Search

Join Culinate! Login or Register

I’ll Never Stop Going Back to Gourmet for Seconds

From Giovanna’s Trifles at Culinate by Giovanna Zivny

October 5, 2009

Hearing about the end of Gourmet Magazine is not a good way to start the week. It feels a little bit like being kicked in the stomach; I was surprised to feel the tears welling (though, I have to admit, it shouldn’t be a surprise…I’m a big crier).

There’s the obvious: Gourmet magazine has been, in my life, a constant. I used to sit in front of the shelves of old copies my mother owned (I think they went back to before she was married), in the back room of our house. They were housed in those cardboard magazine holders, each one holding a year of issues—or more (from those days with fewer advertisements—ironic, no?).

The old ones connected me to another time and place—it was in Gourmet I first read any Joseph Wechsberg stories, with their romantic visions of Central Europe—who knows how much that had to do with my marrying Pavel, my Czech-born husband?

It seems to me that Gourmet followed a perfect arc, and did things right. They started out showing Americans a world of elegance and possibility. As it—and we—aged, it moved on to introduce us to maybe less glamorous, but still exotic places. And it asked us to grow up, and to take some serious looks at things—in their 2004 story about trans fats, for example.

I suppose I feel like a favorite great-aunt died. You know the type--she had been a WAC during WWII, and lived in New York City after, working for magazines. Her letters arrived monthly, and every few years she’d show up for a visit, full of stories from her life full of travels and people completely separate from my life. But she also knew all the stories about my family. And she kept up until the end--curious about where the world was going, and never wanting to stop taking part, always wanting to stay in the conversation.

Today I’m looking at my October issue with a new eye. I am curious about people’s complaints that the magazine had recipes that were too complicated; with too many hard-to-find ingredients. Take the recipe for Turkish doughnuts with Rose Hip Syrup in ‘Sweet Life’. Sure, it calls for cardamom pods, dried rose hips, and rose water—possibly items not as easily available in some parts of the country as in mine. But how can you not want to try them—and if you can’t manage to actually make them, aren’t they the kind of doughnut you’d enjoy having in your dreams?

But in the same issue, you’ll also find recipes for Brown Butter Pound Cake (made with ingredients you likely have on-hand), which sounds simple enough but also inspired. Or the quick (15 minutes active, 30 start to finish) Peppery Pasta Carbonara with Poached Egg.

And then there are the selfish reasons I’m brokenhearted. I will always remember the day I innocently opened an email with the subject line: Cookies. I’d long since forgotten I’d sent a story in, and there it was. An email from John Willoughby, saying they wanted to buy the story, and (if that wasn’t already enough), that both he and Ruth had loved the story. I’m sure you can imagine what sort of a dream come true that was for a writer. I was lucky enough to publish two stories in their magazine, and corny though it may be, I have to say I feel truly honored to have made it into their pages.

I’ll never stop going back for seconds to Gourmet.

Tags

add tags…
(please login to add tags)

There are 7 comments on this item

Add a comment

1. by OpusOne on Oct 5, 2009 at 1:09 PM PDT

What is amazing to me is that they had almost 1 million subscribers. Now, that is roughly $30 million a year in just subscription revenue. Although ad revenues are just dying everywhere, it floors me that that amount of base revenue could not sustain some version of the magazine moving forward.

Makes you wonder though.

2. by Beverly on Oct 6, 2009 at 6:23 AM PDT

Giovanna, you were the first person to come to mind upon reading the news of Gourmet’s fate. I’ll admit that I had lapsed as a Gourmet subscriber a few years back and reentered the fold when your first piece was published. It was great fun to read an article written you someone I knew! I think I’ll pull out a back copy today and cook up one of the many recipes I’ve yet to get to...all the time believing they would never stop coming.

3. by eamonm on Oct 6, 2009 at 7:42 AM PDT

The McKinsey consultants recognized the brand value of Gourmet. They no doubt argued that the magazine was the weakest part of the brand in terms of net income. The mistake they are making is that the magazine drives the brand value. Think about it for a minute. Every sector of the publishing industry is losing subscribers and Gourmet is growing. The other parts of the Gourmet brand are losing the real reason why customers buy the books, videos and everything else.

4. by OpusOne on Oct 7, 2009 at 4:10 PM PDT

After several days, and WAY too much “to-do” about Gourmet’s demise, I think Beverly’s comment holds some interesting food for thought. Why had she lapsed — like so many others quite frankly did, I don’t think we even had a subscription at the office anymore — and why had she recently returned? Could it be that maybe Gourmet had bringing on a new generation of writer’s and readers too late to be saved?

As likely a reason might be in the changing world of food over the last years; a movement to more cooking at home and in simpler ways seems to continue. I have come to believe that the brand name itself was bound to be at risk. The word “gourmet” has a history and is unlikely to change in meaning fast enough in the internet age to not be saddled with the past connotations that burden it.

Is it sad? Probably. Is it a bad thing? Other than then poor management of the announcement to the employees, probably not as bad as everyone is making it out to be given the number of sources of great food content available today.

If there is truly an audience for what was Gourmet, something will appear to fill that need... now it is up for those who so opine it’s loss to make that happen.

5. by giovannaz on Oct 9, 2009 at 12:04 PM PDT

I thought Alex Van Buren did an excellent job in his http://www.salon.com/mwt/food/eat_drink/2009/10/07/gourmet_magazine"article" on Salon in outlining why Gourmet was still relevant. And while there are indeed many sources of great food content, and lots of exciting possiblities, I still think Gourmet was singular in its quest to give all types of info (political, literary, recipe) to a widespread audience.

For every irate letter writer who complained about the stories about trans fats or tomato slave labor, there were surely many more who would not have come across these stories otherwise.

I wish I shared your optimism that if there’s an audience, something will appear to fill the need. I’m not convinced it always works that way.

6. by anonymous on Jan 3, 2010 at 10:29 AM PST

Thank you for the very kind words about the Gourmet piece! Just wanted to clarify, though, that I’m a she, and not a he :)! I do miss Gourmet quite a bit: Bon Appetit, though it’s good, just doesn’t hit quite the same notes for me.

Best,
Alex Van Buren

7. by giovannaz on Jan 4, 2010 at 2:57 PM PST

Well shoot--I tried and tried to see if there was a way to pretend I knew that, but to no avail. Instead, I’ll stick with saying I’m sorry, and thanks for the nice clarification!

Best,
Giovanna

Add a comment

Think before you type

Culinate welcomes comments that are on-topic, clean, and courteous. For the benefit of the community we reserve the right to delete comments that contain advertising, personal attacks, profanity, or which are thinly disguised attempts to promote another website.

Please enter your comment

Comment

Format: Bare URLs are automatically linked; use this style: [http://www.example.com "place text to be linked here"] for prettier links. You may specify *bold* or _italic_ text. No HTML please.