Before American food lovers had finished absorbing the meaning of the 1970s, the noisy contradictions of the next decade were ringing in their ears. Something seemed to be displacing the long hegemony of French chefs. In their place, tastemakers were turning to the graceful simplicity of Italian cuisine and—for the first time in America's gastronomic memory—hailing a rising generation of homegrown chefs. A whole new geography of cooking was beginning to take shape, inspired by American regional traditions from New England to the Southwest, as well as by the luminous, locally based artistry of Alice Waters (singled out by Caroline Bates in 1982 as "the most influential woman restaurant chef in the country"). Unfortunately, the national table was also turning into a battleground of "thou shalt not" nutritional cults helped along by near-psychotic popular obsession with body image. Food had definitely become a political issue, and it was hard to be a noncombatant.
But GOURMET did its best to skirt the noisy food politics of this post-nouvelle era. Of course, not every issue could be avoided—especially by the chief restaurant reviewers, whose mandate had subtly shifted from describing the food to performing interpretive dances around it. On occasion they were roused to judgments with a polemical edge. The inimitable Jay Jacobs, who wrote the New York column for 14 years, took swipes at the edible fatuities that made "a pair of influential French food critics go and meow in transports of ecstasy, like Morris the Cat responding to Nine Lives, whenever some erstwhile stockbroker sets himself up in the business of coupling raspberries with flatfish." But, on the whole, gourmet saw fit to interpose some distance between its audience and the hurly-burly.
By this time, independently owned magazines were a dying breed, and with the death of Earle MacAusland, in 1980, GOURMET was soon to vanish from their ranks. Within a few years MacAusland's widow (who acted as publisher in the interim) had sold the magazine to The Condé Nast Publications. In most respects, though, GOURMET remained its recognizable self. The editors, under the leadership of Jane Montant, still placed firm priority on leisurely writing about a splendid range of subjects utterly unconnected with the food wars—or often with food, period. The regular dispatches from world capitals were among the best examples. John Bainbridge's London Journal might examine, at ample and civilized length, anything from the history of Eton College to the Chelsea Physic Garden. Along the Avenues, by "Hudson Bridges" (again, Jay Jacobs), offered richly researched articles on New York past and present. Catharine P. Reynolds's Paris Journal provided an extensive cumulative portrait of that city.
This emphasis bucked a burgeoning trend. Most publishing pundits thought that the attention span of readers had shrunk drastically since the '60s and that long, unhurried articles now marked a magazine as a dinosaur. Accordingly, the magazine's travel articles began to move away from detailed, thoughtful essays carefully anchored in the historical-geographical-cultural context. In the age of quickie tour packages and everyday business commuting by air, fewer people sat down to read substantial amounts of text in preparation for a trip. So GOURMET began commissioning articles about more specialized aspects of the destinations its correspondents visited.
The desire for brevity and simplicity applied to cooks, too. The magazine's loyal readers had not lost their yearning for exciting, sophisticated meals. If anything, they were more eager for guidance on glamorous entertaining. Yet they were not immune to the changes affecting all American home cooks, who now spent less time cooking and hungered for short, easy-to-follow recipes. Recognizing that it was time for an update, GOURMET's editors revised the recipe format and added a simpler and less formal menu feature. The magazine also began recruiting culinary commentators with decidedly personal points of view. The novelist Laurie Colwin, for instance, began sharing miscellaneous thoughts on food in an irregular succession of charming and original essays.
All these experiments—along with others like meatless Thanksgiving menus—were a response to the fact that '80s food buffs were restlessly seeking something that GOURMET had not always offered. In the end, however, the editors only went so far toward solidifying a post-MacAusland image. They were surprisingly slow to direct the magazine's attention to the new face of local and world farming, and to how deeply immigration was altering the landscape of American culture and cooking. That would have to wait.
Sound Bites
Well, I still can't stand chicken livers, but there are very few other things I dislike, provided they're properly cooked. I've come to dislike broccoli lately, and I've never liked wild rice much, but I do love sugar snap peas. I find myself turning against fish in most restaurants because it's usually overcooked and oversauced. I find myself losing interest in pāté. —James Beard,
Interview with Jay Jacobs, February 1984
When the Italian words for pasta shapes are translated, they make being a grocer one of the most poetic of callings: a kilo of tempests, a box of teensy-weensy strings, a package of turbans or little pipes or butterflies. —Richard Condon,
"They Are What They Eat," September 1982
The spotless factory throbs with motors and reeks of tangy Worcestershire sauce in the making, an aroma not unlike rather violent Christmas puddings and mince pies. —Michael Kenyon,
"Worcestershire Sauce," October 1989
Fondness for pork was one of the few points of agreement between the Indians and the Virginia settlers. —Roon Frost,
"High on the Hog in Virginia," April 1981
There is something triumphant about a really disgusting meal. It lingers in the memory with a lurid glow, just as something sublime is remembered with a kind of mellow brilliance. —Laurie Colwin,
"Unforgivable Dinners," April 1986
Pinterest
