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Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater Quotes

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Famous Nigel Slater Quotes

“The early-morning food is both perfunctory and delicious. Wedges of grapefruit and orange, a glass of blood orange juice and a bowl of rice threaded through with flakes of dried seaweed and beads of salmon roe as bright as Christmas baubles. It is the bowl of soup that is extraordinary. The usual light, instant miso has been replaced by a rich chicken broth, deeply savory, the beads of fat on its surface supporting a single floating mushroom. When I am eating eel donburi from a rust-red lacquered bowl and they bring me a cup of eel broth to go with it. Deeply smoky, slightly oily, dark as night.”

BreakfastJapanese FoodEelMiso Soup
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“Tempura of orange pumpkin brought still crackling from the kitchen; slices of yellowtail sashimi in a puddle of sesame sauce; grilled bamboo shoots on a wooden skewer and a dish of rice porridge. There is grilled cod's roe with a pin's point of fresh wasabi, pickled butterbur buds and the earliest fiddlehead fern, simmered in dashi broth and curled up like a caterpillar. A pale-blue dish is filled with mustard greens and ground sesame. As the light lifts, the room fills with weak and watery sunshine and I am brought a bowl of suitably pale miso broth with matchsticks of dried nori and balls of chewy white mochi. As I lay down my chopsticks a pudding appears of green-tea blancmange with two rust-red goji berries. Dessert for breakfast is something I can get on top of.”

BreakfastDessertJapanese Food
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“A wedge of autumn melon the color of apricots with a honeyed scent you catch from three feet away. A shallow lacquered tray of rust red, laid with eight individual dishes. Yoghurt in a thin glass dish; a single teardrop of deep-red syrup and a tiny green leaf float on its surface. A deep-black raku bowl of okayu, the soft and soupy rice to gently lull us out of sleep. A triangular dish of pickled vegetables and a single umeboshi plum. A white bowl of chilled black hijiki seaweed and soybeans. A pretty dish painted with wisteria flowers of the softest, stickiest silken tofu the color of the pages of an old book, decorated with a single yellow chrysanthemum flower and a lump of fresh wasabi the size of a pea.”

TraditionalBreakfastJapanese FoodPresentation Design
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“Purées of plum or dusky berries float on glass pots of yoghurt; scallops and oysters quiver on the half-shell and platters of sashimi sit on jagged crystals of crushed ice. Slices of boiled bacon with a mustard glaze are arranged in a soldierly line; poached white fish is wantonly sprinkled with spring onions; a mixture of aubergines and minced pork and another of hot and leafy mustard greens bask in chafing dishes next to stainless-steel cauldrons of miso soup. There are wicker baskets of dumplings steaming and a whole table of ingredients--- rice, eggs, greens and soy sauce--- with which to build your own bibimbap.”

BreakfastVegetablesSeafoodSouth KoreaYoghurt
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“Breakfast in a rather dingy hotel room, near the Roman ruins of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon. There are bowls of yoghurt; blue-and-white jugs of fresh mint, a basket of dimpled sheets of warm flatbread folded like delicate manuscripts, and pots of honey and fig jam. A lone brick of stale Madeira cake sits on an oval white plate. It is labelled 'English.”

BreakfastLebanese
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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