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Alice Waters

Alice Waters Quotes

Chef

Alice Waters is a celebrated chef, restaurateur, and food activist, born on April 28, 1944. She is a pivotal figure in the California cuisine movement and the owner of the iconic Chez Panisse restaurant. Waters has been a pioneer in promoting sustainable and locally sourced food, and her efforts have had a profound impact on the culinary landscape.

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Famous Alice Waters Quotes

“The decisions you make are a choice of values that reflect your life in every way.”

Way Values Choices Decision Decisions You Make

Author:Alice Waters

“It is a fundamental fact that no cook, however creative and capable, can produce a dish of a quality any higher than that of its raw ingredients.”

Facts Quality Creative Produce Higher Capable Fundamentals Cooking Cooks Ingredients Dishes

Book:Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook

Source: Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook

“Create a garden; bring children to farms for field trips. I think its important that parents and teachers get together to do one or two things they can accomplish well - a teaching garden, connecting with farms nearby, weave food into the curriculum.”

Thinking Wells Children Two Important Together Parent Teacher Teaching Fields Garden Accomplish Two Things Farms Connecting Curriculum Get Together Parents And Teachers Field Trip

Author:Alice Waters

“I feel it is an obligation to help people understand the relation of food to agriculture and the relationship of food to culture.”

People Feels Helping Culture Relation Obligation Agriculture

Author:Alice Waters

“I really am at a place where I think we need to feed every child at school for free and feed them a real school lunch that's sustainable and nutritious and delicious. It needs to be part of the curriculum of the school in the same way that physical education was part of the curriculum, and all children participated.”

Thinking Way Needs Children Real School Lunch Delicious Curriculum Physical Education School Lunch

Author:Alice Waters

“I feel that good food should be a right and not a privilege, and it needs to be without pesticides and herbicides. And everybody deserves this food. And that's not elitist.”

Needs Feels Should Deserve Privilege Good Food Elitist Pesticides Herbicides

Author:Alice Waters

“If Ive gone to the market on Saturday, and I go another time on Tuesday, then Im really prepared. I can cook a little piece of fish; I can wilt some greens with garlic; I can slice tomatoes and put a little olive oil on. Its effortless.”

Ifs Littles I Can Gone Pieces Prepared Fishes Oil Cooks Saturday Tuesday Tomatoes Effortless Olives Another Time Garlic Olive Oil

Author:Alice Waters

“I think Americas food culture is embedded in fast-food culture. And the real question that we have is: How are we going to teach slow-food values in a fast-food world? Of course, its very, very difficult to do, especially when children have grown up eating fast food and the values that go with that.”

Thinking World Children Real Values Culture Courses Difficult Teach Eating Embedded Fast Food Real Questions Food Culture Eating Fast Food Slow Food

Author:Alice Waters

“To have a basic ingredient that can be prepared a million different ways is a beautiful thing.”

Way Different Beautiful Millions Prepared Different Ways Ingredients Beautiful Things Be Prepared

Author:Alice Waters

“The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger than a salad, and that's insane. It's pure government policy.”

Way Government Policy Pure Insane Salad Cheaper Mcdonalds Hamburgers Government Policy

Author:Alice Waters

“The problem with living in a fast-food nation is that we expect food to be cheap.”

Problem Nations Fast Food Fast Food Nation

Author:Alice Waters

“We've been so disconnected agriculturally and culturally from food. We spend more time on dieting than on cooking.”

Cooking More Time Dieting Disconnected

Author:Alice Waters

“Food should be cheap, and labor should be cheap, and everything should be the same no matter where you go; whether it's a McDonald's in Germany or one in California, it should be the same. And this message is destroying cultures around the world. Needless to say, agriculture goes with it.”

World Should Matter Culture Messages Labor Around The World California Germany Destroying Agriculture Mcdonalds

Author:Alice Waters

“I want every child in America to eat a nutritious, delicious, sustainably sourced school lunch for free.”

Want Children School America Patriotic Lunch Delicious School Lunch

Author:Alice Waters

“Because only slow food can teach us the things that really matter - care, beauty, concentration, discernment, sensuality, all the best that humans are capable of, but only if we take the time to think about what we're eating.”

Ifs Thinking Humans Matter Care Teach Eating Capable Sensuality Concentration Discernment Time To Think All The Best Slow Food

Author:Alice Waters

“Cooking and shopping for food brings rhythm and meaning to our lives.”

Our Lives Cooking Rhythm Shopping

Author:Alice Waters

“I came to all the realizations about sustainability and biodiversity because I fell in love with the way food tastes. And because I was looking for that taste I feel at the doorsteps of the organic, local, sustainable farmers, dairy people and fisherman.”

People Way Feels Taste Locals Realization Farmers Sustainability Fisherman Dairy Biodiversity Doorstep

Author:Alice Waters

“When you're really considering all the qualities of food, purity is right there at the top of the list. I'm unwilling to eat food that has been adulterated.”

Has Beens Quality Lists Purity Considering Unwilling

Author:Alice Waters

“People cooked with a certain integrity before fast food, 50 or 60 years ago. When the cheap food arrived, and we didn't have the education and deep cultural roots to hold on, we got swept away by fast, cheap and easy.”

People Years Certain Easy Integrity Years Ago Roots Fast Food Swept Away Cheap Food

Author:Alice Waters

“I do feel like food should cost more, because we aren't paying farmers a living wage. It has to cost more.”

Feels Should Cost Farmers Living Wage

Author:Alice Waters

“I think the biggest impediment to fixing the food system in the United States is that we expect food to be cheap. We want to by other things with our money. We're so disconnected from agriculture - from the culture in agriculture.”

Thinking Want States Culture United United States Agriculture Fixing Disconnected Impediments

Author:Alice Waters

“I believe there should be breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack, all for free and for every child that goes to school. And all food that is good, clean and fair. It's unfair to charge for food in schools, especially to charge for food that is making children sick.”

Should Believe Children School I Believe Fairs Sick Clean Breakfast Lunch Afternoon Unfair Snacks

Author:Alice Waters

“It's a comfort to always find pasta in the cupboard and garlic and parsley in the garden.”

Comfort Garden Pasta Garlic Cupboards Parsley

Author:Alice Waters

“Good food should be a right not a privilege.”

Should Privilege Good Food

Author:Alice Waters

“When 85% of the kids in America don't have one meal with their family, just imagine what that means. Just imagine, life is like a run-on sentence, you never pause. You're always grabbing something. You're eating in front of the television. You're out grazing with your friends, and you're learning and digesting the values of the fast-food culture. And that's what I really believe is destroying this world. We've been indoctrinated from early childhood that more is better.”

World Believe Mean Kids Values Culture Imagine Childhood Eating Life Is Like Early Childhood

Author:Alice Waters

“It's interesting that we are sensorially deprived. And not always because of poverty or hunger, but because we have been really indoctrinated into such a way that we don't sit in the present. Technology takes the place of food often.”

Interesting Poverty Technology Hunger

Author:Alice Waters

“In terms of kids not liking the food, I am shocked. I know that it's not true. I know that when kids are not educated about healthy food, they have a resistance to it. The resistance comes, again, from the fast-food culture.”

Kids Culture Term Healthy Educated Healthy Food

Author:Alice Waters

“The biggest thing right now, is supporting the people who take care of the environment. We must take care of the people who take care of the land. And so, if 20% of the population is in school, and they are asked to buy this food from farms. I mean at the real cost without a middleman, it could be amazing. It could change farming overnight.”

People Mean Real Care School Environment Take Care Farming

Author:Alice Waters

“We still need to learn how to talk about food and education, because they haven't been talked about together, really. Education depends on our good health. It depends on our understanding of the environment and somehow we got those separate.”

Together Understanding Environment Good Health

Author:Alice Waters

“If our public school system is a truly democratic institution. It's the place where we can reach every child in this county from kindergarten. What an opportunity to edibly educate them. I don't just mean a glorified cooking class. I've never thought of it that way. I have always thought of it as a way to empower students to learn, to give them confidence, and to nourish them. So, I think the centerpiece has to be a free, sustainable school lunch for every child.”

Thinking Giving Mean Children School Opportunity Students Cooking Democratic Empowering Educate Public School County Kindergarten School Lunch

Author:Alice Waters

“We're, as Carlos Petrini says, we're on a train and it's going off the edge of the cliff. We have to stop the track and get off. Now we're in a jungle. We don't know how we're going to get out but we'll find a way. I've always believed in people power. I saw it happen when we organized around the AIDS crisis... We made an AIDS quilt that covered the entire mall. Everybody had a part in it and we can do this.”

People Crisis Train Track Aids Jungle Always Believe

Author:Alice Waters

“The dinner table is a rite of civilization and we need to participate in that to keep our families together, to keep our communities together.”

Together Community Our Family Rite Family Together

Author:Alice Waters

“It's a pleasure to talk to the farmers. That's my favorite part, always was. It's really the communication and exchange that builds communities. It's not something you can legislate. It's that you're giving me the best bread I ever had and I'm so happy to give you money for it. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than stand in line and give money for your bread.”

Thinking Giving Community Pleasure Communication My Favorite Farmers

Author:Alice Waters

“Let things taste the way they are.”

Author:Alice Waters

“Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education.”

Kids Community Education Responsibility Teaching Educational Farming Healthy Eating Teaching Kids

Author:Alice Waters

“I believe that every child in this world needs to have a relationship with the land...to know how to nourish themselves...and to know how to connect with the community around them.”

Knows World Needs Believe Children I Believe Community Know How Land This World

Author:Alice Waters

“Change the food in the schools and we can influence how children think. Change the curriculum and teach them how to garden and how to cook and we can show that growing food and cooking and eating together give lasting richness, meaning, and beauty to our lives.”

Thinking Giving Children Shows School Together Teach Our Lives Growing Influence Eating Garden Cooking Cooks Lasting Richness Curriculum Cooking And Eating Eating Together Growing Food

Author:Alice Waters

“Go to the farmers market and buy food there. You'll get something that's delicious. It's discouraging that this seems like such an elitist thing. It's not. It's just that we have to pay the real cost of food. People have to understand that cheap food has been subsidized. We have to realize that it's important to pay farmers up front, because they are taking care of the land.”

People Has Beens Important Real Seems Care Realizing Pay Environment Land Fronts Cost Farmers Delicious Discouraging Elitist Farmers Markets Cheap Food

Author:Alice Waters

“Eating is an environmental act.”

Environment Eating Environmental

Author:Alice Waters

“Let things taste of what they are.”

Taste Healthy Eating Eating Healthy Food

Book:The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution

Source: The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution

“Good food depends almost entirely on good ingredients.”

Depends Ingredients Good Food

Author:Alice Waters

“The things most worth wanting are not available everywhere all the time.”

Author:Alice Waters

“Cooking creates a sense of well-being for yourself and the people you love and brings beauty and meaning to everyday life. And all it requires is common sense – the common sense to eat seasonally, to know where your food comes from, to support and buy from local farmers and producers who are good stewards of our natural resources.”

People Knows Wells Natural Common Support Resources Cooking Everyday Locals Common Sense Producers Well Being Farmers Everyday Life Natural Resources Stewards

Book:In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart

Source: In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart

“When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.”

Taste Extraordinary Cooks Ingredients

Book:The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution

Source: The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution

“Our full humanity is contingent on our hospitality; we can be complete only when we are giving something away; when we sit at the table and pass the peas to the person next to us we see that person in a whole new way.”

Way Giving Persons Whole Humanity Next Tables New Ways Hospitality Peas

Author:Alice Waters

“We have to bring children into a new relationship to food that connects them to culture and agriculture.”

Children Culture Agriculture New Relationship

Author:Alice Waters

“Always explore your garden and go to the market before you decide what cook.”

Author:Alice Waters

“This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.”

Alive Inspire Thoughtful Hopeful Joyful Gathering

Author:Alice Waters

“I have a love affair with tomatoes and corn. I remember them from my childhood. I only had them in the summer. They were extraordinary.”

Remember Childhood Summer Extraordinary Affair Corn Love Affair Tomatoes

Author:Alice Waters

“Good food is a right, not a privilege. It brings children into a positive relationship with their health, community and environment.”

Children Community Environment Rights Food Health Eating Privilege Chef Good Food Positive Relationship

Author:Alice Waters

About the Author

Born: April 28, 1944
Known for: Chef
Quotes: 55

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Children Thinking Way Cooking Culture People School Cooks Eating Community

Popular Topics

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Books & Sources

The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious RevolutionRelated source material

Chez Panisse Menu CookbookRelated source material

In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by HeartRelated source material

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