Goodbye Gourmet
The other day I got a postcard in the mail from the now defunct Gourmet Magazine (RIP) informing me that they would be making up the end of my subscription with the inferior Bon Appétit rag. No, they didn’t call BA inferior, but it is. This sparked my anger at Conde Nast for their ridiculous decision to end Gourmet after almost 70 years of quality food reporting. Here was this great food publication, highly respectable, really well done, and now? Nothing. Just gone because Conde Nast didn’t want to wait for the recession to end. So what if newsstand sales were down 25 percent this year? Give it a chance to bounce back! There are tons of food publications out there, but Gourmet was the crème de la crème.
I am not the only one that feels its loss. In an interview with New York Magazine, Alice Waters gave a good description of what the closing of Gourmet symbolizes for the food industry,
“It’s losing a voice — it’s losing a sophisticated voice. A voice that, for me, was representing the future of food in this country.”
In the last issue of Saveur (my all time favorite food magazine), they wrote a small editorial about how the closing of this magazine affected them,
“Sine we heard the news in October that Gourmet was ceasing publication after 68 years, we’ve mourned along with the rest of the food world. Over the years, Saveur and Gourmet have shared many writers and even swapped a few editors, and we’ve been driven by the same mission: to publish unforgettable stories about the world of cuisine. And yet, Gourmet’s absence leaves a hole no other publication could fill…Gourmet has been the benchmark for all food publications; its archive remains an invaluable resource. Still, it’s hard to believe that someone won’t find a way to bring Gourmet back.”
Even though this happened in October, this postcard ended up bringing back all the emotions of finding out this magazine was closing. I know it will be okay for food guru Ruth Reichl, she is a brand in herself, I am just sad that it’s over, for now.
