Foodie Mags Get It (Sort of): You Can’t Afford Truffles
Between the current economic climate and many publishers’ reticence to seize the shift to digital media, the last couple of years haven’t been good for magazines. Ad pages are declining big-time, and consumers have apparently been buying fewer magazines, writing them off as unnecessary expenditures.
The exception to this rule right now is foodie mags. Sure, it helps that people are wowed by Mario Batali, Top Chef, Rachel Ray (actually, are people still wowed by her?), and dozens of other celeb chefs and cooking shows. But what really helps is that most of us are trying to cut expenditures somewhere, and eating out is an obvious choice.
It’s always seemed to me that most people don’t cook–or worse yet, don’t know how to cook–so it surprises me to see that some of the foodie mags to benefit most from the economic downturn are Gourmet, Food & Wine, and Bon Appetit–magazines geared toward people who don’t mind using lots of ingredients and doing potentially complicated things with them. In a way, it makes sense: These magazines are finally starting to publish more budget-conscious articles and recipes. According to The New York Times:
“There is an incredible opportunity,” said Ruth Reichl, the editor in chief of Gourmet. “People need help learning to cook again, and they need advice on less-expensive ingredients, and we’re trying to give it to them.”
… As the high-end magazines try to survive a shaky 2009, it is out with the truffles, in with the button mushrooms.
‘There are ways in which we feel it should change,’ said Dana Cowin, the editor in chief of Food & Wine, published by American Express Publishing. ‘We don’t, for example, do recipes that involve loads of foie gras and shavings of truffles.’
That’s certainly a welcome change, but I do wonder how long these magazines will enjoy their glory. Women’s magazines like Real Simple, Health, and Woman’s Day have long been running recipes that use simple ingredients and that don’t require a lot of time, which is what the vast majority of people–even those who like to cook–want. But with the exception of magazines like Cooking Light and Everyday with Rachel Ray (which each get only a brief mention in the Times‘ story), most foodie magazines don’t consistently run recipes that are both fast and easy. Plus, when people start to look for other ways to save money, they’ll likely discover that the recipes in the foodie magazines they’re paying $3 to $5 for at the newsstand each month are available online for free at sites like FoodNetwork.com, Delish.com, MyRecipes.com, FoodBuzz.com, and Epicurious.com–and that those websites offer reviews and often rate the complexity of (and time required to make) the recipe.
Tailoring to the Times, Food Magazines Feature Cheap Recipes – NYTimes.com
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There’ll always be a market for food porn, and right now the design of magazines like Gourmet offers far higher-quality food porn than online sources do. Good food magazines, like a good restaurant experience, put a high value on presentation. And magazines that are entirely about food have a leg up among foodie readers in recognizing that men have embraced the cooking craze, too. Real Simple and Woman’s Day, no matter how practical their recipes, are not on the guys’ reading list.
You’re definitely right about there always being a market for food porn and Real Simple and Woman’s Day not cutting it for men. But between the current economy, weak ad pages, and a growing number of people looking for ways to trim disposable spending, I’d be surprised if the current growth of food porn mags lasts long-term. Pessimistic as it may be, I suspect that when people start looking at the costs they can cut, foodie mags may go the way of many other mags. That said, I hope I’m wrong — I do like looking at the pictures in Gourmet, even if I’m more likely to seek out recipes online.