Paul Prudhomme

“We're working people, and that's what we like to do, work.”

“In '71 or '72 I returned to New Orleans and stayed there. I started cooking Louisiana food. Of all the things I had cooked, it was the best-and it was my heritage.”

“We trust something in a grocery store and assume it's good. We don't learn about the most precious thing in life-the food we put in our body. Educate yourself!”

“Cajun is country food by farmers and fisherman that arrived in Louisiana from Acadiana, Canada.”

“One of the problems of our youth is that the family unit is broken up. When we'd sit down to dinner together as a family, we'd learn about each other. We had something people don't get today.”

“My mother would put me on a wooden box at the stove and tell me to call her if certain things would happen. Like if the steam turns blue, that is danger!”

“Don't get fancy. Have you cooked an apple pie? You don't know what you did wrong? Do this: Take two or three apples. Put them on a table. Study them.”

“When you've got a great business going, you go open another and take the risk of losing the whole thing. It's fun!”

“It's the sense of what family is at the dinner table. It was the joy of knowing mother was in the kitchen making our favorite dish. I wish more people would do this and recall the joy of life.”

“I would work as a cook, get a little money, then open another restaurant.”

“I believe in America. I'm one of those silly flag wavers.”

“I'm a professional cook. I've worked with other cooks from all over the world, but my family is not that way - they're always lived within 25 miles of my hometown!”

“I'd like to have the first restaurant that can deliver incredible quality food to your table at your house at any time-right where you live.”

“We didn't do wrong things because we didn't want to embarrass our parents.”

“One of my missions was to teach.”

“The bad part about being recognized is that when I walk into a restaurant and sit down, I've got to eat everything on the plate, whether it's good or bad. People would take it as an insult if I did otherwise.”

“When I am done with this meal you can have my life. It is heaven.”

“I didn't want to do just another set of recipes. I think that's useless.”

“Have fun. Do something nobody else had done before, or has done since.”

“You don't need a silver fork to eat good food.”