I've been lucky to travel and work all over the world through the lens of the back of the house, and I love that monocle. I love that lens, because it's real people.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of experiencing different cultures and people through one's work and travels.
Marcus Samuelsson reflects on his fortunate experiences of traveling and working around the world, particularly highlighting his appreciation for seeing life from a unique perspective. By referring to his experiences as looking through a 'monocle,' he conveys a sense of clarity and focus on real, authentic interactions with people, which enrich his understanding of the diverse cultures he encounters.
In practice
In a presentation about cultural diversity, this quote can illustrate the value of authentic experiences.
I'm engaged in food on so many levels, and I love that. So my work, my craft, is around food, and writing is one aspect of it; communicating a narrative, cooking online is one aspect of it; solving the food chasm that we have in Harlem and finding a farmers market is another one, and all of them are equally exciting for me.
To become a good cook is to know yourself, and I, at this point, know myself. I know myself, and I know the cook I want to be and the cook I am striving to be.
As a chef, I always have in mind how to properly feed the public, but at times it's easy to forget that some people have trouble even getting any food, much less adequate nutrition.
I came into this environment where there was so much love, so much positive energy. I never heard my parents say, 'We have adopted kids.' The minute my sister Linda and I landed in Sweden, we were their kids.
Children want to mimic adults. They notice when you choose to prepare fresh vegetables over calling in another pizza pie for dinner. They will see that food made with love and care outweighs going through the drive-through window.
Simple ingredients can be used to make elegant dishes with just a little extra attention to detail.
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves, and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again—to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.
What is it we want out of travel? Is it to take snapshots of ourselves in front of famous monuments, surrounded by other tourists? To eat unfamiliar food chosen from unintelligible menus? To earn frequent-flier miles? No. It's to glimpse what life is like somewhere else.
The notion that before you even set out to go to Thailand, you say, 'I'm not interested,' or you're unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don't understand that, and I think it's rude. You're at Grandma's house, you eat what Grandma serves you.
You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a windblown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane.
It has been said that a Scotchman has not seen the world until he has seen Edinburgh; and I think that I may say that an American has not seen the United States until he has seen Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
It's a common mistake for vacationing Americans to assume that everyone around them is French and therefore speaks no English whatsoever. [...] An experienced traveler could have told by looking at my shoes that I wasn't French. And even if I were French, it's not as if English is some mysterious tribal dialect spoken only by anthropologists and a small population of cannibals.
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