A Foodie Says Farewell to Gourmet

I have been a foodie since I first understood what that meant. So many memories center on what I was cooking or eating at the time and it is difficult to remember places I’ve been without first thinking about what I ate when I was there. Catching a whiff of a favorite bakery sweet (Italian seven-layer cookies, sourdough bread) or a sniff of a delectable savory (smoked gouda, sautéed onions, grilling steak) transports me to my “happy place.”

Between tasting and savoring everything I can get my hands on, and poring over and trying out recipes on anyone brave or hungry enough, I have always been a voracious reader of foodie magazines. And Gourmet, the self-proclaimed ‘magazine of good living,’ was always the first one I’d reach for to read – until October 5, when Condé Nast announced that the November issue of Gourmet would be the magazine’s last.

As Stephanie Clifford so eloquently put it in her New York Times article, “Gourmet was to food what Vogue was to fashion.” Under the leadership of Earle MacAusland, the magazine launched as a way to give its readers ways to live “the good life.” For forty years (from 1941-1980), MacAusland’s slick, color magazine successfully delivered recipes, articles and stunning photography of food and international destinations to the publication’s gourmand, upscale, cosmopolitan readership. For forty years, MacAusland listened to his audience. Gourmet drew an even larger readership through the economic booms of the 80s and 90s, with even more Americans having disposable income to enjoy “the good life.” Through the boom, and even with the 1983 buy-out by Condé Nast, the magazine continued to publish with its audience in mind.

Now, while I may not be the target audience (I’m certainly not wealthy and certainly haven’t been reading since 1941), the PR practitioner in me can see how the tide of the magazine turned as Ruth Reichl assumed the role of editor in chief in 1999. Reichl, while an exquisite writer, acclaimed food journalist and world-renowned culinary expert, stopped listening to her audience. The traditional Gourmet reader wanted to see stunning photographs of lobster prepared in the French style, then read an article on how to recreate the delicacy themselves, then read and see more opulent photographs about where to find the world’s best lobster in a James Beard Award-winning restaurant in Provence. What Reichl gave them was David Foster Wallace’s 2005 essay “Consider the Lobster” which discussed lobster sensory neurons and the ethics of boiling a creature alive.

As the content began to feature the uglier side of “good living” and of food preparation, this target stopped reading. As Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” explained in an AP article on the magazine’s closure, “[Gourmet] was reaching an audience that wasn’t sensitive to the political and ecological implications of their eating. It was largely a hedonistic community that Ruth [Reichl] introduced to some hard issues.” And, as the once-loyal readership began to dwindle, the advertisers followed.

With the last issue just hitting newsstands, I’m sad to see Gourmet go. I still have my storage bins full of dog-eared back issues and epicurious.com. And one extremely powerful PR lesson: Always listen to your audience.

Farewell, Gourmet. This foodie will miss you.

Alexandra Peterson