1) The Sterns(PhD): The Alan Lomaxes of hearty American eating. Their travels along the byways of backroad American dining have produced more great food finds than all the Times critics combined. Perhaps the most joyful and unpretentious food writers in America.
2) Ming Tsai (BS): Greatest squash player in American haute cuisine. Never flaunts Andover-Yale pedigree, but definitely picked up something about great teaching on his tour of New England higher education. Along with Batali, one of the most creative, cogent and convincing culinary educators.
3) Harold McGee (PhD): Cal Tech BS meets Yale English Lit. doctorate. The French do things comme il faut. From searing meat to baking soufflés, McGee shows the why behind the what. Gave up the academy, but not a love of teaching. Extracts endless points of interest from apparently esoteric food industry trade journals. Has educated more professional and home chefs about the science of food than anyone else.
4) Dave Lieberman(BA): Bobby Flay meets Rachel Ray. Accessible, baby-faced, consummately amateur(ish) chef.
5) Bill Clinton (JD): Never met an attractive person, policy or plate to which he wouldn’t devote his full attention. Impressively egalitarian enthusiasms extend from McDonald’s cheeseburgers to Laurent Tourondel’s tuna tartare to Crabtree Kittle House’s foie gras. No president in recent memory has taken greater pleasure from the joys of the table. Somewhat chastened by heart problems, but still keeps his fork up. Admirable involvement in food education efforts directed towards obese children.
HALL OF FAME:
Calvin Trillin (BA): Took New Yorker house style and applied it brilliantly to profiling food and food-inspired travel. What others have produced since is largely a footnote to Trillin’s early work. Misguided claims to superiority of Bryant’s Barbecue over Gates are partly understandable if wholly unforgiveable.
Gray and Grizzled Food Fan 
March 24, 2008 at 5:16 pm |
A few addenda:
The Zagats are Yale Law School grads and would definitely make the list as well. David Chang and Danny Meyer were just down the road at Trinity. Would never have seen CT as the Lyon of American food talent creation, but so it is.
August 27, 2015 at 9:06 am |
There’s a secret about your post. ICHBTTIYTKY