The Closing of the American Dream

Goodbye, grilled Chicken Heart Brochettes. Goodbye to the Weekly Cocktail; goodbye, Short Ribs Braised in Coffee Anchillo Chile Sauce; goodbye to that delicious chimichurri-to-go from an amazing street vendor at Tenth and 204th Street.

Goodbye, Gourmet.

Perhaps you aren't taking the sudden shuttering of Gourmet magazine quite as hard as I am, but let me tell you, my oven has gone dark. I've subscribed to it, off and on, for the nearly twenty-two years of my married life. Just last week I was inspired by the current issue to race out and buy Aviator gin, maraschino cherry liqueur and Crème de Violette--the ingredients for a modern revival of a vanished 1920s cocktail. When poured, it resembled a pale blue sky with milky stratus clouds.

There's still Bon Appetit, you might reply. And I subscribe to that, too. (You don't want to know how many food magazines I subscribe to, but put it this way: I am a restless cook.) But Gourmet magazine was to food what Conde Nast Traveler is to luxury vacations, and Martha Stewart Living is to a quilting bee. It was aspirational in every possible way. Sometimes I might have cooked a recipe from it. But most of the time it showed me what I might cook. If I lived in an Upper East Side maisonette and were having a fashion designer to dinner. Or were hosting a "casual" clambake for my fellow Met board members at my East Hampton estate. Each issue offered, as well, a glimpse of what kind of exotic foodie lifestyle I might be leading if it weren't for the three-kids/three-dogs/one husband/one mortgage lifestyle I actually have. Its travel advice would certainly be indispensable if, on my next Small Luxury Hotels of the World journey, I would be relying on the editors' recommendation for the best mohingar in Burma.

Perhaps in retrospect the writing was already on the wall when Gourmet launched its "Gourmet Every Day" section - a nod to the harried mothers who might not be breezing into their coolly furnished loftspaces, pulling on their Vince cashmere separates, and embarking on the first of three nights of cooking in preparation for that fashion designer. (FYI, the Jade soup, without the herb oil, can be chilled up to two days in advance. Add herb oil just before serving.)

These were the recipes I admittedly always turned to first when the new issue arrived (you can see in the readership demographics where I fell). Here I'd find a beautifully photographed insert of "simple" weeknight dishes organized by length of time the recipe would take to make (the longest clocked in at 25 minutes). But who was I kidding? What would my seven-year-old say when I placed before her the "Spicy Adobo Shrimp Cocktail" as a starter? Or my 15-year-old when I offered him a slice of Eggplant, Green Olive and Provolone pizza? (Apparently Gourmet children never say, "Eww." They are what their mothers proudly describe as "adventurous" eaters.)

Sometimes I lucked out: the Baked Chicken Meatballs with Peperonata (August 2009) was well-received, as it didn't lean too heavily on the "peperonata." But I came to accept that this section, like the rest of the magazine, wasn't really directed at me. It was directed at the loft woman in Vince who would toss off these dishes for her husband/lover/companion after she got home from a long day in the gallery--and a quick pitstop at Dean & Deluca. "Southeast Asian Rice Noodles with Calamari and Herbs," no matter how short and easy the preparation, was not going to be greeted with slobbering mouths at my family's table (and would only end up in the slobbering mouths of Labradors under the table).

But who cares? I loved reading these recipes the same way I love poring over expensive shelter magazines and the designer dresses of Vogue. I loved the descriptions of town square banquets in the Dordogne. I loved knowing where the best new fusion cuisine was to be found in America, even if I would never visit the restaurant or even know what was fused with what. I loved knowing which wine to serve with Miso-Glazed Sea Bass with Asparagus.

Now it's gone -- the magazine's recent attempts at highlighting more frugal menus, notwithstanding. (And frankly I always winced at these features: It was like watching a once very wealthy woman trying to economize by buying a cheaper brand of champagne.) Another great American dream has been shuttered, like the foreclosed mansions lining the seaside dunes of Long Island.

 

 

Comments

[shastaman]

I guess now I'll see gourmein my next issue of smithsonian

[esthermiriam]

Those were the days....Small consolation, but it would have been worse if the mag were forced to dumb down, get with the trend or some such.

[vegasobserver]

OK.

[BeeOplentee]

If your mom or grandma didn't leave you a 1940's cookbook, you can find them easy enough at garage sales and second-hand bookshops. These treasure chests will tell you all you need to know about *real* cooking!

[ultrabop]

Sorry for Ruth Reichl(editor). Her books and her compassion for food have sustained me for a few years. Hopefully she'll move on to a better place.

I don't know why I canceled my subscription but I think the mag had turned into a kind of gorgeous travelogue. The recipes weren't all that inspirational. More imput on technique and actual talking about what makes food good, would have been nice. Times are rough. That 10 bucks a year seemed like a luxury item. If I would have known...

The Gourmet cookbook(big yellow thing) is fabulous.

[Populistagirl]

I understand and agree. After working a full day, and running the kids around for most of the evening, after folding the laundry and cleaning the cat litter, and eating a dinner of hot dogs or take-out pizza, it did my heart good to know that somewhere out there, someone was living the glamorous life, eating wonderful food, and drinking good wine.

[hayness]

It's sad. I loved Gourmet, too, for many of the same reasons. And they did have at least a couple of great recipes in every issue.

Just picked up an issue of F&W last week and the contrast makes it all the more bitter to see a great magazine like Gourmet folding.

[boing007]

Dear jeanrenoir,

Ever see Jean Renoir's Le Petit Théâtre de Jean Renoir?

Enough with the baby boomer bashing. I am a baby boomer from a working class family, brought up by a working grandmother and mother. Fortunately, one of our aunts was a gourmet cook. We're not all rich, or spoiled or greedy, or all the other generalizations you can think of. One can be poor and still have discerning, albeit expensive taste. I used to receive Gourmet in the 70s and 80s and most of the articles were written by people who had traveled the world and knew what they talking about. There was a monthly letter from London written by John Bainbridge, another from Paris, Wine Journal by Gerald Asher and Caroline Bates on the California beat, among others. Their articles were well written and full of fascinating stories, anecdotes such as the best number buses in London and Paris to take if one wanted an all day tour of these two cities on the cheap. Add to that, they had some of the best photographers working for any magazine in the world. What finally soured me, though, was the endless parade of luxury cars, liqueurs, table settings, silverware, etc. When I raised my head and looked around at my own furnishings and the like I would sometimes get depressed. It was definitely a magazine for upscale to wealthy subscribers, plus a few dreamers like myself. Nonetheless, it was a work of art.

[karenann]

Personally, I think Gourmet's time has come, and I'm surprised it lasted this long! Yes, it's been around for a long, long time, but it really hasn't kept up with the times and trends. As a foodie and weekend gourmand, there are many other cooking mags out there that appeal far more than Gourmet. So long, Gourmet! This is one cook who won't shed a tear!

[longtalldrink]

During my cooking phase I often tried Gourmet's recipes. They always came out wrong and did not taste very good. Probably reading the articles would have been better. After a couple of meals gone wrong I cancelled my subscription. I subscribe to Bon Apetit now for about 12 years, and every recipe I try comes out great. They are delicious. I actually keep all my copies and I look for new and better storage places. Many of their recipes are hard and have a lot of ingredients, but they are worth it. Even my kids loved them, which is saying a lot.

[mariah793]

I'd like to learn more about rural Depression-era cooking. I know that my grandparents fished and hunted and raised a big garden and had their own beef, pork, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese, and had an orchard and berry-patches. I know that food was preserved in root cellars, dried somehow on the tin roof over the kitchen, and canned in big blue mason jars. Apples were made into cider, beans dried in the attic, and butter churned by hand and stored in the cold water of the spring. They were healthy and ate well and all lived to be in their 90's. I heard that sometimes things were lean and my dad went out and brought back rabbits and squirrels and sometimes a deer.

It's breakfast time now. In those days they would have had country ham or sausage (maybe both), fresh eggs, biscuits, some fried apples, fresh butter, homemade jam, milk right from ole' Bess and coffee. Everything but the coffee would have come from their own land and their own hands. My, I'm hungry! That kind of life is my American Dream.

[lilpeg]

Go to the library and search out local cookbooks created by various churches and women's guilds. Most local newspapers had cooking suggestions. Also the Foxfire books have some southern traditions.....Or contact someone's Meemaw, they'll give you loads of info about this.

[jeanrenoir]

Yes, indeed, it's twilight for the Boomers' yuppie fantasies across the board, isn't it? The Boomers have been the most spoiled, self-indulgent, and destructive generation in American history. W's excellent adventure in Iraq was simply the most egregious version of Boomer bravado and narcissism, though the Wall St. Boomers who nearly destroyed the world economy with their greed, after they took their bonuses and ran, come in a close second. It's time for the country to edge back towards the old values of the republic, the values which made the Greatest Generation great. So, good riddance to Gourmet and the whole Boomer yuppie "foodie" thing. There's more to life than endless self-indulgence.

[Kristen777]

You typed the words right out of my mouth. Now, I'm not one to begrudge anyone their chosen indulgences. I subscribe to one food magazine or another - but I long since have observed that they recycle the same stuff over and over and over again and have decided to choose one subscription to maintain. Clearly, anyone who has so much of the same stuff has succumbed to exactly what has put our society in the position it's in now.

During the 80's & 90's we have grown accustomed to having everything we want and having it now - whether it means we borrow to get it or not. Now we owe out the yin yang!!

I appreciate Ms. Crittenden's article, but we all have to face it. Those days of cushy sub-urban comfort are gone. We have to change the way we approach consumerism. It's the best revenge against the banking industry.

Many of us are still quite comfortable, but it will be a long time before we see the good old days again - if ever.

[hayness]

That was the peak, I'm afraid. Well, not really afraid since it was wretched excess all around. Too bad we (as a nation) could not have figured out the moderation thing...we could have lived decent lives without despoiling the entire planet and running the country into the ground. But hey, some folks got really rich off it, right? That's what capitalism is all about, I'm told.

[ultrabop]

The "Greatest Generation" was too ignorant to learn how to cook. You'd think they would have brought home some technique from Europe after the war. Nope. Back to macaroni and cheese and casseroles with cream of mushroom soup and jello molds with disastrous icky stuff inside.

True, the boomers f.....ed up with Bush and Clinton, etc. But don't disparage good food. Please! If you have to eat you may as well eat well. It's not self-indulgent. It's just not being lazy.

[qthedancer]

I'm completely with you on this. When I was still young (younger) and had only a plate of noodles to keep me warm, I used to flip through my mom's copies of Gourmet and dream...

I've still got about 80 of her back copies from the 80's and early 90's. I always swore that when the kids were grown and making their own way into their own futures, I would cook my way through all these back issues.

The kids are grown and almost out of the house. I haven't started with the cooking yet, but I still flip through these old copies of Gourmet and dream...

[lastpost]

“Perhaps you aren't taking the sudden shuttering of Gourmet magazine quite as hard as I am, but let me tell you, my oven has gone dark.”

No food for thought?

[dadw5boys]

You may not have Gourmet but you will always make me think of the "Rose is a Rose" Comic Strip.