The extent to which we take everyday objects for granted is the precise extent to which they govern and inform our lives.

A meal can be thought of as a ritual and a work of art, with limits laid down, desires aroused and fulfilled, enticements, variety, patterning and plot. As in a work of art, not only the overall form, but also the details matter intensely.

Our perception that we have 'no time' is one of the distinctive marks of modern Western culture.

The extent to which we take everyday objects for granted is the precise extent to which they govern and inform our lives.

Food is "everyday"-it has to be, or we would not survive for long. But food is never just something to eat. It is something to find or hunt or cultivate first of all; for most of human history we have spent a much longer portion of our lives worrying about food, and plotting, working, and fighting to obtain it, than we have in any other pursuit. As soon as we can count on a food supply (and so take food for granted), and not a moment sooner, we start to civilize ourselves.

Salt is the policeman of taste: it keeps the various flavors of a dish in order and restrains the stronger from tyrannizing over the weaker.

It is the nature of human beings not to be able to leave nature alone.