What e the academic options open to a food obsessed person?
I would look into the James Beard Foundation. I believe they have a fellowship for food writers, and I believe the food critic for the NYTimes magazine went to a French Culinary School on that fellowship. Or, you could email the professors you’d be interested in working with, or people in the field — and explain that you’re interested. I have found that most people a) like talking about what they do and b) are happy to help. If you live in an area with food writers, ask if you can take them for coffee. Or see if your town has a historical culinary society.
I’d second everything SixteenTons and jayder said, especially the advice to spend a couple years in an on-the-ground job. “Do it for a couple years to find out if you still love food at that point” was exactly what a Culinary Institute of America grad and good friend of mine told me when I was starting out in food. You absolutely must get your hands dirty to learn, and you have to do something like that in order to build up your knowledge and your credibility. I’ve researched NYU’s degrees (because I considered them myself) and while they’re very in depth, it’s not a culinary program. If you want to write about food, you have to get your culinary knowledge somewhere, and culinary school or on the job are two places that can be done. You’ve said that you’ve had trouble getting in touch with people who’ve been through those two degree programs – have you asked both programs to make it possible for you to contact some recent grads? If you’re interested in academia, be aware that food stud
