<P> The popular expression "revenge is a dish best served cold" suggests that revenge is more satisfying if enacted when unexpected or long feared, inverting traditional civilized revulsion toward "cold - blooded" violence . </P> <P> The idea's origin is obscure . The French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand - Périgord (1754--1838) has been credited with the saying, "La vengeance est un met que l'on doit manger froid" ("Revenge is a dish that must be eaten cold"), albeit without supporting detail . It has been in the English language at least since the 1846 translation of the 1845 French novel Mathilde by Joseph Marie Eugène Sue: "la vengeance se mange très bien froide", there italicized as if quoting a proverbial saying, and translated "revenge is very good eaten cold". It has been wrongly credited to the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782). </P> <P> Its path to modern popularity may begin with the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets which had revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold . The familiar wording appears in the film Death Rides a Horse (1967), in the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo (1969), as if from an "old Klingon proverb" in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). The title sequence of the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) referred to this last movie by again citing it as a Klingon proverb . After that it appeared in the 2004 version of Man on Fire . </P> <P> The phrase has also been credited to the Pashtuns of Afghanistan . </P>

Where does the phrase revenge is a dish best served cold come from