The most entertaining of the regular departments was the Sugar and Spice letters column. The readers were passionately eager to begin a dialogue with Gourmet and each other. Almost immediately, they were volunteering some memory triggered by an article on Timbuktu or a thought on the proper brewing of tea. Even the very infrequent brickbats were turned to good account: A 1948 letter surmising that anyone capable of such "inane preciousness" and "asininity" as the Gourmet staff must live entirely on coconut creams was answered deadpan, with a detailed recipe for same.
One of MacAusland's canniest emphases during the salad days was on serialized narratives. At least one (sometimes two) would usually be unfolding at any given moment. The first and most beloved was written by Samuel Chamberlain, under the pseudonym "Phineas Beck," before he went off to war. From the magazine's second 1941 issue until October 1942, readers flocked to the story of the semifictitious Clémentine (based on two cooks that the Chamberlains had in France).
Aside from Clémentine, the hardiest perennials among the serials were the many tales by the screenwriter and all-round wordsmith Stephen Longstreet, who wrote and illustrated a slew of breezy yarns about lovable relatives and star-crossed global treks, and by the Pulitzer Prizewinning poet Robert P. Tristram Coffin, who gained a devoted following for stories—and occasionally poems—about the rhythm of the Maine seasons as lived by his hardy hunting and fishing clan.
De Gouy died in 1947, and the magazine acquired a new in-house chef: Louis Diat of The Ritz-Carlton, at that time probably the most famous French chef working in America. Samuel Chamberlain's return from the war opened the way for one great project: an ambitious region-by-region survey of French gastronomy (An Epicurean Tour of the French Provinces), which would run from 1949 to 1951.
Meanwhile, during the late '40s, the magazine began paying more careful attention to non-French cuisines. You could find systematic treatments of subjects like Italian pasta and pasta sauces, or the nuances of different curries. Recipes started to show up for Greek egg-lemon soup, Indian chapatis, and a few more Chinese dishes. Charles H. Baker Jr.'s series, South American Gentleman's Companion, opened windows on the food (and exotic cocktails) of many Latin American regions, and the magazine published Idwal Jones's many stories of the Gold Rush era.
By the close of the '40s, Gourmet spelled glamour for an eager and loyal readership. As war and the Depression faded into memory, and an era of apparently ever-increasing national affluence unfolded, the magazine was poised for several important leaps forward.
Sound Bites
The Down East breakfast is concocted under the sign of the frying pan. Hot fat is at its heart. It begins with a seething and bubbling of pork fat in the skillet or spider. Fat salt pork in chunks, not lean and feminine bacon rashers, is its base.—Robert P. Tristram Coffin, "Down East Breakfast," January 1949
But since the average so-called Mexican restaurant in the States would make any Mexican used to the real cooking of his homeland either commit suicide or murder the cook, you will find these foods a very different thing at home.—George W. Seaton, "Chili Con Sodium Bicarb," July 1941
Gloria Vanderbilt sat opposite me; General Pershing's son to my left; Charles Boyer at my right. The famous star paid little attention to the curious females who ogled him, and much attention to his food.—Iles Brody, "Spécialités de la Maison," November 1941
You would be surprised to know the number of women who smoke cigars. These are not always the little all-tobacco cigarros, but full-bodied weeds in many cases.—Isaac F. Marcosson, "Cigars and The Man," October 1941
A Martini, as God intended, is of course three parts dry gin and one part French vermouth, and anything drier than that is just a glass of iced gin.—Lucius Beebe, "Along the Boulevards," October 1948
The only thing we want for Christmas this year is a boar's head. We want it prepared in the old English way—first pickled, then roasted, and served on a solid gold platter, its tusks gilded, a roast apple in its mouth, and the whole decked with sprigs of rosemary and bay.—Gates Hebbard, "Truffles and Trifles," December 1941
From poet to gourmet is such a small step.—(author unknown), "An Eye on the Potato," May 1944
Between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day, deluxe existence became, along with taxicabs, T-bone steaks, whitewall tires, and desirable travel accommodations, in great requisition, but never entirely disappeared. The torch which set the cherries Jubilee in flames was never wholly extinguished.—Lucius Beebe, "Along the Boulevards," December 1945
The man who first put a grain of salt on a lettuce leaf and then dipped it in a mixture of wine vinegar and olive oil was one of the few true benefactors of mankind.—Ernest Lorsy, "Escoffier," January 1944
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