![]() The magazine she inherited was solidly oriented to luxury classical Western cooking, but she also took it downmarket and international (and might even have got to the vada-pavs in time). Reichl had not been a lazy editor ��� on the contrary, she had been hugely energetic in trying to update Gourmet���s admittedly rather old-fashioned profile, bringing all her considerable energy and celebrity pulling power. Because this was not the case of a complacent magazine allowing a market to slip away. In the foodie fury that followed, a certain frisson of fear could be detected, especially among the many food writers. To the legions of Gourmet fans they held out the slim hope that its fabulous 68 year old archive of food writing may be kept online and collected in books (Reichl has edited several excellent anthologies), but the magazine was dead. The consultants recommended closing the older, more prestigious title, and this week Cond�� Nast duly did that. Even more of a killer were its notoriously editorial high costs ��� as Saveur���s publisher, Merri Lee Kingsly noted acerbically after news of her rival���s closing became public, ���I���ve been getting phone calls and resumes from people who are making more money than I am in far junior positions.���įrom a cold-blooded, clinical point of view ��� or that of McKinsey���s, which is the same thing ��� the answer was obvious, especially when Gourmet���s publisher, Cond�� Nast, had another food publication, Bon App��tit, where both circulation and ad sales was far better. Meanwhile at Gourmet, circulation was more or less steady, but ad sales had plummeted by 46%. ![]() While Saveur���s circulation at 325,000 is much less than Gourmet���s 977,627, it was growing rapidly and had buzz, as could be seen from its 10% rise in ad sales, even in such bad economic times. It looks like many readers in the US, of the kind who actually subscribe to magazines, started thinking like me. ![]() Nearly always I take the Saveurs and leave the Gourmets behind. The latter is lighter, breezier, more open in design, but with a real devotion to international food ��� it is, as far as I know, the only American publication that has done a story on vada-pav. The former is larger and glossier, has more high name writers, lots of luxury stuff, but some good stories on ingredients and international cuisine. I automatically reject Bon App��tit (too recipe focussed, too American) and Food&Wine (ditto, also the wine writing is boring), and get down to comparing Gourmet and Saveur. I am not even a past, present or potential subscriber because, like more people than may want to admit it, I do my foreign magazine buying at the raddiwalla, an excellent place off Pali Naka in Bandra, whose owner takes out the food magazines when he sees me coming. I admire Gourmet���s gutsy editor Ruth Reichl, whose last book, Garlic and Sapphires, was outstanding, but never bothered to read her on. I wasn���t one of those readers who had kept every copy since their teens, and claimed to have tried every recipe, yea even unto the Thanksgiving spreads. It would be incredibly presumptuous (and wrong) to say I saw the end of Gourmet magazine coming. ![]()
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