I tell a student that the most important class you can take is technique. A great chef is first a great technician. 'If you are a jeweler, or a surgeon or a cook, you have to know the trade in your hand. You have to learn the process. You learn it through endless repetition until it belongs to you.

Jacques Pepin

Categorized in : Hands Class Important

You have no choice as a professional chef: you have to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat until it becomes part of yourself. I certainly don't cook the same way I did 40 years ago, but the technique remains. And that's what the student needs to learn: the technique.

Jacques Pepin

technique choices years

You can't escape the taste of the food you had as a child. In times of stress, what do you dream about? Your mother's clam chowder. It's security, comfort. It brings you home.

Jacques Pepin

mother dream children

Cooking is the art of adjustment.

Jacques Pepin

adjustment cooking art

Just because I am a chef doesn't mean I don't rely on fast recipes. Indeed, we all have moments when, pressed for time, we'll use a can of tuna and a tomato for a first course. It's a question of choosing the right recipes for the rest of the menu.

Jacques Pepin

tomatoes tuna mean

Fortunately, I knew the cardinal rule of getting on with one's fellow cooks. It applies in any kitchen and can be summed up in two short words: bust ass.

Jacques Pepin

ass kitchen two

When you are at home, even if the chicken is a little burnt, what's the big deal? Relax.

Jacques Pepin

relax home littles

My palate is simpler than it used to be. A young chef adds and adds and adds to the plate. As you get older, you start to take away.

Jacques Pepin

used add chef

If you have extraordinary bread and extraordinary butter, it's hard to beat bread and butter.

Jacques Pepin

extraordinary beats bread

When you become a good cook, you become a good craftsman, first. You repeat and repeat and repeat until your hands know how to move without thinking about it.

Jacques Pepin

food moving thinking

Great cooking favors the prepared hands.

Jacques Pepin

favors cooking hands

When I pair food and wine, I start with the food. If I have a beautiful roasted bird, I might choose a Cabernet or Pinot Noir, or maybe a Syrah, depending on the sauce and what is in my cellar.

Jacques Pepin

wine beautiful bird

It's more useful to have knowledge about cuts of meat than a lot of money.

Jacques Pepin

lots-of-money cutting meat

This is what a family is all about - one another, sitting around the table at night. And it's very, very important, I think, for the kid to spend time not only around the table eating with their parents, but in the kitchen.

Jacques Pepin

night kids thinking

After 45 years of marriage, when I have an argument with my wife, if we don't agree, we do what she wants. But, when we agree, we do what I want!

Jacques Pepin

anniversary wife years

I taped my first series for PBS in 1982 at WJCT-TV in Jacksonville, Florida. The show, called 'Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pepin,' was about saving time and money in the kitchen - and it was a celebration of simple and unpretentious food.

Jacques Pepin

pbs florida simple

I was chef to the French Presidents between '56 and '59, finished with de Gaulle, and during de Gaulle I remember serving Eisenhower, Nehru, Tito, Macmillan; those were the heads of state at the time. I never saw anyone. No one would ever, ever, ever come to the kitchen. You couldn't even see them.

Jacques Pepin

nehru kitchen president

I am a glutton. I'll eat whatever is there. Pizza. I love hot dogs anywhere. I've got nothing against any of that. If I feel like eating, I eat. I don't feel guilty about it at all.

Jacques Pepin

guilty dog hot

One of the biggest problems with young chefs is too much addition to the plate. You put cilantro and then tarragon and then olive oil and then walnut oil or whatever. It's too much.

Jacques Pepin

olives oil too-much

I have an immigrant story. Most people come here for economic reasons, or religious reasons, or racial reasons, or gender reasons, or one of those things. I had a good job in Paris, but America was, and still is, the golden fleece. And I've done very well!

Jacques Pepin

paris religious jobs

I say: If you don't know how to cook, I'm sure you have at least one friend who knows how to cook. Well, call that friend and say, 'Can I come next time and can I bring some food and can I come an hour or two hours ahead and watch you and help you?'

Jacques Pepin

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