Mr Ugo

[Marlene]

I'm being fed these questions. but only because I lack originality

I have to find this book. It sounds wonderful! I'm off to my local Chapters tomorrow. Then maybe I can think up a question on my own. In the meantime:

Do food tasters still exist or is it a dying art? No pun intended here (ok, well maybe)

What qualifications do you need to be a food taster

Thank you for joining us on this very unique Q&A!

[Peter Elbling]

This is Ugo. Yes, food tasters still exist tday, although not in the same numbers as they used to. If you have time please look at the essay I wrote on the Daily Gullet. I talk about President Ceausescu of Romania who had a foodtaster before he was shot. Fidel Castro still has one. I read somewhere that President George Bush was looking for a food taster because he was unfamiliar with foreign foods. I am sure that other important people have food tasters but no one likes to talk about it because it means they are not very popular.

I never knew exactly how many food tasters there were in Italy during the Renaissance, but at a banquet in Milano there were nine including me. I always wanted to have a guild of food tasters--why not? they have guilds for everything else-- and I even went so far as to make up a list of rules, it is in the book, but I could not find any food tasters who I thought worthy of joining. Potta! The food tasters I met were all suspicious fools. I think to be a good foodtaster you must be quick-witted, have a very sensitive nose, a knowledge of food and nerves of iron. Unfortunately, in my day, they did not ask you if you had the right qualities. You developed them or you died.