Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

What Defines a "Food Expert"?


Carrot Top

Recommended Posts

Expert: (American Heritage Dictionary)

(noun)

1. A person who has a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.

2a. The highest degree that can be achieved in marksmanship.

2b. A person who has achieved this grade.

(adj.)

Having, involving, or demonstrating great skill, dexterity, or knowledge as the result of experience or training.

What makes a person an expert in the subject of food, in your opinion?

In a quantifiable sense.

Would it be that they know how to cook well?

That they have knowledge of how the things we eat grow and are then processed and distributed?

That they read a lot of books about cooking? Or that they have formally studied the subject somewhere?

Does eating in a lot of restaurants make one an expert? If so, what sort of restaurants. . .could one be an expert on food without having dined at a four or five star place? Could one be an expert without having dined at a streetcart?

Or it is enough that someone eat every day?

What is the criteria in your mind? What makes a person an "expert" in the subject of "food"?

Edited by Carrot Top (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

add equal parts lady luck and good common sense to make the best of the opportunities that are presented to you.

stir in ability to articulate and put on a scale something abstract as taste and flavor.

and you get a decent food critique. now expert....

the more people who hate him for what he does, the status of expert is attained ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i think there can be several types of experts

those who are expert at cooking

those who are expert at eating and can critisize both the good and bad

there r those who can be expert in a particular type of cuisine..either cooking or as a critic

whatever it is ..u can be sure there is an expert somewhere on both sides of the fence..

to my mind though... a food critic..when critiquing a food..is basing his or her critique on their own palette and therefore can only give thier own opinion..someone else eating the same dish my find it rather enjoyable and not agree with anything a critic said..or the critic may have loved something while again someone else did not..its all a matter of personal taste..

kind of along the lines of a movie critic not liking a movie that u yourself enjoyed..the only real difference between the two is that a food critic..for whatever reason can make or break a business with what they write because people pay so much more attention to a food critic than they do a movie critic..as for me....in both cases...i like to form my own opinion about a thing..be it movie or food and every now and then i may agree..but most of the time i dont..again..a matter of personal taste..

so in a sense in the case of the critic.... i guess each of us in a way are expert because we are basing our opinions on what is palatable to us...in that we are being true to ourselves..which is how it should be...

to be an expert in cooking..that takes time and talent lots of trial and error and a passion for what u do and do well...

Edited by ladyyoung98 (log)

a recipe is merely a suggestion

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two very good answers given in the past four days. With one hundred thirty eight "views".

It leaves me wondering what others would answer, if they happened to be interested in the subject in any way.

I had a dream the other night.

One person posed this question to another. They were both indistinct people in the dream, so I can not put any definition on who they were. . .

One said, "What makes you such an expert?"

The other answered, "Because I said so!"

End of dream. Wish I had more to tell you. :wink::raz:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

an expert is someone who knows more about something than you do.

:laugh::laugh:

I love that line. Particularly if I read it as if to take it personally.

Yes, but the "you" is never static, is it?

So. . .being an expert is dependent on having a good number of people around who know LESS about something than the person who owns the superior knowledge at that particular time in that particular place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having been labeled an "expert" in some fields professionally, I collected a few favorites:

To paraphrase P. J. O'Rourke . . . "I don't know. I am not an expert therefore, I have a poor grasp of things I know nothing about."

"Hi! I am from Head Office and I am here to help you."

And my personal favorite when perplexed colleagues are looking longingly for an answer to their problem . . . "How the hell should I know?"

But when it comes to food, I guess there are so many categories of expert it is hard to say in short concise terms. Some of us science geeks can get into the details of what is going on in the pot. But we may be nothing as compared to that talented chef or cook that can make magic without having a scientific clue. Then there is the person that can make magic in the garden or the farm.

To me, an expert is someone that knows a lot more about a subject than I do and knows enough more about it to recognize the fact and try to disseminate that information.

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

Link to comment
Share on other sites

seriously, i have been writing about food fulltime for more than 20 years and cooking and eating pretty seriously longer than that. and there isn't a day that goes by that i don't learn something that blows my mind. sometimes it comes in reading papers (recent favorite: sweet corn aroma, chemical components and relative importance in the overall flavor response; my subtitle: it's all about the dimethyl sulfide baby!). it can come from chefs or home cooks. it can come from the tia picking out melons next to me at the farmers market.

as a journalist, i see my role not as being an expert, but more in acting as a bridge between all the experts and all the people who are curious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i suppose in a way its really all relative...

you can label someone as an expert but then invariably someone else comes along and knows more about that same thing as the person you just called an expert..and so on and so on and so it goes.. perhaps the only thing we can say for certain is that we all have our own defintion for what an expert is... and because of that... .. perhaps there is no right or wrong answer for this because what is true for ourselves is not true for somebody else..we are all individuals with our own thoughts and feelings and we simply share...and there is nothing wrong with that

Edited by ladyyoung98 (log)

a recipe is merely a suggestion

Link to comment
Share on other sites

VOLUME

:laugh: Area that is displaced by superior knowledge, you mean?

This morning I came across a phrase that sounded just like what russ wrote earlier ("an expert is someone who knows more than you do") (Not that it has any specific ties to this thread but anyway. . . :smile: ) It is from Gore Vidal. "A narcissist is someone better looking than you are".

Is the "expert" thing something that exists on its own, or only in relationship I wonder. And what are the determinants of that relationship. . does it flow from the expert or does it flow from the "other"?

As ladyyoung noted, this is likely one of those questions where there is no right or wrong.

I am just fascinated with the slippery nature of reality that this thing has, though, this thing of "expert".

One would hope to be able to find some determinants. In other fields "expertise" is generally determined by knowledge, but that knowledge needs to have a formal shape to be considered valid in being called "expert". This knowledge could be in the shape of measureable studies undertaken that can be tested as to thoroughness. . .or work-related experience that would make for proof of the pudding.

Yet in the field of food, is this true? Everyone considers themselves to be expert, at least so far as their own food goes. And that viewpoint is something they carry into the world everyday, as they make their judgements on "how the restaurant did" with their meal or "whether the offerings at the grocery store are good", etc. etc.

Food. . .always slides so quickly into the areas of emotion, personal taste, upbringing. . .fascinating.

Are we all experts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The last time in human history that it was possible for any person have full control of all of human knowledge was in the 16th century. Since that time expertise, however defined, has become increasingly limited to specific sub-areas of knowledge. That is to say, as no-one can know all there is about mathematics (perhaps specializing in a limited realm within a sub-axiom of chaos theory) neither can one know all there is to know about food or wine.

Expertise, like intelligence itself must in some way be demonstrated, so even within given sub-areas of knowledge we have to seek out those people who in one way or another have something to say or write that demonstrates their expertise. The silent genius is the fool on the hill, only the one who speaks up can be an expert even in a small area.

I think in food for example of Claudia Roden's expertise in Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine; of Bugialli's expertise in Italian cuisine; of Serena Suthcliffe's vast expertise in the realm of Bordeaux wines.....

The one and only thing I can guarantee in this is that any person who declares him/herself to be an expert is assuredly not an expert! The wise writer, speaker, chef, winemaker can indeed be proud of what he/she does but that does not make them polymaths. That is one of the reasons I so like the way that all lectures at the College de France are closed- the speaker asking "are there any questions, problems or objections?" They really mean that!

In a phrase, like the attainment of Nirvana, one is always on the way to being an expert. The person with the least bit of wisdom truly hopes that he/she will never, never think they have reached that point. The moment you think you have, you have lost it completely.

Edited by Daniel Rogov (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

An expert is labeled such by others. And it's a moving target -- depending on the "expert" and the "other."

I'm not sure I've heard or seen the term "food expert" all that often. I've seen "wine expert," "cooking expert," "pastry expert," etc. "Food expert" may simply be too broad.

We cannot employ the mind to advantage when we are filled with excessive food and drink - Cicero

Link to comment
Share on other sites

an expert is someone who knows more about something than you do.

an expert is someone who is convinced they know more about something than you do

no, that's a pundit.

seriously, i was deadpan in my first definition (and it certainly wasn't meant to be a put-down of the person asking the question). most of the smartest (and most expert) people I know are also the ones who are most likely to ask questions, rather than give answers. it's the tyros who like to do that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

no, that's a pundit.

seriously, i was deadpan in my first definition (and it certainly wasn't meant to be a put-down of the person asking the question). most of the smartest (and most expert) people I know are also the ones who are most likely to ask questions, rather than give answers. it's the tyros who like to do that.

I didn't take your answer as a put-down. The entire subject is rather amusing to me. Lots about it makes me laugh, for tilt it one way or another and it can look quite silly, sometimes satiric, sometimes nonsensical. Sometimes life looks like a Marx Brothers movie to me. Quite often. :wink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...