Chatty Cathy wrote:

> Do you think that one can become an acknowledged "expert" at cooking
> authentic cuisine(s) from other countries/regions without actually living
> and/or studying a particular cuisine in the applicable country/region of
> origin?
>
> Would taking a course (in your home country) or being taught 'how to' by a
> relative/friend who came from that country/region do the trick?
>
> Any thoughts?

The biggest problem is getting the right ingredients. The second-biggest
problem is knowing when you've succeeded: If you never tasted the authentic
thing, how do you know if you've made it correctly?

On the other hand, I think you can learn an authentic cooking *style*
without cooking authentic food. For example, Mario Batali has lived in Italy
and is pretty well acknowledged as an expert on Italian cuisine, but he
doesn't import all his seafood from Italy; he uses whatever is local to the
restaurant where he's cooking. In that sense, his *food* is not
authentically Italian (because he's using snow crab instead of langostino,
for example), but his *cooking* is. I think someone could learn to cook that
kind of Italian-inspired food with that same degree of proficiency without
ever visiting Italy.

Bob