If there’s any group of people I can’t stand, it’s Faux Connoisseurs.

I have no problem with true connoisseurs because they know what they’re talking about. For example, the chef instructors at Paul Smith’s College: They were all experts in their field; in fact, Paul Sorgule, the man who started the Chef Training program, won a gold medal in the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt, Germany. But I never would’ve known it if the college itself hadn’t publicized it. And the others were the same: They were all just down-to-earth, modest, and even fun people. They had no reason to strut and self-promote because they KNEW they knew their stuff.

The FCs, on the other hand, are a whole diff animal. They are exhibitionists who love to call attention to themselves and their “expertise” and make pronouncements about this, that, and the other thing. And at the same time, they belittle everyone else’s downtown, trashmo, tastes.

You know the type, I’m sure.

“You like Dunkin Donuts coffee?” they sniff. “You mean, you actually serve it to guests?”

Or tell them you just bought a bottle of wine. They’ll ask what kind and vintage and when you tell them, they’ll say (but not in so many words) the only people who drink that PIPI LA CHAT are skid row bums.

Of course, it’s all a sham show, since they’ve no idea what they’re talking about. But it doesn’t matter because there are enough people who know even less, and have weak egos besides. So the FCs can get away with being pretentious putzes — at least for a while. And then when peeps get sick of their mumbo-jumbo, they just move on to a new set of wide-eyed acolytes.

The cheesy big cheese

My all-time rave-fave FC is a Jean-Francois Dupont. Or at least that’s the name he now goes by. For his first 25 years, he was Frank Dinkelschaft — a name far less exotic and lofty-sounding. In fact, his hometown nickname, was — and in the nature of nicknames, still is — Dinky. This is why he avoids going back like the plague. But Jean-Francois he’s become, and as such is an insufferable pompous ass. He’s such a drag to be around, I’ve dubbed him The Sultan of Certainty.

In matters of taste — food, clothes, cars, wines, you name it — he always knows more than anyone else. Or at least he appears to, since he has perfected his technique of one-upping everyone. It’s a strategy as simple as it is effective.

For example, someone will say they’ve recently taken a liking to Clan McCracken’s Highlander Stout.

“Clan McCracken’s stout?” he’ll say, shaking his head in both disbelief and disapproval.

“Yeah, why?” says the other guy. “Something wrong with it?”

“Not if you don’t mind arsenic,” says J-F.

“Arsenic? What about arsenic?” says the guy, his confidence shaken.

“Well,” says J-F, holding his index finger aloft like The Great Man making A Great Pronouncement, “McCracken’s is famous for trace arsenic in the stouts. You didn’t know that? Apparently, it has something to do with where they source their hops.”

And he’ll go on and on from there, till his friend is sure to either pour his entire McCracken’s stash down the crapper or give it to his dyspeptic slopgut brother-in-law.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the stout — J-F made the arsenic bit up on the spur of the moment. And his friend, who confuses J-F’s condescending certainty with real knowledge, swallows the explanation (but not the stout), hook, line and sinker.

And that’s what he does with everything: Explains in great detail what’s wrong with what someone likes without proving it. And of course he CAN’T prove it, because it’s all doo-doo. But he gets away with it because he’s so self-assured, and his acolytes are both so trusting, naive and unassertive.

But while he gets away with his nonsense a lot, he doesn’t always, and I had the pleasure of seeing him and his ego sink, after taking a direct hit amidships.

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Gettin’ the picture

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A vanful of my friends and I (including my NON-friend, J-F) had gone to an art exhibit in Burlington. The exhibit’s theme was something like Post-Modernist Rural Surrealism, and the paintings ran the gamut from a cow reading The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (titled, “Percy’s Old Lady”) to trout flying over barns, a melting tractor, and a pink silo that looked like I don’t want to tell you what.

But one painting really stood out. It was of an old man in bib overalls, with a grey beard down to his pupik. He had a foot-long tube of some sort sticking out of his mouth and was holding a Howdy Doody puppet in one hand and a can of Hershey’s Syrup in the other. The technique was pretty good (though the painter wasn’t gonna put Salvador Dali out of business anytime soon) but the image made no sense whatsoever to me or the others. Except of course to J-F.

After a whole lot of frowning, head-scratching, and Whattayathinks?, J-F took charge.

“Obviously,” he said, “this symbolizes a painful longing for times gone by, as well as the global corporate takeover of our lives.”

When asked for further clarification, he went on about how the old man represented the US of its long-lost, bucolic times, back when many men farmed and had huge beards. The Hershey’s symbolized the new high-tech corporate power and greed, holding sway over us … and the rest of the world. As for the puppet? It, proclaimed J-F, showed longing for childhood, when all things were possible — a dream shattered by the harsh realities of capitalism at its worst.

Someone asked about the tube sticking out of his mouth and J-F gave some other equally nonsensical interpretation.

The whole time a young woman stood behind our group, clearly listening. When J-F finally finished, she spoke up.

“Actually,” she said, “you’re completely wrong on all counts.”

“What?” said J-F, clearly shocked.

“That weird old guy is just a weird old guy. He collects puppets, and he sucks Hershey syrup right out of a can through that tube,” she said. “And that’s all there is to it.”

J-F stiffened. Being challenged was an insult as crass as it was rare.

“Oh yeah?” he said, scowling. “And what makes you so sure you’re right?”

“First, because he’s my weird old uncle,” she said. “And second, I painted the damned thing.”

Then she gave him a smile as sweet as it was insincere, turned on her heels and left.

We all burst into guffaws.

Or at least ALMOST all of us did.

You can, I’m sure, guess who didn’t.

You can also guess who didn’t say a word for the rest of the day … and into the night too.