Review of "Gourmet" Magazine

This is the second of four reviews of cooking magazines. Review number one is already up and available. Reviews three and four are coming soon.

Next up under the microscope is "Gourmet" magazine, to which I purchased a subscription early this year for the bargain price of $12 annually. Now, to be fair, "Gourmet" isn't really a cooking magazine. Instead, it bills itself as "the magazine of good living". Fair enough, but the word "gourmet" carries undeniable connotations of eating fine food, and my experience has been that when there is fine food around, there's someone somewhere (likely in the kitchen) cooking it.

Even if we grant them their redefinition of the term "gourmet", however, and include other aspects of "good living" as being part of their purview, the editors of "Gourmet" seem to have lost their way. Rather than being the magazine of fine living, I'd characterize "Gourmet" as the magazine of socially-concious fine living for people who really wish they were living in New York, San Francisco or Hollywood. "Gourmet" does make references to cities and locations in middle America, but somehow they all feel as though they're written from the viewpoint of a tourist, who is visiting but would never want to actually live there. Articles about Manhattan, however? Now, that's home!

The editors apparently take their social responsibilities very seriously. My guess is that they've fallen prey to social guilt--after all, they work for a magazine called "Gourmet", and that's got to eat away at them inside. The word "gourmet" is usually associated with the Rich, and every right-thinking person knows the Rich are the root of all evil. Whole countries and governments do their (uniformly nefarious) bidding! The only acceptable sort of Rich person is one who uses their wealth and influence to better the lot of the downtrodden, the less fortunate, and lately, the environment. The editors of "Gourmet" wish to make it very clear that this last is the type of Rich person they cater to.

To accomplish this, they make certain to always include at least one or two articles that burnish their socially-concious credentials. In this year's October issue, there's a photo feature about artisan farmers who were brought to the "Citymeals on Wheels" benefit by famous chefs (the event, naturally, took place in New York). In the July issue there's a story on soil erosion and how eco-friendly researchers are trying to stop it, plus multiple stories that espouse the benefits of establishments growing their own food. In August's issue we see a story about farms in France that are all-organic or biodynamic. And the September issue is a special Latin-American issue focused on the pleasures of south-of-the-border cuisine and the industry of the immigrants who offer it. Everything from Dominican cuisine in New York City to taco trucks that serve up food right alongside the road across the south and west are covered. I'm afraid I find the timing highly suspect considering the ongoing controversy on illegal immigration and the uniformly complimentary tone of the pieces in the magazine. Am I being hyper-sensitive here? Maybe...and maybe not.

Considered solely as a cooking resource, "Gourmet" actually offers a fair number of recipes in each issue. The quibble I have with them is that most (not all) are complex, requiring more time to cook than a man with a family and a day job can realistically allocate. In addition, many of the ingredients fall into the difficult-to-find-at-the-local-Food-Lion category. For instance, the "Grilled Pork Loin with Quince Sauce" calls for quinces, naturally, plus juniper berries and veal stock. Now, I know I could trek on over to Whole Foods and find some of these (though I've looked unsuccessfully for juniper berries before), or make the longer haul to Balducci's and probably find all of these items, but it's just not convenient. There is a "Quick Kitchen" section that presents recipes that can be quickly prepared (generally in 30 minutes or less), but even there you're likely to run into ingredients like annato oil (never heard of it) or Sriracha sauce (okay, I have some of this in my cupboard, but I bet that's not true of most folks).

The best bet for using "Gourmet" as a realistic cooking resource is probably to save it for special occasions when you don't mind searching out hard-to-find ingredients and spending lots of time in the kitchen. Occasionally you'll find a recipe that is simple enough to cook on a week night, and when I've prepared some of these, they've turned out to be edible, though nothing special. If you happen across a recipe you like, though, it's a really good idea to copy it down somewhere, because that brings us to the other issue with "Gourmet"--the amount of advertising versus actual copy.

Most magazines suffer from this problem these days, I know. However, with "Gourmet", it's bad enough that I was actually surprised when I did the research for this review to find how many recipes each issue contains. They seem to get lost in all the ads. If you don't mark the recipe or copy it, it's liable to disappear among the pictures of beautiful (though no doubt eco-friendly) people smiling at each other, surrounded by advertising copy.

Despite what I said above, I confess--I do actually read "Gourmet" cover to cover. I keep issues in the bathroom off the kitchen, and find that it works well to occupy my mind when spending time in there. Idly flipping through pages, scanning ads and glancing over the odd recipe is just the thing for those quiet moments. Not exactly what the editors hand in mind, I'm sure, but even so, the publication obviously isn't totally without merit.

Okay, I think it's time to summarize. Gourmet is just the magazine for you if all your friends are tenured professors at NYU, you have a housekeeper who cooks most of your meals, and you host occasional dinner parties where guests drink Stags Leap Cabernet and discuss the merits of organic food and the horrors of chemical fertilization. If that doesn't describe you, you'll likely be less enthused. I think I'll stick with the same rating system I used last review...

Gourmet: The Magazine of Good Living

Recipes: 4
Cooking Instruction: 2
Product Evaluation: N/A
Advertising: 8
Socially and Enviromentally Conscious Viewpoint: 8

Comments from probably-not-repeat-subscriber Jake: This definitely isn't the best cooking magazine around. I'm on the fence as to whether to recommend it, though. The price is right, and it makes good bathroom reading material. Plus, it will impress guests if you display it prominently in the restroom. "Imagine what they must read when they're not in here," they'll think!