Susi Gott Séguret  (United States/France)   -  2007 student
45.  Director of Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts (North Carolina, USA)

« The title "Les Hautes Etudes du Goût" immediately intrigued me. "Taste": so many perceptions are wrapped up in this one word! Just reflecting upon those five letters (four in French), one begins to salivate, the senses awaken, and then the thoughts turn to all the various ways in which different individuals display their tastes, not only through the food they choose to eat and share with others, but in the choice of a mate, a house, clothing, hairstyle, musical preferences, and all other manner of self-expression.

As director of a culinary school in North Carolina, in which I strive to communicate the French passion for food, linked with the education of the palate, two weeks of immersion in the study of taste seemed like a must. The variety of styles and preferences of the professors was a study in taste itself, with one of the highlights for me being the fiery enthusiasm of Hervé This for a line of thinking he has created.

But by far the greatest value of the experience was the meeting of minds between the students, who haled from far afield and had each made sacrifices to free themselves from their busy lives for two isolated and wondrous weeks. Being in the company of like-minded souls, lapping up the learning like eager children, although it had been decades since many of us had entered a classroom with pen and notebook in hand, savoring two-star meals and three-star wines, making friends for a lifetime...this is worth more than all else put together.

My hat is eternally raised to those who created and who execute the Hautes Etudes du Goût. You've done the world a great deed!».