When I got to France I realized I didn't know very much about food at all. I'd never had a real cake. I'd had those cakes from cake mixes or the ones that have a lot of baking powder in them. A really good French cake doesn't have anything like that in it - it's all egg power.
In my generation, except for a few people who'd gone into banking or nursing or something like that, middle-class women didn't have careers. You were to marry and have children and be a nice mother. You didn't go out and do anything. I found that I got restless.
Someone may offer you a freshly caught whole large fish, like a salmon or striped bass. Don't panic - take it!
I hate organized religion. I think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself. I think you have to pick your own God and be true to him. I always say 'him' rather than 'her.' Maybe it's because of my generation, but I don't like the idea of a female God. I see God as a benevolent male.
The perfect dressing is essential to the perfect salad, and I see no reason whatsoever for using a bottled dressing, which may have been sitting on the grocery shelf for weeks, even months - even years.
In the 1960s, you could eat anything you wanted, and of course, people were smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, and there was no talk about fat and anything like that, and butter and cream were rife. Those were lovely days for gastronomy, I must say.
The art of bread making can become a consuming hobby, and no matter how often and how many kinds of bread one has made, there always seems to be something new to learn.
In the 1970s we got nouvelle cuisine, in which a lot of the old rules were kicked over. And then we had cuisine minceur, which people mixed up with nouvelle cuisine but was actually fancy diet cooking.
In Paris and later in Marseille, I was surrounded by some of the best food in the world, and I had an enthusiastic audience in my husband, so it seemed only logical that I should learn how to cook 'la cuisine bourgeoise' - good, traditional French home cooking.
I think one of the terrible things today is that people have this deathly fear of food: fear of eggs, say, or fear of butter. Most doctors feel that you can have a little bit of everything.
Because of media hype and woefully inadequate information, too many people nowadays are deathly afraid of their food, and what does fear of food do to the digestive system? I am sure that an unhappy or suspicious stomach, constricted and uneasy with worry, cannot digest properly.
In department stores, so much kitchen equipment is bought indiscriminately by people who just come in for men's underwear.
To be able to serve and to eat a whole fish, especially a trout, is part of civilized dining. This applies particularly to the young, who should take to it as soon as they can handle knife and fork; this is a fine way for them to begin taking pride in themselves and their abilities.
I was lucky to marry Paul. He was a great inspiration, his enthusiasm about wine and food helped to shape my tastes, and his encouragement saw me through discouraging moments. I never would have had my career without Paul Child.
I had my first French meal and I never got over it. It was just marvelous. We had oysters and a lovely dry white wine. And then we had one of those lovely scalloped dishes and the lovely, creamery buttery sauce. Then we had a roast duck and I don't know what else.
Animals that we eat are raised for food in the most economical way possible, and the serious food producers do it in the most humane way possible. I think anyone who is a carnivore needs to understand that meat does not originally come in these neat little packages.
What a marvelous resource soup is for the thrifty cook - it solves the ham-bone and lamb-bone problems, the everlasting Thanksgiving turkey, the extra vegetables.
I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make.
As we say in the American Institute of Wine and Food, small helpings, no seconds. A little bit of everything. No snacking. And have a good time.
Once you have mastered a technique, you hardly need look at a recipe again and can take off on your own.
