86 Gourmet Magazine
Conde Nast to Fold Gourmet Magazine
The New York Times is reporting (link above) that Conde Nast will announce this morning the closure of four publications, including the revered Gourmet magazine.
In addition to Gourmet, which has been published since 1940, Conde Nast will pull the plug on Elegant Bride, Modern Bride and Cookie, a parenting magazine.
Here’s the internal memo from Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend, obtained by Gawker.
Gourmet’s other monthly food glossy is Bon Appetit.
Ironically, Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl has been traveling around the country promoting the magazine’s newest cookbook Gourmet Today.
Weigh in with your comments. For this food writer, it’s a sad day.
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It’s a sad day for sure. The closing of the bridal magazines doesn’t particularly surprise me (how many bridal magazines does a company need to publish?), but I never expected them to pull the plug on Gourmet. It’s something of a foodie bible, one I always preferred to Bon Appetit for some reason.
Every year around this time, I pull out a pile from my archives various Thanksgiving issues from a handful of food monthlies. It’s hard to imagine that this will be the final Thanksgiving issue for Gourmet. I’m stunned at the moment.
Yes! It’s the November and December issues I’ll miss the most. And it’s not just the recipes themselves — it’s the photos of the food, which are always tantalizing (and something to aspire to).
It’s one of my favorites and I will miss it a great deal. My late stepmother had stacks of Gourmet everywhere (as I do now), and her Gourmet cookbook is held together with duct tape from such heavy use. What an irony that “Julie and Julia”, a movie about the love of cooking is in theaters as this plug is pulled. I let my subscription to Bon Appetit lapse and kept Gourmet, for its elegance and international sensibility. Sob.
So sad. My college girlfriends and I do a “cookie day” every year, inadvertently competing for “most complicated cookie.” Whoever brings the Gourmet recipe usually wins that booby prize.
That same group cooks a spring dinner – usually using the Gourmet Easter spread as a guide…we were thrilled the year our chicken came out of the oven “looking just like it did on the Gourmet cover.”
Sigh…
It doesn’t have to be this way, but it probably will be:
http://trueslant.com/paulsmalera/2009/10/05/late-stage-empire-how-conde-nast-couldve-saved-gourmet-magazine-and-why-it-chose-not-to
I feel like Gourmet paved the way for every other foodie mag, and even though I’ve felt a bit like a pretender when reading it, no one can argue with how much it’s brought to people who love to eat, much less cook. Particularly because of Ruth Reichl, I find it particularly sad.
Good points, Lisa. Gourmet was definitely not for everyone, nor did it try to be, but it was an important contribution to food journalism as well as a true celebration of cooking, culture and all things gustatory. I may not have loved every issue, but it was essential reading nonetheless. Looking forward to hearing where this talented group of writers and editors will land.
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