Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Cookery
Every investigation which is guided by principles of nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach.
Athenæus. Bk. VII. Ch. 2.
Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. I. Sec. II. Memb. 2. Subsec. 2.
And nearer as they came, a genial savour
Of certain stews, and roast-meats, and pilaus,
Things which in hungry mortals’ eyes find favour.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto V. St. 47.
Yet smelt roast meat, beheld a huge fire shine,
And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto V. St. 50.
Great pity were it if this beneficence of Providence should be marr’d in the ordering, so as to justly merit the Reflection of the old proverb, that though God sends us meat, yet the D— does cooks.
Cooks’ and Confectioners’ Dictionary, or the Accomplished Housewife’s Companions. London. (1724).
Hallo! A great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that. That was the pudding.
Dickens—Christmas Carol. Stave Three.
Ever a glutton, at another’s cost,
But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost.
Dryden—Fourth Satire of Persius. L. 58.
Heaven sends us good meat, but the devil sends us cooks.
David Garrick—Epigram on Goldsmith’s Retaliation.
Poure faire un civet, prenez un lièvre.
To make a ragout, first catch your hare.
Attributed erroneously to Mrs. Glasse. In Cook Book, pub. 1747, said to have been written by Dr. Hill. See Notes and Queries, Sept. 10, 1859. P. 206. Same in La Varenne’s Le Cuisinier Français. First ed. (1651). P. 40. Quoted by Metternich from Marchioness of Londonderry—Narrative of a visit to the Courts of Vienna. (1844).
“Very well,” cried I, “that’s a good girl; I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and so go help your mother to make the gooseberry pye.”
Goldsmith—Vicar of Wakefield. Ch. VII.
Her that ruled the rost in the kitchen.
Thos. Heywood—History of Women. (Ed. 1624). P. 286.
Digestion, much like Love and Wine, no trifling will brook:
His cook once spoiled the dinner of an Emperor of men;
The dinner spoiled the temper of his Majesty, and then
The Emperor made history—and no one blamed the cook.
F. J. MacBeath—Cause and Effect. In Smart Set. Vol. I. No. 4.
I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook flogged.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. VIII. Ep. 23.
If your slave commits a fault, do not smash his teeth with your fists; give him some of the (hard) biscuit which famous Rhodes has sent you.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. XIV. Ep. 68.
A cook should double one sense have: for he
Should taster for himself and master be.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. XIV. Ep. 220.
Oh, better no doubt is a dinner of herbs,
When season’d by love, which no rancour disturbs
And sweeten’d by all that is sweetest in life
Than turbot, bisque, ortolans, eaten in strife!
But if, out of humour, and hungry, alone
A man should sit down to dinner, each one
Of the dishes of which the cook chooses to spoil
With a horrible mixture of garlic and oil,
The chances are ten against one, I must own,
He gets up as ill-tempered as when he sat down.
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)—Lucile. Pt. I. Canto II. St. 27.
Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.
Milton—L’Allegro. L. 85.
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
Pope—Satires. Horace. Epistle II. Bk. II. L. 85.
I never strove to rule the roast,
She ne’er refus’d to pledge my toast.
Prior—Turtle and Sparrow.
A crier of green sauce.
Rabelais—Works. Bk. II. Ch. XXXI.
He ruleth all the roste
With bragging and with boste.
Skelton—Why come ye not to Court? Of Cardinal Wolsey.
The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit,
The clock hath strucken twelve.
Comedy of Errors. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 44.
Carve him as a dish fit for the gods.
Julius Cæsar. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 173.
Would the cook were of my mind!
Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 74.
She would have made Hercules have turned spit.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 260.
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm.
Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 273.
Hire me twenty cunning cooks.
Romeo and Juliet. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 2.
Were not I a little pot and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth.
Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 5.
Where’s the cook? is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?
Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 47.
’Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.
What dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook?
How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,
And serve it thus to me that love it not?
Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 164.
Weke, weke! so cries a pig prepared to the spit.
Titus Andronicus. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 146.
He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
Have I not tarried?
Ay, the grinding: but you must tarry the bolting.
Have I not tarried?
Ay, the bolting: but you must tarry the leavening.
Still have I tarried.
Ay, to the leavening: but here’s yet in the word “hereafter” the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven and the baking: nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.
Troilus and Cressida. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 15.
The waste of many good materials, the vexation that frequently attends such mismanagements, and the curses not unfrequently bestowed on cooks with the usual reflection, that whereas God sends good meat, the devil sends cooks.
E. Smith—The Compleat Housewife. (1727).
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
Sydney Smith—Recipe for Salad Dressing. Lady Holland’s Memoir. Vol. I. P. 426. Ed. 3d. (“Scarce suspected” in several versions.)
Velocius (or citius) quam asparagi coquantur.
More quickly than asparagus is cooked.
Suetonius—Augustus. 87. A saying of Augustus Cæsar.
God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks.
John Taylor—Works. Vol. II. P. 85. (1630).
This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is—
A sort of soup or broth, or brew,
Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes,
That Greenwich never could outdo;
Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron,
Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace;
All these you eat at Terre’s tavern,
In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.
Thackeray—Ballad of Bouillabaisse.
Corne, which is the staffe of life.
Winslow—Good News from New England.
“Very astonishing indeed! strange thing!”
(Turning the Dumpling round, rejoined the King),
“’Tis most extraordinary, then, all this is;
It beats Penetti’s conjuring all to pieces;
Strange I should never of a Dumpling dream!
But, Goody, tell me where, where, where’s the Seam?”
“Sire, there’s no Seam,” quoth she; “I never knew
That folks did Apple-Dumplings sew.”
“No!” cried the staring Monarch with a grin;
“How, how the devil got the Apple in?”
John Wolcot (Peter Pindar)—The Apple Dumplings and a King.