Food &Wine vs. Gourmet?

[torakris]

Still working my way through 20 some copies of Cooking Light from 1993 to present and boy have they changed!

Most of the older stuff is going straight into the trash without even one recipe removed, butsome of the most recent stuff I am tearing out the whole magazine!

For me not worth subscribing to (overseas subscribtion), but if I was in the US I would probably pick up an occasional issue anfter glancing through it.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Does anyone else remember when Bon Appetit was "Sphere", a cooking and crafts magazine sponsored by Betty Crocker? This was in the mid-'70s, and many issues were keepers, such as April 1978 special issue on Greece. This issue is a mini-Greek cookbook, including such hands-on as filo dough from scratch. The cover is loose from my copy, the pages stained from use and misuse, and although I have 5 other Greek cookbooks, I'll never part with this issue.

[JAZ]

Smart like the Atlantic or New Republic or New Yorker but not pseudo-intellectual, pretentious, or irrelevant like Gastronomica. Long features that really get into a subject, like in Ed Behr's newsletter but less geeky. Outrageous and young like Salon, Slate, or Wired, but not self-consciously hip or committed to shock for the sake of shock. No compromises made for the Middle-American palate, but by no means an urban journal. Studio photography like in Art Culinaire and photojournalism like in Life. Dining, travel, cooking, news, people, issues, opinions, humor, debates. A food magazine for smart, interesting people who love and care about food -- and love to read.

I can't say I agree with your assessment of Gastronomica; certainly it's uneven and some of it is just plain silly, but there's usually something there that's worth reading. It reminds me of some years ago when I used to subscribe to both Harpers and Atlantic. Atlantic was much more consistent and overall I'd say I enjoyed more of its content than Harpers. But the good stuff in Harpers was SO good that it was worth it to me to wade through the lesser stuff. That's how I feel about Gastronomica. Plus, it's the only food related magazine with book reviews of truly interesting books.

[Fat Guy]

I wanted Gastronomica to be good, because unlike most food publications it at least seemed like it was going to focus on serving an audience like eGullet's. But it turned out to be pseudo-intellectual, pretentious, and irrelevant. Right aspiration; wrong execution. Sorry, but I think the magazine is pretty much a joke. Sure there's the occasional good piece in there, but the signal-to-noise ratio wasn't high enough to keep me from letting my subscription lapse. If Gastronomica fails, it's going to be too bad because all the shallow publishing people will say, "See, told you a serious food magazine couldn't work!" And it will be impossible to explain to them that it was just a bad magazine, not a bad concept.

[ferdlisky]

The problem with a food magazine such as the one that has been described (The Atlantic Monthly but about food), is that a large portion of people who subscribe to food magazines want recipes. Recipes, recipes, and more recipes, and anything that gets in the way of the recipes is considered irrelevant and not read. Now, I'm not talking about the bulk of egullet readers--I would agree that the people on this forum do want to think, read, reflect on food besides getting into the kitchen and rattling those pots and pans.

However, in terms of the economics of publishing, the number of people who would subscribe to such a magazine would be small--say 300,000 if you were very lucky. Advertising rates would be low and in turn that would mean the staff would be paid very, very little (is that fair? and could you attract the best talent?), and there would be no budget for good paper and gorgeous photography or illustrations, just the kind of production values that such an audience would desire.

Why do you think Saveur is in such trouble? It has been the best consumer food mag for several years, but they must be hemorrhaging (sp?) money. I think it has really taken a turn for the worse since it was sold, and can you blame the staff? They must be so demoralized. What we need is a publisher who is willing to let a serious food magazine exist with a small, controlled audience. In the hands of a Time Warner or Conde Nast, the demand is for tight budgets and increasing profits each year. That means a constantly growing audience, which means a constant shift to the middle.

OK, rant over.

[Liza]

Ferdlisky,

Welcome!

Liza

[Fat Guy]

Yes, a big welcome and thanks for the great comments. Just to clarify, I didn't say my magazine would make money. I want to be the prestige-building loss-leader for a multinational conglomerate that's willing to lose a few million on my thing in order to build cred.

[Jinmyo]

ferdlisky, welcome.

Steve, who wouldn't want to lose a few million on your thing in order to build cred? A winner for sure.

[Dave the Cook]

...a multinational conglomerate that's willing to lose a few million on my thing in order to build cred.

I'm sure Con-Agra or Archer Daniels Midland would be willing.

And they could use some cred with this group.

[Fat Guy]

It would basically be a larger-scale reenactment of what Jason does now.

[BruceCole]

Just a little food for thought in regards to Ferdlisky's comment on "recipes, recipes, and more recipes".

The recipe website All Recipes had "over 6 MM unique visitors visit the site in December viewing over 75MM pages". So, yes, recipes would appear to be popular to readers...can you imagine that volume of traffic (gasp)?