Love Affairs with Gourmet Magazine

[Carrot Top]

i was as obsessed with food as henry miller was with sex.

.................................................

I'm obsessed with both, Marlena. I hope I don't have to "pick just one".

I see the more sensual side of Henry in your descriptions of food. And the deep underlying love of a thing.

[marlena spieler]

i was as obsessed with food as henry miller was with sex.

.................................................

I'm obsessed with both, Marlena. I hope I don't have to "pick just one".

I see the more sensual side of Henry in your descriptions of food. And the deep underlying love of a thing.

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I know, I know. I couldn't really choose either. . . though both at the same time is a bit demanding...depending of course on the dish of the day....

[heidih]

I can't remember how or why I picked up my first Gourmet. Before that my only window to a different world of food was Sunset magazine which is a West coast focused publication that discusses food and entertaining. At a time when I had no money, horrible family things going on, and was struggling through law school, Gourmet was my hope that the future could be bright and that there were other people like me who truly cared about food with a sense of adventure. I was also trying to teach myself to cook using Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume One that my then husband had in the kitchen. I did not subscribe due to financial concerns and never knowing if my address would change and I might lose an issue so I found a news agent in downtown Los Angeles that by my research got the magazine before any other place. I sort of knew when I could expect it, but was often disappointed. I would park illegally leaving the engine running and tear over to the stand praying that another incredible cover shot would be on the rack. I tried to take it slow, but sometimes my greed and need overcame me and I flipped right to the pictures in the middle of the featured entertaining menu. I vividly remember a children's birthday party that had a forest fairyland theme. Due to another upheaval I had to clear out my many boxes of magazines and spent some time a few months ago thumbing through all the old issues I had saved. I was in a "clear-out" mode so I just tore out articles and pictures that really spoke to me (of course all of Laurie Colwin) I regret it now, but the joy the magazine gave me is still a touchable emotion. These days I am more of a Saveur girl.

[CaliPoutine]

I subscribed for many years, starting in my 20s when I had my first apartment and couldn't afford much.  I could travel all over the world in a week, armed with that magazine and later, when I had advanced at work and was travelling a lot, I could go back in time and find articles on the places I was heading to.  The zenith for me was reading Laurie Colwin's columns and when she died, I was bereft.  It was nice to have a whole year of her columns to look forward to, but when they stopped, I found I didn't feel the same way about the magazine.  Now I don't read it as closely or as thoroughly as I used to, but I have decades of the magazines stored here at home.  Whenever I decide to part with them (not any time soon, mind you!), it'll be someone's motherlode!

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I felt exactly the same. When her columns ended, I stopped reading.

[thecuriousone]

HI,

The new ad may be as ill thought out as the original ad in the eyes of many of the current Brewerytown residents. Yes, the kitchen is important, but the implication to me of the ad that you describe is that the that the couple is ready to sever their attachment to traditional african american cooking (and all the cultural importance that is intimately tied to it).

This poor condo developer might find therselves in equally hot water for the new ad.

Cooking and table graces have been used by many people as an informal but quick, demonstrable attempt to redirect social perception.

Cooking and social graces are uniquely suited to this redirection because of the following:

1. You can learn it in a rational way (vs. having something done passed down from generations and you dont understand why).

2.It is a demonstrable social knowledge in a casual setting. One may not be able to open one's checkbook or drive their car onto the table, but if they can demonstrate knowledge of social and dining grace, they may be able to redirect the all-important "first impression" which may be based on stereotypes that are equally unrealistic.

I would submit that it is not the, "cooking" that is the focus here, it is the redirection of old sterotypes that may be the real underlying issue. And in a gentryfing neighborhood, discarding "the old ways" might be a greter threat to the original resident than you realize.

The curiousone

Kitchens themselves got smaller for a while, not seemingly needed for large tables where people would loll and nibble and do homework and maybe even help cook a thing or two, "just because it was there". Then they got bigger and showy. Sometimes, now, it's all about the buzz, baby. 

This is what I notice in the difference between some older publications on food and some of the newer. Buzz buzz buzz pretty pretty. Somehow, the actual work of cooking has been cleaned up and made doll-like. The recipes are no longer written for an audience that presumably understands concepts of cooking - they are written to be idiot-proof and codified to a place sans personality, sans *any* potential error by the inexperienced (for there are so many).

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Wading through this thread anew, I realized that this observation is reinforced somewhat by a bus-shelter ad I saw early last year (I had to correct myself from saying "earlier this year") that is one of the most inadvertently hilarious ads I've ever run across.

The ad promotes a new housing development in Brewerytown, a somewhat rundown neighborhood about half a mile north of the Philadelphia Museum of Art that is experiencing significant stirrings of gentrification, this new development being one of them.

The ad shows a beaming black couple (significant because the developer's first ads for this project in a mostly black neighborhood had pictures of youngish white folks and the legend "It's your turn now," which many black Brewerytown residents took as a sign that they were to be driven out of the neighborhood) standing in the spiffy new kitchen of their (presumably equally spiffy) new home, with text quoting them as saying: "We've started watching cooking shows!"

I nearly doubled over with laughter when I first saw this. It struck me as a perfect encapsulation of the transformation of cooking into a status symbol: In order to cook, one must have a sufficiently fashionable kitchen, or else it's pointless. Even now, the thought of this ad brings a smile to my face.

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[MarketStEl]

HI,

The new ad may be as ill thought out as the original ad in the eyes of many of the current Brewerytown residents. Yes, the kitchen is important, but the implication to me of the ad that you describe is that the that the couple is ready to sever their attachment to traditional african american cooking (and all the cultural importance that is intimately tied to it). 

This poor condo developer might find therselves in equally hot water for the new ad.

Wow.

You took the interpretation to a level I hadn't even pondered.

Mine was more benign; specifically, that this couple hadn't bothered to cook at all before moving into a place with a classy kitchen. But I can see where you could read it the way you do. But how do you know that the cooking show they're watching isn't "B. Smith With Style"?

(The developer of these houses is doing fine, BTW. The company is getting props for building new houses in not-so-fashionable neighborhoods all over the city, which could use the new residents.)

Cooking and table graces have been used by many people as an informal  but quick, demonstrable attempt to redirect social perception.

Cooking and social graces are uniquely suited to this redirection because of the following:

1. You can learn it in a rational way (vs. having something done passed down from generations and you dont understand why). 

2.It is a demonstrable social knowledge in a casual setting.  One may not be able to open one's checkbook or drive their car onto the table, but if they can demonstrate knowledge of social and dining grace, they may be able to redirect the all-important "first impression" which may be based on stereotypes that are equally  unrealistic.

I would submit that it is not the, "cooking" that is the focus here, it is the redirection of old sterotypes that may be the real underlying issue.  And in a gentryfing neighborhood, discarding "the old ways" might be a greter threat to the original resident than you realize.

←

Maybe. I still find the ad hilarious, but the dynamic doesn't seem to be playing out as had been feared. Time will tell -- still.

Moving this back to the topic, I just unwrapped the June Gourmet (which I had buried) and find there's an interesting article in it about chicken processing called "A View to a Kill." They're taking on the hot topic of industrial animal "husbandry" with this story -- a pretty meaty subject (pardon the pun). This is the sort of story I don't think would have run in the old Gourmet that those bachelor gourmets read -- it's real issue journalism rather than lifestyle celebration (which still appears in Gourmet's pages). I haven't finished it yet; I'll share my thoughts on the piece when I do. Anyone else read it? What was your reaction?

(Edited to revise the term to make it clear what sort of "farming" we're talking about. I put "husbandry" in quotes because there's nothing spousal -- or humane -- about the techniques being described in the piece.)

Edited July 15, 2007 by MarketStEl (log)

[Carrot Top]

Cooking and table graces have been used by many people as an informal  but quick, demonstrable attempt to redirect social perception.

Cooking and social graces are uniquely suited to this redirection because of the following:

1. You can learn it in a rational way (vs. having something done passed down from generations and you dont understand why). 

2.It is a demonstrable social knowledge in a casual setting.  One may not be able to open one's checkbook or drive their car onto the table, but if they can demonstrate knowledge of social and dining grace, they may be able to redirect the all-important "first impression" which may be based on stereotypes that are equally  unrealistic.

I would submit that it is not the, "cooking" that is the focus here, it is the redirection of old sterotypes that may be the real underlying issue.  And in a gentryfing neighborhood, discarding "the old ways" might be a greter threat to the original resident than you realize.

←

Maybe. I still find the ad hilarious, but the dynamic doesn't seem to be playing out as had been feared. Time will tell -- still.

Moving this back to the topic, I just unwrapped the June Gourmet (which I had buried) and find there's an interesting article in it about chicken processing called "A View to a Kill." They're taking on the hot topic of industrial animal "husbandry" with this story -- a pretty meaty subject (pardon the pun). This is the sort of story I don't think would have run in the old Gourmet that those bachelor gourmets read -- it's real issue journalism rather than lifestyle celebration (which still appears in Gourmet's pages). I haven't finished it yet; I'll share my thoughts on the piece when I do. Anyone else read it? What was your reaction?

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thecuriousone's thoughts on cooking and social graces seem to me to be spot-on in many ways. The 1,2 method described is a tool that can be well used. *But*. The *but* here that has been left open to imaginative consideration leads me to one place. The place it leads me to is that when one's old traditions are discarded in favor of a batch of new manners of doing and new traditions, where does that leave the concept of (and feeling of) "home"? What is home but something that we intimately know from the parental nest? It is as if a piece of music, close music, music that is known and loved - has been discarded for the entry into another place.

I had a discussion recently with a friend who argued that Americans are famous for discarding "home", that we have been doing it with a vigor ever since these shores were landed. I have to agree, but also have to rue the fact of a lost "knowingness" of this thing that is/was home (that is defined by our cookery and by our ways of food culture).

Maybe I should start singing "Make new friends but keep the old one is silver and the other's gold" around the campfire in my Girl Scout uniform, hmm?

....................................

Anyway. Yes, I absolutely agree with you that the newer Gourmets are meatier in different areas than they used to be, and that the lifestyle celebration has a more muted quality.

It is interesting that this is so, as we are living in quite a gilded age at this moment in time - much more so than the post-war era that Gourmet sprung from.

It leads to the question in my mind as to which of the food mags does focus on displaying the affluence, manners and morals of our gilded age . . ."lifestyle celebration" as you so aptly put it, Sandy - rather than the "issue journalism" that Gourmet is showing on its pages.

[thecuriousone]

Carrot Top, you raise an interesting point with several social ramifications in America. Its not so much americans "throwing over" the hominess, as it is attempting to publicly broaden the perception of one's scope. In america, perception counts for a lot and if the wrong perception is out there, it can silently limit oportunitiy and access

You question the meaning of "home" when one chooses to adopt and publicly demonstrate new mannerisms. Your assumption is predicated upon the idea that the concept of "hominess" does not limit the individual in the other areas of their life. I could give several examples of how this is often not true in real life, but I would rather direct you to the movie "Ratatouille".

Remy juggles two worlds, trying to manage the expectations of both while finding his own way. In the movie he finds a way to handle both while being true to himself. It is fantasy that everybody invovled allowed him to be who he was without any hurtfull or snide comments coming his way. Once your original affiliation feels threatened by your choices, it can get ugly.

The "hominess" you speak of too often is viewed by the individual in question as a pre-conceived set of limitations that you had no imput into but whose prescence definitely limits waht is expected of you.

take care

[Carrot Top]

thecuriousone, I'm going to try to respond to your ardent and thoughtful post without going over the bounds of discussing "food" for otherwise we will have gone off-topic.

Carrot Top, you raise an interesting point with several social ramifications in America.    Its not so much americans "throwing over" the hominess, as it is attempting to publicly broaden the perception of one's scope.  In america, perception counts for a lot and if the wrong perception is out there, it can silently limit oportunitiy and access

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As a woman who became an executive chef, I completely understand about perception counting and how it can silently limit opportunity and access.

As a person who has a formal education that extended only to the ninth grade (that is, the first year of high school) who with that level of education became an executive chef in one of the places in America that generally hires people starting with the cream of the crop MBA's from top universities for their corporation (where I was their executive chef in their private dining rooms)(and later was a VP for their operations department, showing that movement from hands-on cooking jobs to hands-off thinking jobs can be done in life) I completely understand how perception counts for a lot and how it can silently limit opportunity and access.

This is not only true in America, though. I have heard that America is actually the easiest place to obtain opportunity and access for many people - easier than other countries where tradition is more hide-bound.

You question the meaning of "home" when one chooses to adopt and publicly demonstrate new mannerisms.  Your assumption is predicated upon the idea that the concept of "hominess" does not limit the individual in the other areas of their life.  I could give several examples of how this is often not true in real life, but I would rather direct you to the movie "Ratatouille".

I'm actually one of the few people I know who is not having a mental orgasm over that movie. I actually think it could be re-named "Tripe Soup". Or, to be authentic, as we are copying a French style of food in a traditional restaurant kitchen but the screenplay food was worked on by a famous American chef whose methods include the very traditional and old parchment on top of the pot to concentrate flavor which was not invented in America (yes, I realize I am ranting here ) we should speak in French. We could call the movie "Tripes a la mode de Caen" and substitute "Disney" for "Caen".

But regardless of the fact that the story of loss and acceptance and class struggle and identity could in my humble opinion have been (and actually has been) told much better than in "Rattatouille", I understand your point.

Remy juggles two worlds, trying to manage the expectations of both while finding his own way.  In the movie he finds a way to handle both while being true to himself.  It is fantasy that everybody invovled allowed him to be who he was without any hurtfull or snide comments coming his way.  Once your original affiliation feels threatened by your choices, it can get ugly.

Absolutely. It can get ugly once the original affiliation feels threatened and it can get ugly when the new affiliation feels threatened by your choices if those choices happen to be different than theirs. The pleasantries of the tribe at table can turn to biting and rotten tomato throwing when the tribe feels threatened by behavior that does not match (therefore subliminally support) their own. That's the downside to tribes.

The "hominess" you speak of too often is viewed by the individual in question as a pre-conceived set of limitations that you had no imput into but whose prescence definitely limits waht is expected of you.

I am old enough to understand this and to have seen it occur in many ways.

What I speak of when I speak of home is the idealistic one, the sense of home as a pure thing that gives security and solidity.

That it often does not happen in this ideal way is factual.

To place the discussion firmly back upon food though, the discarding of tradition in food can leave one with a non-cogent and difficult-to-discern cuisine that is simply mish-mosh. The cuisines that are attractive to people (in general in a wide-spread sense) are not mish-moshes - they are strongly themselves with tradition bound within them, still strong and discernible.

.......................................

That Gourmet Magazine is becoming issue-oriented rather than lifestyle-celebrant, to my mind, says that they have reached the next step in philosophic growth.

They do not care what people think of their lifestyle anymore as they do not have to or they simply do not want to. They are thinking of bigger things than "how they look".

(Well, of course this is based on sales and customer response rather than gut feeling for them. I wonder how their $$ growth is doing as opposed to the lifestyle magazines, for that would say something about our culture that is measurable.)

[thecuriousone]

Carrot top-

That sound you hear is my chair screeching back as I stand at attention as you pass. Your path sounds ardous and I'm sure there were times when you were weary.

But back to food literature, some of the most interesting food trends have been fusion dont you think? For example the ginger beurre blanc that was the rage in the 80's. or Wolfgang's Salmon Pizza. I dont know if I would call those things mish-mosh, if only because it was so commercially popular.

I think that Gourmet is evolving as their base readership is evolving. The people who read Gourmet are beginining to care, REALLY care about what they put on their plates. They may not be able to stop global warming, but they can make the effort to pop the healthiest peice of fruit in their mouth that they can. I think that this is a good thing, even it on some levels it raises selfishness to a new level.

Carrot Top, You rock.

[Carrot Top]

Yes, I think Gourmet readers care a lot about what they put on their plate . . . I think they did too "way back when" but in a different way.

The question about fusion is a really good one and could be a topic on its own.

And thanks for the very nice comment, thecuriousone. That particular phrase is one that women my age just love to have said about them.

(Edited to add: I should not generalize. I like it, anyway.)

( )

Edited July 17, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[MarketStEl]

Even though every national cuisine is in some sense a product of "fusion" -- tomatoes, which we so often associate with Italian dishes, are native to the New World, not Europe, and pasta, also strongly identified with that cuisine, was a Chinese import, for instance -- the whole uprootedness, the very transplantedness, of American culture means that it's far easier for us to blend established and wildly disparate traditions to produce something completely different and possibly unrecognizable to the members of the tribes we borrowed the various elements from. Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of the peoples of the world don't venture all that far from where they grew up over the course of their lifetimes. By the act of coming to America, the immigrants all of us save the Native Americans descended from immediately set themselves apart (or were set apart by others, in some cases) from most of the world. That alone should make it difficult for people to maintain "home" the way it was, or even the way they remember it.

But one of the things has changed since Gourmet instructed its readers only in how to acquire the trappings and behaviors of the good life is that we no longer desire to completely forget those old "home" ways. From soul food to White Trash Cooking, we have come to appreciate anew the common, or peasant, or folk foods that our parents sought to put behind them in some way in the 1950s. Many of the recipes in Gourmet today probably never would have made it into its pages back in the old days because they are more closely tied to these no-longer-disreputable traditions, even if they only barely allude to them because of significant differences in ingredients, preparation or presentation.

And, as you pointed out, Karen, we--or at least some of us, including much of Gourmet's contemporary readership--are far more conscious of where our food comes from and how it makes it onto our plate; we want the kind of explanation, investigation, and even advocacy contained in stories like "A View to a Kill." (Having read it now, I can only ask, Why aren't more American poultry producers opting to asphyxiate chickens instead? I must admit that reading the piece left me with the same queasiness I would experience in a detailed explanation of methods of executing people, but since we can't eat live animals of any kind, and pace the fervent hopes of PETA, we aren't about to give up eating dead ones completely, we have to go there in order to understand the issue.)

That New York Times link you posted, Karen, raises all sorts of questions that are way beyond the scope of both this discussion and this board. I hope they get raised more widely and more insistently in the national press.

Edited July 17, 2007 by MarketStEl (log)

[Carrot Top]

Even though every national cuisine is in some sense a product of "fusion" -- tomatoes, which we so often associate with Italian dishes, are native to the New World, not Europe, and pasta, also strongly identified with that cuisine, was a Chinese import, for instance -- the whole uprootedness, the very transplantedness, of American culture means that it's far easier for us to blend established and wildly disparate traditions to produce something completely different and possibly unrecognizable to the members of the tribes we borrowed the various elements from.  Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of the peoples of the world don't venture all that far from where they grew up over the course of their lifetimes.  By the act of coming to America, the immigrants all of us save the Native Americans descended from immediately set themselves apart (or were set apart by others, in some cases) from most of the world.  That alone should make it difficult for people to maintain "home" the way it was, or even the way they remember it.

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Yes. What is at the core of my questioning about what I would call an easily identifiable "regional cuisine" (even though that cuisine itself would have aspects of fusion from times before our own taste-memories) as opposed to a "fusion cuisine" gathered and born in one's own time from whatever disparate elements seem to work, to the creator (whether a chef or a home cook) is this:

To me, there is a different sense of a food that is placed on the table that the cook has a full sense of ownership of (whether the pretense of actual regional ownership is based on actual fact or whether past fusions have simply been forgotten, it does not seem to matter) . . . than the sense of a food that is placed on the table that the cook does not feel secure and long-lasting regional ownership of.

This is nothing but a feeling about the food and of course feelings are not easily measurable or defined for what are they, really? Our hearts are not things that one can sift, sort, and measure into a recipe for easy baking. That's the marvel, isn't it?

I remember my first MIL as she served her family the food she knew from her mother's hands when she was growing up in Italy. The food was the same yet not the same for now she was the mother and she lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut. But the sense of connection, of giving a part of oneself was there, in a sure and certain way. Maybe it was the touch of ritual that was held within making and serving these foods that gave them this sense, I don't know. But it was there.

And I've seen that occur in other instances with food cooked by people who were connected in this way to a regional cuisine. I can feel a difference in the food and can see that those who also eat it (with exception for the gluttonous or emotionally vapid) also feel this.

The cuisines that are reached for as a totally separate and new learning experience for the cook have a different sense about them when served. That sense is one of fun and of creativity and of accomplishment - a different sort of delight.

The closest word I can think of to attach to regional foods served that have been held close to the heart for times past when their owners can remember is "honor". There is a sense of honor that follows the food to the table. It becomes not just a taste experience, not just something mentally stimulating, but the act of cooking this food and serving it and eating it becomes honorable.

But can I measure this or prove it?

Of course not.

And there lies the wonder of it all.

But one of the things has changed since Gourmet instructed its readers only in how to acquire the trappings and behaviors of the good life is that we no longer desire to completely forget those old "home" ways.  From soul food to White Trash Cooking, we have come to appreciate anew the common, or peasant, or folk foods that our parents sought to put behind them in some way in the 1950s.  Many of the recipes in Gourmet today probably never would have made it into its pages back in the old days because they are more closely tied to these no-longer-disreputable traditions, even if they only barely allude to them because of significant differences in ingredients, preparation or presentation.

Mmm hmm. I wonder if this happened in other cuisines as well in past times, within their own home countries. I wonder how long the time span usually is for this to happen.

And, as you pointed out, Karen, we--or at least some of us, including much of Gourmet's contemporary readership--are far more conscious of where our food comes from and how it makes it onto our plate; we want the kind of explanation, investigation, and even advocacy contained in stories like "A View to a Kill."  (Having read it now, I can only ask, Why aren't more American poultry producers opting to asphyxiate chickens instead?  I must admit that reading the piece left me with the same queasiness I would experience in a detailed explanation of methods of executing people, but since we can't eat live animals of any kind, and pace the fervent hopes of PETA, we aren't about to give up eating dead ones completely, we have to go there in order to understand the issue.)

My best guess would be that to change ways of poultry handling would incur costs in terms of equipment and training of staff and that won't happen until it has to, as these sorts of things do or don't in business.

I understand your feelings, though. Having lived in a rural area where chickens and the other animals we eat are livestock with the focus on the word "stock" (something that produces an income) I've seen different ways of thinking about ways of treating the animals that become our food, and it is fascinating.

Last night it came to me that there's another way to look at this, though, as the pages of Gourmet shift into issues rather than styles. At this point in time, caring about "issues" *is* in style. It is a lifestyle thing as well as an actual thing.

(It was thecurious one who mentioned thoughts on what we put in our mouths, though, I have to say - and of course you before that - I was only following along after you guys with my thoughts on it so please don't give me credit for the initial thought here )

That New York Times link you posted, Karen, raises all sorts of questions that are way beyond the scope of both this discussion and this board.  I hope they get raised more widely and more insistently in the national press.

The great American middle-class is definitely not what it used to be pre-1970's, that's for sure, and that makes for all kinds of social shifts and financial shifts that finally play out in at least one very basic and important way with two parts to it: what people can afford to eat; and what people think about other people who do not eat what they themselves eat.

..................................................

Edited to add this article from another current periodical that shows us bits and pieces about style and substance (or "lifestyle and issues") and their interaction and/or interdependence in the world of food and its adjuncts: Just The Thing To Carry Your Conscience In.

At 8 this morning, 15 Whole Foods stores in the New York area were to start selling $15 cotton bags by Anya Hindmarch, a London designer better known for bags that range to $1,500 and beyond. The bags, which read “I’m not a plastic bag,” are intended to be used and reused for groceries, in place of plastic. Whole Foods is selling 20,000, first come first served, limit three to a customer while supplies last. If offerings of the bag in other cities are any guide, the lines will be long.

A stampede of would-be purchasers in Taiwan in June sent 30 people to the hospital and required the riot police. A similar outpouring in Hong Kong caused no injuries, but the police closed down the shopping mall. “Apparently they are not used to queuing,” Ms. Hindmarch said last week from a hotel in Tokyo, where she had just finished the latest offering of her bag. To avoid more riots, future events in Southeast Asia will take place on the Internet.

Ms. Hindmarch knows that even if you can’t interest people in a cause on moral or ethical grounds you can reach them by making the cause fashionable.

“To create awareness you have to create scarcity by producing a limited edition,” she said. “I hate the idea of making the environment trendy, but you need to make it cool and then it becomes a habit.”

Anyone reading this while standing in a bag line, beware: according to Ms. Hindmarch some Hong Kong bag-seekers who withstood the stampede but went away empty-handed planned to fly to New York to try again.

“I don’t want to think about the carbon footprint for that,” she said. Or the trampled.

If money is no object, the disappointed can be made whole. As of midday yesterday more than 200 were for sale on eBay, some for more than $300.

Gourmet is being smart. Showing you care pays off.

Edited July 18, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[barolo]

[

Last night it came to me that there's another way to look at this, though, as the pages of Gourmet shift into issues rather than styles. At this point in time, caring about "issues" *is* in style. It is a lifestyle thing as well as an actual thing. 

Edited to add this article from another current periodical that shows us bits and pieces about style and substance (or "lifestyle and issues") and their interaction and/or interdependence in the world of food and its adjuncts: Just The Thing To Carry Your Conscience In.

At 8 this morning, 15 Whole Foods stores in the New York area were to start selling $15 cotton bags by Anya Hindmarch, a London designer better known for bags that range to $1,500 and beyond. The bags, which read “I’m not a plastic bag,” are intended to be used and reused for groceries, in place of plastic. Whole Foods is selling 20,000, first come first served, limit three to a customer while supplies last. If offerings of the bag in other cities are any guide, the lines will be long.

A stampede of would-be purchasers in Taiwan in June sent 30 people to the hospital and required the riot police. A similar outpouring in Hong Kong caused no injuries, but the police closed down the shopping mall. “Apparently they are not used to queuing,” Ms. Hindmarch said last week from a hotel in Tokyo, where she had just finished the latest offering of her bag. To avoid more riots, future events in Southeast Asia will take place on the Internet.

Ms. Hindmarch knows that even if you can’t interest people in a cause on moral or ethical grounds you can reach them by making the cause fashionable.

“To create awareness you have to create scarcity by producing a limited edition,” she said. “I hate the idea of making the environment trendy, but you need to make it cool and then it becomes a habit.”

Anyone reading this while standing in a bag line, beware: according to Ms. Hindmarch some Hong Kong bag-seekers who withstood the stampede but went away empty-handed planned to fly to New York to try again.

“I don’t want to think about the carbon footprint for that,” she said. Or the trampled.

If money is no object, the disappointed can be made whole. As of midday yesterday more than 200 were for sale on eBay, some for more than $300.

Gourmet is being smart. Showing you care pays off.

←

Yes, that is my read of Gourmet's new direction. I don't think they would be pursuing such stories with such vigour if there wasn't a trend toward "socially conscious" style. That doesn't mean they don't care, of course.

I am sure all those people rushing around to buy a $15 cotton bag care too. They just care about showing they care even more.

[Carrot Top]

I am sure all those people rushing around to buy a $15 cotton bag care too.  They just care about showing they care even more.

←

Then you are more optimistic about the human psyche than I am, Anne. My feeling is that probably about one out of five of those people really have deep feelings about the issue, two out of the five are buying for the "look" of it because it makes them feel hip and a part of things (and this is a pretty good group for they act like they care and can assist the direction of issues until a hipper issue comes along to catch their attention ), and the other two out of the five are buying for potential resale with hopeful profit and could care less about any issue except what money can come out of it for them. *

In the long run though it's good when style does reflect issues that matter for at least something is being thought about that brings the mind *outside* of oneself and onto larger things rather than just self-reflection, so I am very glad that Gourmet is doing this sort of thing.

Well. I'm glad as long as they do it with style.

(*Edited to add afterthought: Those numbers have to be revised for the one out of twenty or so people who are just getting the bag to be arrogant b*astards, like the ones that hop on a plane to travel thousands of miles to get their Badge Bag of Cool Greenness: the green being composed of both the original issues and the $$ they can show they used to prove they have it to spend on their Badge Bag. )

Edited July 19, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[MarketStEl]

Those $15 cotton bags haven't made their way to any Philadelphia-area Whole Foods stores I'm aware of. Perhaps that's because WFM's management is familiar with this town's reputation for frugality, even if we do tip well in restaurants; I'm pretty certain that most Philadelphians don't suffer from the sort of status anxiety that would make them choose a $15 designer shopping tote over WFM's own $1 totes.

BTW and FWIW, A&P's German parent is also aboard this bandwagon; my local Super Fresh has a display of 100% recycled post-consumer composite shopping bags in four different designs. Proceeds from the sale of these (99c each) benefit the Elizabeth Haub Foundation for Environmental Law and Policy, the American and Canadian affiliates of a German fund founded by the mother of Tengelmann's current CEO. The North American funds are named in her honor.

[Carrot Top]

Mmm. The local "whole foods market" here, by which I mean the store that sells whole foods which one might call a health food store if one were so inclined but only if so inclined, which is an independent operation run in a medium-smallish space by the woman who owns it gives away cotton carry-bags with a purchase of fifty dollars. They are nice, light, colorful in a bright shade of indigo. Anyone that has an unbending desire for a cotton bag really should come here and get one.

I just picked up the recent issue of Gourmet, September 2007. First time I've bought it since December. Why did I buy it? The colors on the cover and on some of the photographs inside drew me in - they are gorgeous. Then on top of it all there actually seemed to be enough meat I'd want to read. Generally when I scan food magazines I almost fall down in a fit of narcolepsy even though I do not have narcolepsy. So I'm looking forward to reading this.

I carried it home in a Barnes and Noble green plastic bag. That bag will be reused for the endless piles of whatever it is that my kids always seem to need to carry around. Maybe after that I'll donate it to the thrift shop. I wonder if they will sell it or simply re-use it. I wonder how far that plastic bag will travel. The world is the limit.

[srhcb]

I've never noticed what kind of bag anybody carried anything in, including me.

Am I missing something?

[LBNoble]

I got my Sept. Gourmet yesterday also-Latin American cooking, yum! I want to cook & eat almost everything in this issue.

I've subscribed to Gourmet, since I was old enough to pay for a magazine subscription. I saved them for many years, but my husband is in the military, we move frequently, & once, when I was feeling guilty about 'weight', I got rid of most of the back issues (kept Nov./Dec./favorites, donated the rest to the local library). Sometimes, I still second-guess that decision, as I obsessively reread all my mags....

[Pontormo]

Was surprised to get an issue this month since I thought the subscription expired. I can't remember when I last was inspired to cook something new and while I continue to discover good, solid and well-written articles, I hadn't been reading it much either. Thought I would call Boulder and ask to transfer what remains in my account over to The New Yorker.

THIS issue, however, is absolutely wonderful!!! I'll stay w Gourmet longer as a result. The subject is mostly new to me, though there are quite a few people here who have made me more receptive. Nothing made w guinea pigs , but there are dishes worth trying and recipes worth comparing w other resources.

Oh, and I like the cover, too!

[Carrot Top]

Yes, the cover was good but did you see the photo of short ribs?

You know I detest the word "food porn" and all that it represents but honey, that photograph wasn't porn, it was love.

My second favorite is the photo of esabeche, the shrimp - again, not porn. I just want to be the little pink shrimps so adorably curled and red onions so lazily laying entwined's friend for life.

I've had to look at both of these photos several times a day since this magazine has been here.

............................................

Interesting, the concept of showcasing various Latin American foodways all in one issue. I don't remember seeing anything quite like this before except in books, and the only one on Latin America I can remember ever seeing is the Time-Life series which, though it has aged gracefully, certainly has aged.

My favorite in this issue is the focus on Puerto Rican cookery. It is a cuisine/cookery/cocina that not often finds coverage. Memory takes me back to NYC in the 1970's where lots of really good Puerto Rican cooking could be found both in small storefront restaurants in various neighborhoods and, because there were so many people of Puerto Rican descent living there then, in the homes of friends and acquaintances. I can not tolerate allowing too many more days to go by before making that full dinner featured in the issue, for it is softly singing my name and I can almost smell the spices simmering.

.................................................

Afterthought: Somehow though all are represented and exist in a filmic medium, I can not imagine Remy the Rat from Rattatouille successfully making either or any of these dishes.

Meow.

Edited August 22, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[pax]

I was raised in a household where "home-cooked" meant reheating the McDonald's in the microwave.

I was accidentally introduced to Gourmet as a newlywed, and it opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about nurturing my family.

I will always have a soft spot for it. It changed my life ina very positive way.

[joiei]

I picked up a copy at Borders this past weekend and have cooked from it. It has been a LONG time since I was so inspired by a Gourmet issue. For dinner tonight, I am making the grilled fish tacos. I made the pork and pozole stew starting with some of Rancho's pozole that I cooked to start with. And i served it with all the stuff the recipe called for. Pretty good.

Wouldn't it be nice if all the issues were as accessable as this one has been. And so beautiful. I will continue to pick up selected issues at the market instead of subscribing.

[MarketStEl]

Scottsbluff, Nebraska? Who knew?

Besides Nebraskans, that is?

I need to stop hanging out here so much and read more.

I wonder whether Ruth Reichl lurks on this topic?

[rancho_gordo]

joiei had given me the heads up so I picked up a copy yesterday. i think it's pretty and I think it's good the Gourmet is looking into Latin food after mostly ignoring it but why are all the articles except one about Latin food in the US? I'd rather know what was going on in the actual countries.

I think it's also interesting to note how little Mexican food has in common with the rest of Latin America. A few years ago Bob Appetit did a really superior Mexico issue that I keep.

The first recipe I looked at was for the tamales. It calls out for masa harina, which is fine, but why does it specify tortilla masa rather than tamal masa?

I know I sound nit-picky but the information is out there so why get it wrong?