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If you ask what people say what American cuisine is, they cannot really do it. I don't know what it is.

It's fun to pick a cuisine and say I'm going to research Ethiopian food, and see what it's all about. You find that there are a lot of similarities in cuisines from around the world and a lot of similar flavors.

The type of cuisine I do, especially after being on 'Iron Chef' for several years, is a lot of global cuisine. My strength has always been Mediterranean cuisine across the board from Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, but I think now I'm doing a lot of very different cuisines all the time.

Every country possesses, it seems, the sort of cuisine it deserves, which is to say the sort of cuisine it is appreciative enough to want.

I wouldn't say that processed food, ready meals and even takeaways aren't relevant to modern life, it's just that over the past 40 years there are three generations of people who have come out of school and gone through their home life without ever being shown how to cook properly.

Turkish cuisine is, to my mind, one of the most exciting and accomplished in the world.

When I stopped eating meat, I fell in love with East Indian food - there's so much selection, and they use the most beautiful spices.

Food is a lens for culture.

Even just a few spices or ethnic condiments that you can keep in your pantry can turn your mundane dishes into a culinary masterpiece.