Food
Famous quotes about food
March 18, 2021

Famous quotes about food

From Greeks or not

If this is your first time in Greece, I have to inform you that food is very important for our genus, even from the ancient years. Food considers one of the pillars of our heritage (you can learn more about our beliefs to my article about food). We are proud for this piece of our culture. Additionaly, we always have -in the back of our mind- that even Aesop left us his virgin-birth poets while cooking as a slave.

We strongly believe the saying*: ‘You are what you eat’ and that is the reason why the Greek culinary art has many-many nutritious legumes, really nutrient-richGreek food quotes dairy products like feta cheese&yogurt, plant type-organic products like honey, fresh vegetables, extra virgin olive oil and olives, fresh fish and meat, almost always accompanied with homemade/local wine. There are many food quotes naturally which they trace their origin from the ancient Greeks. Our cooking and eating habits start to grow back then, so many of them either concerning food and drinking or resembling everyday’s situations with the food. Natural consequence of our race’s belief that ‘νοῦς ὑγιής ἐν σώματι ὑγιεῖ’ (mentally healthy in body healthy). This philosophical vision of our ancestors stands for their opinion that they should keep their body healthy to have the mentally spirit elevated.

Most of our gastronomy-eating habits changed a bit over the years, but not so much. They just mutated. I want to believe for the better, since it is important for us to maintain on a balanced diet. We are still eating healthy food following the Mediterranean diet (and having the Mediterranean silhouette of course) and we still appreciate having company on our meals. It’s our way to socialize.

Even their contemporary replacements of our ancestors like Nikos Kazantzakis and Yannis Ritsos are making references to everyday’s life paralleling it with the food. For that reason, I will give you below few of these quotes together with some non-Greek’s quotes. Please enjoy!!! and feed….. your esprit.

 

Food quotes from Greeks:

  1. Plato: <<All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anyone else>>.
  2. Socrates: << Others live to eat, myself I eat to live>>.
  3. Aristotle: << Plants exist for the sake of animals and animals for the sake of men>>.
  4. Aeschylus: << Hunger coexists with darkness>>.
  5. Epicurus:<<We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink>>.
  6. Epicurus:<<To eat and drink without a friend is to devour like the lion and the wolf>>.
  7. Homer: <<You are what you eat. So, don’t be fast, cheap, easy or fake>>.
  8. Euripides: << Once a man be done with hunger, rich and poor are all as one>>.
  9. Aristophanes: << Quickly, bring me a flagon of wine, to soak my brain and say something smart>>.
  10. Diogenes: << What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others>>.
  11. Hippocrates: <<Our food should be our medicine. Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food>>.
  12. Hippocrates: <<To eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness>>.
  13. Demosthenes when asked how he became successful in rhetoric, replied <<By spending more on oil than on wine>>.
  14. King Midas: <<Tastes as good as it looks>>.
  15. Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek): <<I have always been consumed with one desire’to touch and see as much as possible of the earth and the sea before I die>>.
  16. Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek): << I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else>>.
  17. Yannis Ritsos: <<I believe that the primary justice is the fair distribution of bread>>.
  18. Ancient Greek phrase from an unknown: <<For the hungry everything is edible>>.

 

Food quotes from non-Greeks:

  1. Franz Kafka: <<So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being>>.
  2. Guillermo del Toro: <<The way I see film is I think is like going out to dinner. I feel it’s a banquet. You do not want to have the same food you have at home. You want to go and eat a fantastic Chinese or Indian or Greek>>.
  3. Benjamin Franklin: <<Thou hadst better eat salt with the Philosophers of Greece, than sugar with the Courtiers of Italy>>.
  4. George Bernard Shaw :<<There is no love sincerer than the love of food>>.
  5. James Beard: <<Food is our common ground, a universal experience>>.
  6. Julia Child: <<The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook>>.
  7. Cesar Chavez: <<If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him. The people who give you their food give you their heart>>.
  8. Guy Fieri: <<Cooking is all about people. Food is maybe the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together. No matter what culture, everywhere around the world, people eat together>>.
  9. Julia Child: <<The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude>>.
  10. *Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: << Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es./Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are>>. Modernized form: You are what you eat.

 

I hope that I gave you enough ΄΄food for thought΄΄ and you will choose a healthy eating habit for you, if not already. Not starving, just eating with appropriateness. I am expecting you to Athens to meet the Mediterranean ‘diet’ with us in her hometown enjoying our delicious flavorful <<unpretentious food>> as Princess Tatiana of Greece & Denmark characterized it.

 ‘The laughter is the joy of life’. All Greeks we believe in that saying. So, I decided to give you some of the funniest Greek idioms you will ever hear, to my next article. Until then, …..ya mas* with a fine local red wine of my father’s vines.

 

Travel tip: Inside Athens there are many options to know our culinary art like eating in a small taverna or in one of the oldest legendary eateries, going on a tour at the central market for a food tasting workshop mingling with the locals or for a wine tour or even feeling like an Athenian by preparing-cooking with local chefs our traditional foods like spanakopita, loukoumades, tzatziki and moussaka. Ohh…and do not forget our iconic street food: souvlaki.

Fact: ‘Ya mas’ means cheers (and clink the glasses). The whole phrase is ‘stin ygeia mas’, which means: we are drinking to wish on our health.

 

If you enjoyed: Famous quotes about food from Greeks or not, then you should definitely check the: Greek idioms about food

maria
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