Quote

The tradition of Italian cooking is that of the matriarch. This is the cooking of grandma. She didn't waste time thinking too much about the celery. She got the best celery she could and then she dealt with it.

Mario Batali

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mario Batali
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: September 19
Chef
Cook
Media Personality
Restaurateur
Writer
Seattle
Washington
Mario Francesco Batali
Thinking
Cooking
Tradition
Waste
Food
Matriarchs
Didn
Celery
Best
Grandma
Much
Dealt
Time
Italian

More quotes by Mario Batali

Image
When I was in college, I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans.
Mario Batali
Image
Even though you'll see gnocchi or linguine everywhere in some of the regions of Italy, each of those chefs has their own expression of that which expresses more about the place they were exactly born than it does about trying to be a part of the greater mass. And that's the Italian culture.
Mario Batali
Image
Protein has been intensely over-represented on the plate. Now, the garden should be the main drag for main courses.
Mario Batali
Image
All the information you could want is constantly streaming at you like a runaway truck - books, newspaper stories, Web sites, apps, how-to videos, this article you're reading, even entire magazines devoted to single subjects like charcuterie or wedding cakes or pickles.
Mario Batali
Image
The Gulf Coast has the potential to create a culinary raw ingredient paradise that smart cooks can capitalize on.
Mario Batali
Image
My wife Susi and my kids quite simply are the most fun of all my friends.
Mario Batali
Image
There are two activities in life in which we can lovingly and carefully put something inside of someone we love. Cooking is the one we can do three times a day for the rest of our lives, without pills. In both activities, practice makes perfect.
Mario Batali
Image
In growing up in Seattle, I don't know a single family that didn't barbecue or cook on the weekends and make its own kind of simple, pared-down, what I call Pacific Northwest cooking.
Mario Batali
Image
Any simple but delicious dish that celebrates the season and locality is what I want to be known for.
Mario Batali
Image
I really want to be a rock star.
Mario Batali
Image
The Chinese five-spice works really well in the quantity that I used. It makes it almost imperceptibly just a little bit sweeter without making it really sweet or really even that Asian flavored.
Mario Batali
Image
I am happiest when I am with my wife, Susi, and our two boys exploring and loving something for the first time.
Mario Batali
Image
What I like to do when I go out is enjoy my friends and the food around it. If we have to stop and give five minutes to the chef, then I'm down with that. But if the chef has to interrupt every course to tell us how important this new revolution that's happening is, then I'm not so much interested in that.
Mario Batali
Image
Bologna is the best city in Italy for food and has the least number of tourists. With its medieval beauty, it has it all.
Mario Batali
Image
I like cast iron coated with enamel for longevity and forgiveness if I happen to take my eyes off the prize while pouring Chianti.
Mario Batali
Image
The Hamptons are usually filled with what I had hoped to leave behind in New York City.
Mario Batali
Image
I got some media coverage for using the tail, the ear, the oink.
Mario Batali
Image
The difference between 'Molto Italiano' and 'The Babbo Cookbook' is that the ingredient lists in 'Molto' are about half or even a third the size. In 'Babbo,' they are very long, they are very real. That's exactly how we make them in the restaurant.
Mario Batali
Image
My favorite thing is always a nice, inexpensive draft beer, but if someone wants something a little more complicated than that, then I'd like a Michelada, which is where I take beer and a little bit of either a spicy or not-so-spicy Bloody Mary, mix it like six to one [ratio], so it's kind of a red beer.
Mario Batali
Image
I might use milk if I was using a touch of milk to make like a lasagna or a baked pasta. But cream? That is totally not the way they do it in Italy, and it's not a very good thing. It's kind of a blanket for flavor.
Mario Batali