VEGETARIANS

The typical socialist is a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller, and often with vegetarian leanings. —George Orwell

Vegetarians have wicked, shifty eyes, and laugh in a cold and calculating manner. They pinch little children, steal stamps, drink water, favor beards... wheeze, squeak, drawl and maunder. —JB Morton

You will find me drinking gin / In the lowest sort of inn / Because I am a rigid Vegetarian. —GK Chesterton

I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants. —A. Whitney Brown

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, are humanitarians cannibals? —Unknown

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FOOD

We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun. —George Orwell

It must have been about one in the afternoon when I woke. I was feeling more or less like something the Pure Food Committee had rejected. —PG Wodehouse

I wished now that I had gone to the restaurant across the street where the food had at least the merit of being tasteless. —Peter de Vries

The food is simple and extremely unwholesome. —Edward Marsh

Olaf (upon what were once knees) / does almost ceaselessly repeat / 'there is some shit I will not eat' --ee cummings

If this little doll is sitting in your joint all afternoon, the best thing to do is to throw a feed into her as the chances are her stomach thinks her throat is cut. —Damon Runyon

Mother: It's broccoli, dear. Child: I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it. —EB White

Zee always went naked in the house, except for the brassière she wore when it was her turn to get dinner. Once, cooking French-fried potatoes in a kettle of boiling fat, she had come within an inch of crisping her most striking features. —G.S.Albee

Don't eat too many almonds; they add weight to the breasts. —Colette

All millionaires love a baked apple. —Ronald Firbank

His pale and insipid soul was dotted wih silly little prejudices and principles as feeble as the vestigial seeds of a banana. —Gerald Kersh

Rightly thought of, there is poetry in peaches, even when they are canned. —H. Granville Barker

It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is 'soporific'. —Beatrix Potter

Probably passed on, these many years, of an overdose of garlic, the way all New York barbers eventually go. —JD Salinger

New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin. —Mark Twain, 1884

It doesn't take much intelligence to sneak up on a blade of grass. —David Niven

FOOD DEFINITIONS

Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. —Ambrose Bierce

Lettuce, n. An herb of the genus Lactuca, "Wherewith," says that pious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, "God has been pleased to reward the good and punish the wicked. For by his inner light the righteous man has discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to the appetency whereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, being reconciled and ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entire comestible making glad the heart of the godly and causing his face to shine. But the person of spiritual unworth is successfully tempted to the Adversary to eat of lettuce with destitution of oil, mustard, egg, salt and garlic, and with a rascal bath of vinegar polluted with sugar. Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth suffers an intestinal pang of strange complexity and raises the song." —Ambrose Bierce

Manna, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants. —Ambrose Bierce

Oyster, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor. —Ambrose Bierce

Portugeuse, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic. —Ambrose Bierce

Rarebit, n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau a la financiere is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker. —Ambrose Bierce

Sauce, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven. —Ambrose Bierce

Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion. —Ambrose Bierce

Wheat, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whiskey can with some difficulty be made, and which is also used for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable. —Ambrose Bierce

Frog, n. A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in profane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between them and the mice. Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship of the work, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann has set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain frogs. One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh was besought to favor the Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them fricasees, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective -- "brekekex-koax"; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in each hoof -- a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine in a hurdle race. —Ambrose Bierce

DIET

I eat merely to put food out of my mind. —NF Simpson

Outside every fat man there was an even fatter man trying to close in. —Kingsley Amis

Enclosing every thin man, there's a fat man demanding elbow-room. —Evelyn Waugh

My advice if you insist on slimming: Eat as much as you like — just don't swallow it. —Harry Secombe

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us. —Peter deVries

Spoon-feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon. —EM Forster

DIET DEFINITIONS

Cannibal, n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the naural diet of the pre-pork period. —Ambrose Bierce

Carnivorous, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns. —Ambrose Bierce

Glutton, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia. —Ambrose Bierce

Digestion, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. —Ambrose Bierce

Pie, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion. —Ambrose Bierce

Abdomen, n. The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world's marketing the race would become graminivorous. —Ambrose Bierce

Eat, v. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition. —Ambrose Bierce

Overeat, v. To dine. —Ambrose Bierce

Edible, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm. —Ambrose Bierce

Fork, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking proofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him. —Ambrose Bierce

Frying-Pan, n. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that punitive institution, a woman's kitchen. The frying-pan was invented by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith. —Ambrose Bierce

MEALS

'Dinner,' she murmured bashfully, as if it were not quite a nice word for a young woman to use, and vanished. —Dorothy Parker

Dinner possessed only two dramatic features — the wine was a farce and the food a tragedy. —Anthony Powell

The critical period in matrimony is breakfast time. —AP Herbert

The three great stumbling-blocks in a girl's education, she says, are homard à l'Américaine, a boiled egg, and asparagus. Shoddy table manners, she says, have broken up many a happy home. —Colette

You breed babies and you eat chips with everything. —Arnold Wesker

MEAL DEFINITIONS

Eucharist, n.A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled. —Ambrose Bierce

Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness. In the Roman Catholic Church feasts are "movable" and "immovable," but the celebrants are uniformly immovable until they are full. In their earliest development these entertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such were held by the Greeks, under the name Nemeseia, by the Aztecs and Peruvians, as in modern times they are popular with the Chinese; though it is believed that the ancient dead, like the modern, were light eaters. Among the many feasts of the Romans was the Novemdiale, which was held, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven. —Ambrose Bierce

MEAT

The better sort of Ishmaelites have been Christian for many centuries and will not publicly eat human flesh uncooked in Lent, without special and costly dispensation from their bishop. —Evelyn Waugh

Bring porridge, bring sausage, bring fish for a start, / Bring kidneys and mushrooms and partridges' legs, / But let the foundation be bacon and eggs. —AP Herbert

Mustard's no good without roast beef. —Chico Marx

Then he got to his feet, bowed formally, and went into the Pig'n'Whistle for an atomburger and a frosted mango. —SJ Perelman

FISH

Life is rather like a in of sardines — we're all of us looking for the key... We roll back the lid of the sardine tin of life, we reveal the sardines, the riches of life therein, and we get them out, we enjoy them. But, you know, there's always a little piece in the corner you can't get out. I wonder — I wonder, is there a little piece in the corner of your life? I know there is in mine. —Alan Bennett

Yes, cider and tinned salmon are the staple diet of the agricultural classes. —Evelyn Waugh

This piece of cod passes all understanding. —Sir Edwin Lutyens

With the audacity of true culinary genius, Jewish fried fish is always served cold. —Israel Zangwill

Little Isadore reaches out and spears himself a big hunk of my gefilte fish with his fingers, but I overlook this, as I am using the only knife at the table. —Damon Runyon

Bouillabaisse is only good because cooked by the French, who, if they cared to try, could produce and excellent and nutritious substitute out of cigar stumps and empty match boxes. —Norman Douglas

BREAD

When they ask for bread don't give them crackers as does the Church, and don't, like the State, tell them to eat cake. Explain that man cannot live by bread alone, and give them stones. —Nathanael West

When you have only two pennies left in the world, by a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other. —Chinese proverb

CHOCOLATE

She first washed her head; then ate chocolate creams; then opened Shelley. —Virginia Woolf

Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one go. —Truman Capote

DRINK

Drinka pinta milka day. —anon

One more bottle of fizzy lemonade. —John Betjeman

The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. —George Mikes

The sooner the tea's out of the way, the sooner we can get out the gin, eh? —Henry Reed

You can tell when you have crossed the frontier into Germany because of the badness of the coffee. —King Edward VII

MORE DRINK

Religions change; beer and wine remain. —Hervey Allen

Gin was mother's milk to her. —GB Shaw

Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder. —Hugh Drummond

I'll eat when I'm hungry and drink when I'm dry / If moonshine don't kill me, I'll live 'til I die. —anon

Little nips of whiskey, little drops of gin, / Make a lady wonder where on earth she's bin. —anon

Only fools and passengers drink at sea. —Commodore Alan Villiers

Three highballs, and I think I'm St. Francis of Assisi. —Dorothy Parker

Beer, beer, glorious beer / Fill yourself right up to here. —Harry Anderson

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. —Winston Churchill

Merrily taking twopenny ale and cheese with a pocket-knife; / But these were luxuries not for him who went for the Simple Life. —GK Chesterton

Champagne had the taste, he thought, of an apple peeled with a steel knife. —Aldous Huxley

I hate champagne more than anything in the world next to Seven-Up. —Elaine Dundy

It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought. —PG Wodehouse

St George he was for England, / And before he killed the dragon / He drank a pint of English ale / Out of an English flagon —GK Chesterton

People may say what they like about Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die. —'Saki'

"The trouble with me is that I just enjoy more and more things," said Emma. "First I just liked milk; then I learned to like tea and coffee; and then cocoa and lemonade; and then port and sherry; and then gin and whiskey. Soon I shall like everything." —Malcolm Bradbury

No man is genuinely happy, married, who has to drink worse booze than he used to drink when he was single. —HL Mencken

When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Dublin. I wonder would they knows it was me? —JP Donleavy

Mother love, particularly in America, is a highly-respected and much publicized emotion and, when exacerbated by gin and bourbon, it can become extremely formidable. —Noel Coward

DRINK DEFINITIONS

Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstemption, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. —Ambrose Bierce

Teetotaler, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally. —Ambrose Bierce

Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers. —Ambrose Bierce

Wine, n. Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as "liquor," sometimes as "rum." Wine, madame, is God's next best gift to man. —Ambrose Bierce

Nectar, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient. —Ambrose Bierce

Rice-Water, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine, and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat witch of the Dismal Swamp. —Ambrose Bierce

Potable, adj. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific — and without science we are as the snakes and toads. —Ambrose Bierce

OFF-TOPIC

Living in the past has one thing it its favour — it's cheaper. —anon

Learn to get used to bombing. Eels get used to skinning. —Winston Churchill

When you are skinning your customers, you should leave some skin on to grow so you can skin them again. —Nikita Krushchev, to UK merchants

The full area of ignorance is not mapped; we are at present only exploring its fringes. —J.D. Bernal

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes. —Stanley Kubrick

If you cannot say what you have to say in twenty minutes, you should go away and write a book about it. —Lord Brabazon

The rich are the scum of the earth in every country. —GK Chesterton

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