Actually, Bughut, a background in journalism isn't particularly necessary.
Assuming that the person can write (you'd be surprised at how many people who can't think they can), and, in this case, has an understanding of food and culinary matters, the important things are:
1. Being self-disciplined. Most food writing is not a go-to-the-office type thing. So you have to be disciplined enough to do the work when there's nobody standing over you with a whip.
2. Being thick skinned. Rejection is the norm, not the exception. If you can't take rejection then writing is the wrong business for you.
3. Understanding, deep in the gonads where it counts, the editorial golden rule, i.e., the editor has the gold so the editor makes the rules.
4. Realizing that most of your time is spent developing markets and soliciting work, not actually doing the work.
5. Knowing how the business really works. For example, reliability, far as an editor is concerned, is exponentially more important than talent.
