Nature, the ultimate pragmatist, doggedly searches for something that works. But as the cockroach demonstrates, what works best in nature does not always appeal to us.

Whenever I was called a gourmet, I suspected I was being accused of something at least slightly unpleasant. But that was before I heard the term foodie. I am still not sure that a gourmet is a good thing to be, but it must be better than a foodie.

modern people have seen too many chemicals and are ready to go back to eating dirt.

Judging foods without regard to price is a rich mans game, and yet poor people can be gourmets able to discern a good potato from a bad one.

In nineteenth-century Russia, sauerkraut was valued more than caviar.

The history of the Americas is one of constant warfare over salt.

Fate likes to tease paranoids.'

A true gourmet - a judge - has the wisdom to know when to stop eating.

Chloride is essential for digestion and in respiration. Without sodium, which the body cannot manufacture, the body would be unable to transport nutrients or oxygen, transmit nerve impulses, or move muscles, including the heart.

In 'The Republic' he [Plato] states that the enjoyment of food is not a true pleasure because the purpose of eating is to relieve pain - hunger.

A gourmet knows that the best part is not always the expensive part, and he will find that part, and then he will share it. A gourmet should want to share.

In every age, people are certain that only the things they have deemed valuable have true value. The search for love and the search for wealth are always the two best stories. But while a love story is timeless, the story of a quest for wealth, given enough time, will always seem like the vain pursuit of a mirage.

A Wedding In Haiti is a great experience and its unaffected prose is as true a portrait of complex Haiti as you will find.

In spite of muzzling the press, imprisoning thousands, and engaging in torture, kidnapping and murder, the Socialist government was still vulnerable to the accusation of being soft on Basques.

I did not realize at the time, as I have discovered since, that anyone who attempts any thing original in this world must expect a bit of ridicule. Clarence Birdseye