so much into 'I want to sign that dish and say I am the one who made that dish.'
Jacques PepinRead
You have no choice as a professional chef: you have to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat until it becomes part of yourself. I certainly don't cook the same way I did 40 years ago, but the technique remains. And that's what the student needs to learn: the technique.
Jacques PepinRead
My mother likes what I cook, but doesn't think it's French. My wife is Puerto Rican and Cuban, so I eat rice and beans. We have a place in Mexico, but people think I'm the quintessential French chef.
Jacques PepinRead
Probably a mistake, you know, that people make in America, to think that all great chefs are a male... I'm still the only male in the family who went into that business.
Jacques PepinRead
Children never lie...I remember my daughter standing in her crib the first time I gave her caviar. I put it on bread. She ate it and said, "Encore, Papa."
Jacques PepinRead
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