Ruth Reichl Dishes on the Last Days of Gourmet Magazine

Gourmet- the original - shaped my ability to cook and my adoration of travel. As another writer has commented, I would drop everything when it arrived and read it cover-to-cover. Delicate, subtle, technically flawless travel photos by Ronny Jacques captured the elusive essence of Europe. And here I am. The massive Gourmet cookbooks were on the highest shelf in my journalist mother’s ‘60s kitchen, glaring down at her inability to cook anything other than tuna noodle casserole. At the tender age of 11 I climbed up to that shelf, making my debut with ouefs a la neige. Shortly thereafter, this paper’s Claiborne helped me nearly burn down the kitchen following instructions to heat salt until it browned enroute to Hamburgers au Poivre. I’ve been cooking madly, albeit more skeptically, ever since. I took a Gourmet subscription with me to college. The day RR took over the previously modestly-edited publication I was worried but loyal. It was much like the Tina Brown arrival at the New Yorker. I did not want to hate the change. But oh, ugh, yecch, ack! I did. The first thing I noticed was a big, glossy editor’s column with a big portrait of RR. The death of elegance soon followed. I stopped reading Gourmet and shoved the monthly arrivals in a stack under the bed. It went from a celebration of the good life to feeding RR’s gluttony for attention. I don’t know if she killed it for anyone but me, but my loss was unrecoverable.

I was introduced to Gourmet magazine as a young bride in the mid '70s, and instantly fell in love. I keep my 20+ years of issues stacked by month so I can consult them when planning a meal, a dinner party, a holiday. Many of our favorites came from its pages. The recipes were wonderful; the travel articles fascinating; the columnists became "friends." When the first Reichl edited issue arrived, I was dismayed to find the word (sic) "gonna" in an article, and as the months went on the magazine became more about Reichl and celebrities and consumerism and less about food and travel. Like many other commenters here, I did not renew. I listened to the Book Review Podcast and was also dismayed to hear Reichl talk about how she brought "real" writers to the magazine. What an insult to M.F.K. Fisher, Caroline Bates, Annie Proulx, Laurie Colwin, Fred Ferretti and all of the other wonderful writiers who appeared in the magazine's pages over the years. I remember the anticipation I felt when a new issue was in the mailbox. I knew I had a few hours of interesting and inspiring reading ahead of me. After 1999, that all changed; the magazine became more like Bon Appetit, more pedestrian. No thanks. I still miss Gourmet!

Ruth, I LOVE your big fat cookbook, but the light yellow titles leave me carrying the whole book to a lighter space--sometimes outdoors--to be able to SEE the words. And I have fine vision. I know I'm not the only one wishing you'd chosen a darker color for the printing, but I love the recipes. Thank you.

Ten years on, I still mourn the demise of the inimitable Gourmet Magazine, in all its incarnations. Unfathomable to me that CN would send me, unbidden, an issue of "Bon Appetite" (UGH) as a substitute in the middle of my subscription to Gourmet. From that moment on, my Gourmet mag collection was a treasure; yes. Marie Kondo, they spark joy! Epicurious is useful, but not FUN or INSPIRING. RR — you are MISSED!

Add me to the list of people who still mourn the demise of Gourmet magazine. Every time a new issue came, I would cook at least three recipes from it...and then more in weeks to follow. I loved the last page of the magazine ("The Last Touch") which contained simple recipes linked to a theme. I deeply appreciated the way the magazine under Ruth Reichl's tenure included many options for vegetarians. I still curse McKinsey for advising Condé Nast to shut it down, and still marvel at the stupidity of Condé Nast for going along with that. I couldn't stomach Bon Appetit, which seemed to include meat in absolutely everything (including bacon in ice cream), and whose recipes were less creative. I abandoned food magazines entirely when Gourmet folded.

The Gourmet cookbook has the best bits of writing before the recipes. Makes it all the more enjoyable.

Blaming Ms. Reichl for the demise of Gourmet is not fair. There is a recipe glut in the world today and It can be a frustrating waste of time to look for something to cook. I searched for buckwheat pancakes a few months ago and there were so many versions to choose from I decided to have a drink instead. Most things I cook no longer need instructions and each time I make something it's always a little different and occasionally inedible.

Ms Reichel was a superb editor. She made "Gourmet" a fascinating read even for us who were not gourmets. She filled it with all sorts of tasty bits about such a variety of subjects besides all the tempting food. And each of us who were fortunate to have her as an editor was truly blessed.

Gourmet under Ms. Reichl was glorious, instructive, inspiring, and a joy to read. We miss it and it’s always useful recipes, travel pieces, city guides, and everything else. It might have been stuffy, but it wasn’t. It might have been snobby, but it was not. If anything it frequently celebrated the farmers, fishermen, chefs and wait staff. A great run at a grande dame.

Walter O'Malley moved the Dodgers to LA and the world was never the same. Find your Mets. You can get over it too.

VERY confused by the sharp love/hate reflected in the comments posted thus far... Is it that RR inherited an already failing (however slowly) publication and gave it another 10 years, or did the publication become absorbed into the world of an EIC who continues to use the brand to serve her own purposes? For those falling under the "hate" column are there any modern publications which have emerged to fill the void left by the Gourmet you loved? If so, please share.

i agree that RR killed the magazine. i loved gourmet magazine mostly for the photography and travel. when RR took over all that appealed to me was gone - i also switched to bon appetit which was not as satisying as the original gourmet - i loved all of ruth's books and am going to see her in toronto when she comes to promote her book. interesting that so many people agreed with what i felt. at the time i thought that maybe i was just out of touch.

Shortly after I learned the essentials of cooking from The Joy of Cooking I received a gift of a subscription to Gourmet. It was as though a door to a life I did not know had opened. The travel articles introduced me to destinations to dream about and aspire to visit and the recipes were sophisticated and yet achievable. The food styling and photography were seductive and stunning. At first, my goal was to cook one new recipe each month, but soon I became a confident cook who learned to read a recipe and enjoyed preparing meals with confidence. I collected each year’s annual volumes and still return to them with pleasure. All these changed suddenly when Ms. Reichl assumed leadership of the magazine. The magazine became focused on Ms. Reichl and her interests and, worse, the recipes were odd and uninteresting. I ended my subscription and began reading Bon Appetit, Food and Wine and Cook’s, which are still wonderful publications. Ms. Reichl can believe that it was the recession or Condé Nast or whatever cause she attributes for the death of Gourmet, but like many respondents to this review, she should consider her own responsibilities for it.

I always felt that she had destroyed a superb magazine and I never forgave her for it. Suddenly it was so dumbed down that it resembled Family Circle. Ugh.

I was a subscriber to Gourmet for many years. I loved it, the articles were so well written. Then RR took over ( I refused to use her full name ), it went down hill big time. The "new" look as she called it resulted in what I call "all sizzle no steak". Before I would looked forward to the magazine, it read them over and over. When RR took it over I could read it in 30-40 minutes, worthless articles. Got to the point when I could not ever read it any longer because it pained me so much that I dropped the subscription. She is no hero in my book.

I miss Gourmet. It was my “go to” food magazine. None of the others come close.

I only read Gourmet for the travel articles. The problem with the recipes is the always said something like "First make an octopus sauce (February issue 1968) ....", so that's when I went straight to the travel article.

Bring back 'Gourmet'...Yummy recipes and lots of escapist reading...and rereading...and rerereading. Nobody in the family ever threw one out. Yes, the internet has lots of recipes. But a good cookbook has a set of taste buds behind it...and if that set works along the same lines as yours, the cookbook will be irreplaceable.

Wow, I still have and often consult my 21 years' worth of Gourmet magazines, and I totally disagree with the comments re RR ruining Gourmet. Gourmet's recipes were always well tested and reliable, but I remain amazed at how predictable and staid the pre-RR issues appear, with serviceable but unsensational articles and photos, the text layout of the recipes and ingredients more difficult to follow. RR's flair brought a fresh sparkle to the magazine, I enjoyed her editor's letters, they were funny and passionate -- and anyone who still has their 2001 magazines should re-read her moving post-9/11 letter. I still miss Gourmet and lament the day it folded, there's been no comparable magazine since, with the Epicurious site merely handy for looking up old recipes.

I loved Gourmet before and (to a somewhat lesser extent) after Ruth took over. I miss it. Bon Appetit is fine for millennials or kitchen newbies who want how-to tutorials, or people who want to check out the latest in kitchen gadgetry and serving ware. In fact, it’s perfect for that audience, who can learn enough there to move on to what used to be the next level: Gourmet. In spite of all the new cooking magazines on sale at your local Barnes and Noble, and all the various blogs and cooking sites (and some are outstanding, like Serious Eats), nothing can replace the old anticipation of seeing the latest issue of Gourmet in your mailbox, and setting every else aside to leaf through the pages and see delights awaited within.

I'm halfway through this book and loving, as always, Reichl's writing. I can never decide if she writes so well because she does so much that is interesting or has such an interesting life because she writes so well about it. Either way, highly recommend tnis book!

I still keep my old Gourmet magazines in my kitchen. NO magazine has ever been able to replace the calibre of food writing. I first bought it to learn about HOW to write about food. (I don't cook! Maybe that's why my opinion diverges from others). I encourage any writer looking to challenge themselves to write about senses to read great food writing (and music writing!) I respect Ms. Reichl's editorial and design decisions - raising food to an art form - and look forward to reading her latest book!

Ms. Reichl killed Gourmet. There once was a lovely, in depth testament to great food and the life around it. Then there was shallowness and the false promise that buying made you part of the cognoscenti.

Sounds like a fun read, I've enjoyed all her other books. But maybe none of Conde Nast's mags would have folded if they hadn't all had those perks. I've seen The Devil Wears Prada. I know how those people expect to live! (wink wink)

Gourmet was a great magazine UNTIL Ruth took over as editor in chief. Suddenly it was all about Ruth and her life, not the focus of an elegant publication that shared sound but challenging recipes, cooking techniques, and the 20 minute weekday meals. Ugh. I dreaded seeing yet another picture or article with Ruth as the focus. Thank you but NO thank you on an entire book.

What I found significant about Gourmet Magazine was that among nearly all major magazines, they were the only one that had the sense to divide one typesetting/production position between two people, enabling them to maintain their artistic careers while having a steady underpinning. I temped for one of them, and was rather envious of the situation. Why more businesses don't do this, I can't understand. They get one full hour more of work done with two people working at full capacity for four hours each. One of those two people developed a significant new-music career, Mary Rowell. It was not easy work, either. Recipes require very detailed coding, and Gourmet had very long, elaborate articles and recipes.

Loved Gourmet and adore Ruth and her writing. I worked at Condé Nast and she was undeniably the most 'real' EIC in the building, always ready for a chat in the elevator and had a smile for everyone. Just bought the book and I can't wait to dive in.

Look forward to reading this, but also hope that Ms. Reichl gives fiction another effort, really enjoyed "Delicious."

1999-2009 was “the glory days of magazine-making”? Surely by then the perceptive had already seen Tim Berners-Lee's writing on the wall...

Might it be that those hefty perks and expense accounts also contributed to the death of so many magazines?

I absolutely loved that magazine. There is no replacement for the photos, the recipes and the writing.. I missed terribly.

RR ruined Gourmet. It was no fun after she got her hands on it.

I hold Ruth Reichl singularly responsible for the demise of Gourmet, a loss I, and many others, mourn to this day. As its editor, she abandoned stewardship for glamour, publishing several of her own memoirs even while Gourmet showed signs of stress (one of her worst covers, in 2009, was of a pedestrian ham sandwich). By the end you couldn’t tell the advertising from the editorial, and as a long-time subscriber, I and several of my friends who still talk about missing Gourmet, no longer recognized the magazine. All you had to do was look at the last two or so years of issues and anyone could see the magazine was in trouble. She wasn’t the only one who lost her job when Gourmet was shuttered. I remember standing on line at Zabar's deli counter, holding my number, and listening to another customer, a graphic artist, nearly weeping as he told of being fired when Gourmet closed. I naively would have thought Reichl's job included being the last one to turn out the lights. But she either didn’t, or couldn’t, advocate for Gourmet’s legacy of excellence and imagination when Conde Nast chose to keep only one food magazine, saving instead the rather dull Bon Appetit, a decision I suspect the company came to regret. Based on Kate Betts review, it seems Reichl hasn’t changed. Gourmet continues to serve her personal needs, this time as a backdrop against which to tell yet another story about herself. I, for one, stopped being interested a long time ago.

And as Ruth said: "There are no lobsters at Peter Luger. There are no major credit cards, either. And those looking for a great wine list will be disappointed. But Peter Luger does have one thing: the best steak in New York City." As true today as it was 25 years ago.

Thank you for this review. So interesting! And my goodness! It's a different world. Let me be frank--I am not a gourmet. The forty or fifty unwanted pounds I carry around are NOT the product of sitting at some five star restaurant, sipping exquisite wines--savoring delicious soups--digging into marvelous roasts and steaks. No. My appetites (if you must know) are much more akin to those of Mr. Donald J. Trump. American Barbaric. U.S Crude. Grub for the Great Unwashed. So books like this open up a different world. The world my kids would explore--turning on some show where the contestants (presented with a cruelly limited choice of foodstuffs) are expected to whip up entre's and desserts you might proffer (face pale, knees knocking) to a Roman Emperor. You watch these guys--all you can think is, "My goodness!" My sister had such an experience once. Years back--visiting a small, super-exclusive restaurant. Reservations de rigeur. Of course. You came--they presented you with a menu with your name at the top. Only after five or six weeks did your appetite for plain, ordinary food come back. Made me wonder why people WENT to such places--only to acquire a fastidious disdain for the cheeseburgers and fries and shakes that sustain-- --the rest of us. People like me. Ms. Reichl, I don't know when I last SAW a plum. Let alone ATE one. But the very next plum I see-- --I'm saving it for you! Count on it!

Root, It' okay, isn't it, that we say your name like your French Canadian classmates did at the school in Montreal. Your mother was just taking you, 13 at the time, there for the weekend, right? That horrendous surprise could almost compare to the piercing drama of your finding out thousands of miles from New York during a book signing trip that Newhouse had pulled the plug on the legendary, 70 year old, Gourmet Mag. So glad you managed to survive that shock too and that your latest story is "juicer than a porterhouse". It will provide details that "Garlic and Sapphires" could not. And so began your incredibly beautiful "My Kitchen Year", with its recipes that saved your life. Perhaps there will be recipes in "Save Me the Plums" but they could not possibly be formatted any more beautifully than yours were in your "Kitchen Year," a veritable publishing masterpiece. paul

There are some of us who still mourn the disappearance of Gourmet. Ruth Reichl breathed new life into the magazine at a time when it was sorely needed. The decision to shut it down was both short-sighted and stupid.

I had a Gourmet subscription for over 25 years, and regretfully ended it during Reichl’s tenure, as I felt she had moved the magazine further and further away from actual food and more and more into the world of restaurants and celebrities. In my opinion, she absolutely ruined the magazine—its falling circulation as interest in food was rising was testament to that—and is more the cause of its very unfortunate demise than either her book or this glossy, panting review of it will ever admit.

Really fun book, read an advanced copy and loved it. I’m the book selector for our next Bookclub meet - this is gonna be a choice.