Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I understand your pain.

I am thoroughly sick and tired of things being dumbed down, honestly. Besides being bored to death.

I haven't bought that magazine for some time anyway though - the photos of sweetly smiling ingenues looking perky as they serve food to their other perky friends were simply too terrible to tolerate for even the least hint of a good recipe.

On the other hand, I am very pleased with the direction that Gourmet seems to be taking under the leadership of Ruth Reichl. I've started to read the magazine now and then after not reading it for a long time.

There's a discussion on Gourmet and its direction and content here .

From wwd.com :

As for the other magazines in the category, Fairchild said, "We are about the pleasure. We're not Cooking Light, which is about fear: What can I eat without killing myself? We're not Martha Stewart's Every Day Food...that's not how I want to live my life. And Food & Wine is really about New York chefs and restaurants. Our reach has always been extremely broad." What about corporate sibling Gourmet? Fairchild grinned. "I already said Gourmet, didn't I?" She had not. "We're the one in the kitchen," she said. "Gourmet is doing a campaign about food for thought. Thinking is fine, but for us it's about getting in the kitchen — it's about the passion."

[ . . .]

Starting with the January issue, it will introduce a new logo featuring a lowercase font with a rotating color for the "o" and accent mark. "Think of it in fashion terms: We've simply changed and freshened our lipstick, or, perhaps, traded in our pair of sensible shoes for something a little more stylish," editor in chief Barbara Fairchild writes in the editor's letter.

Wow. I always thought thinking was fine too. In the kitchen or out.
High heels and lipstick or not, too. With passion, too. Even while cooking.

If you guys want good food mags...try these (and add to the list!)

Fine Cooking
Cook's Illustrated
Saveur
Everyday Food

I have a cache of Gourmet from the early 70's, socialeats - and those are considerably more sophisticated in terms of recipes offered than the ones from the 80's, by far.

This sort of public offering in writing of how to do things (that is - written in extended discourse and including knowledge and patience on the part of the reader) was like an unaware animal smack-dab in the middle of the information superhighway. It is gone for the most part, run over by short attention spans and the demand for a quick and easy show of DIY by readers more concerned with the ability to show off their life style than with their inner life of underlying knowledge.

The quick and easy dumbing down offering of content obviously has a basis in reality. Some of the most popular content of television, print media and even blogs is designed to make sure that the average person with no previous knowledge of anything to do with the subject can perform the tasks noted without screwing up. The different ways of learning are more commonly shown i.e. photos of every step of a recipe so that those who do not learn from reading can see. There are now podcasts for those who learn better by hearing rather than by visual or written methods can find their way to learn.

I regret the loss of an assumed knowledge on the part of the general reader for it does seem to me that mass media shapes who we are in a general sense - it's a relationship between what we really are and then what we see that we are perceived as being or what we are supposed to be that finally puts a face (and then a reality) on the final "who" of us. I regret the position that young women specifically are given to assume in many ways mass media illustrates who they are and therefore who they will be subtly pressured to be in order to "fit in". I would very much like to see a magazine focused on an average young women who is not either assumed to be kitchen-incompetent nor a driven career-minded chef. For that seems to be a better balance in a very true and good sense.

So often we get to be whores or saints. Rachel Ray or Alice Waters. Most of us are somewhere in between. The more mass-media outlets that show that, the better for everyone.

That, in a philosophic nutshell, is why I regret the dumbing-down of Bon Appetit.
................................

chiff0nade, there's a magazine I've seen now and then that is rather nice, neither complicated nor effete nor dumbed down, good for all purpose use called Eating Well .

Karen I love your righteous indignation which is only matched by your bizarre sense of humor. WHY? Because you sound like me LOL, well and chiff.

I do see your point, Cookie Pie. Mass media outlets do need to mirror the people that support them or they simply would cease to exist through lack of support quickly in a very competitive environment.

In that sense what appears before us is "of the people".

Perhaps what I am rueing is what is "of the people". More likely I'm still reacting to the comment about Bon Appetit being the "one in the kitchen" with the "passion" whereas Gourmet was doing some "food for thought" thing.

It sets up a presumed competition between those who "think" and those who "act" (supposedly but with not the basis in reality for Gourmet offers some excellent recipes) where there should be none.

If Bon Appetit is dumbing-down in response to its readers (which I am assuming it is) then to me, it would be interesting to know why the readers need things this way. I can find good argument for "dumbing-down" of gourmandism simply in the way most people have to live now - the average workweek hours for a professional (woman or not, but women are still the ones basically presumed to be in the role of family nurturer and care-giver and that includes cooking) are longer, the multi-tasking required to survive is heavier (how much time is spent answering e-mails each day?!) etc etc.

We're a very different society than we were when Mom was at home in the kitchen.

Who has replaced her?

For the most part, for sheer survival, simple easy recipes are desperately needed.

I'm really not railing against Bon Appetit (though the magazine is not at all my style, no no no and Jerzee Tomato I would love to go on here but won't ha ha!). I'm railing against the way it was presented in that article (and god knows that quote may have even been turned a bit as these things do happen) and railing against How Things Are.

And goodness knows, that's silly. :)

I was thinking about that very same question a few days ago but specifically in the area of "food lit", Cookie Pie. It's worth starting a new topic on, I think - maybe Monday morning would be a good time to do that . . . yes, I will. :)

What bothers me most about BA, and the reason that I do not and have not ever read it - is the aura of aspirational dining linking with non-aspirational actuality of the recipes (or so it seems to me) and final overall conclusion. I do understand that I am peculiarly demanding and picky though.

Jerzee Tomato - slightly OT but for some time you have been reminding me of a friend of mine, though I imagine you are younger. You can find it here at post #2 - Not Your Average Jo. She was quite a woman. :)

karen resta -- i had the same reaction to bon appetit {yuck to the perky ingenues and their dinner parties in fabulous digs}. i picked up a copy years ago and was so put off by the beautiful people that i never read it again.

i'm another fan of ancient issues of gourmet. i still subscribe, but i miss the old gourmet, with its dense new yorker length articles and long involved recipes. and NO pictures of beautiful people at dinner parties.

these days i enjoy saveur, everyday food, cooks illustrated, and cooks country.

I was actually going to let my Bon Appetit run out but I was a bit encouraged by the most recent issue with the new design. I thought the recipes were straightforward but fairly good and I like the streamlined feel of the magazine. I found it far more useful than recent issues have been. I got an offer of a free year from Amazon, so no risk there, but I'm somewhat optimistic.