Au revoir Gourmet

It is a sad day for the gourmet snobs. After nearly 70 years of publication, the Gourmet magazine is nearing its final days. In an effort to cut costs and remove deadweight from the company, Condé Nast (often referred to as Condé Nasty by the multitude of disgruntled, newly-unemployed former employees) decided to cease publishing Gourmet in favor of the more profitable food magazine, Bon Appetit.

I am well-aware of the changing landscape of journalism and have heard more woebegone outcries from journalists than I care to recall, but I am still saddened by the loss of Gourmet. With digitalization of virtually every facet of our lives and the abundance of online recipes, it should come to no surprise to me that food magazines were only doomed to fail. However, (and this is quite a big however) I am baffled by this turn of events. I admit to googling recipes, but there is something intrinsically more palatable about the dishes that appear pictured in a magazine as opposed to the myriad of flickering images on the computer screen. Flipping through my Gourmet reminds me why I love to cook and experiment with new recipes. I look forward to receiving my Gourmet in the mail. As soon as I see the magazine, I plop into a chair (often with a cup of coffee nearby) and start absorbing the delectable recipes in the magazine, folding over nearly every corner to indicate new recipes that I absolutely have to make. I occasionally “ooooh” and “ahhhh” as I recount the ingredients of particularly succulent new dinner (and of course dessert) recipes to my mother, pledging to make them for the family. Now what will I do?

I know that I can still continue to browse online for recipes and of course purchase cookbooks, but seeing the dishes in the magazine always pushed me to try new foods as opposed to simply looking up recipes with ingredients that I already know I like. Even the Gourmet makes pork chops look good, almost good enough to eat. Almost. As a concession, there will be a November issue – how else would I make it through Thanksgiving? Not to mention all the new recipes with my favorite baking ingredient – pumpkin. If only they could hang onto December with the Christmas cookie issue; otherwise, I might not be able to try out 10 new cookie recipes this year and stay up baking until 2am.

Alas, this post has very little to do with economics, aside from the financial failure, but I would be remiss in not paying homage to my beloved Gourmet.


Link to the news release.