Like a lot of great things about the publishing world, I was introduced to
Gourmet by my old editor and boss, Alex Cho. We liked to talk a lot about what makes a great magazine; how a good mag had to cut both deep and shallow, how it should reflect its audience, but also challenge and engage it, how to be stylish and fresh without sacrificing the illusion of institutional heft. Editing's a pretty misunderstood job (most people mistake it for copy editing), but a good editor is like a conductor who knows that the score is illuminated not just by balance and harmony, but by counterpoint and dissonance. Alex stood by my door holding a copy of Gourmet in his hands and declared, "This is what a magazine should be."
Being a food lover and half-decent chef, I've been reading it ever since, but it's as an editor that I get my deepest satisfaction from its pages. It's everything you want from a magazine; the editorial photoshoots make a rack of lamb look more comely than any centerfold model could aspire to. The thematic unity of each issue; for instance, this month is focused on French Bistro cooking is thrilling because it's not slavishly devoted to the topic. For instance, the main feature is about what you'd expect: coq au vin, profiteroles and steak frittes, but you would never anticipate Francis Lam's essay on his obsession with creating the perfect omelette or a story about how the people of Perche, France are developing their own
terrior of baguette (of all things) as a way to fight off the pressures of globalization. And at the end of each article, there's always recipes, reminding the reader, "Oh yeah, this is a food magazine".
But it's a magazine not about making food, rather it's a magazine about taste. It's menu's take you away to exotic locales. The roasted garlic souffle is presented in a way that's aspirational; the implicit promise is that in preparing it, you will be whisked, on some psychic level, to the fields of Provence. This is what all magazines do; they're aspirational mirrors. People read newspapers for the news, they read magazines to reflect who they are, or wish themselves to be. Ask someone to name three magazines they read and you'll be well on your way to knowing the soul of that person. People who don't read magazines or worse, cite
Time as one of the magazines they read, should be disregarded.
But back to
Gourmet. It works because its aspirational, but it also offers up 15 minute meals and isn't afraid to tell you to use a frozen bag of fries now and then. It cuts shallow as well as cutting deep. It also has institutional quirks. My favorite magazine quirk is The New Yorker's insistence on diaeresis marks over double vowels, but
Gourmet's seems to be a fascination with Calvados, that is apple brandy. It's constantly offering up deserts with whipped cream infused with the stuff and seems devote a paragraph or two every other month to extolling its virtues. It's these sort of little details that turn readers into
raving fans. It's subtitle is "The Magazine of Good Living" and it's sort of a joke because you'll never see an article about yachts or fast cars or the fashions of Milan in its pages, just food. Because for
Gourmet, what else could good living require?
Labels: food, new media, writing
