News
The Trouble with Bon Appetit
[caption id="attachment_11486" align="alignleft" width="205" caption=" "]
[/caption]
Things are looking bad all over for Conde Nast—publisher of grocery-store glossies like Vogue, GQ , and Self—but particularly so for its high-end cooking mags like Gourmet and Bon Appetit . According to the latest numbers, Gourmet's ad pages were down 46 percent from the same period last year, compared to 34.5 percent for Bon Appetit. That's terrible news for Gourmet , which may close down or merge with Bon Appetit. And it's even worse news for food snobs like me.
See, here's the thing about Bon Appetit: It has pretty pictures, and even some recipes that are worth clipping, but it just doesn't try hard enough. Unlike Gourmet —which includes elegant recipes, travel tips, party ideas, and stories on food politics—Bon Appetit assumes you're a harried working mom who only cooks because you have to, what with the hungry husband and whining children and unexpected guests perpetually at the door. And it assumes you're completely comfortable—cozy, even—with overpriced "convenience" foods, like store-bought pesto, stale cut-up veggies, and canned broth.
Oh, and also, you're looking for diet tips.
What really frustrates me about Bon Appetit , though—and, paradoxically, the main reason I keep re-upping my subscription—is that it gestures toward people who actually enjoy cooking, but pulls back too quickly to its "quick-n-easy" comfort zone. The magazine suffers from a split personality: On one page, it assumes you know what lemongrass is and how to use it; on the next, it's explaining that coconut milk comes from coconuts and is "sold in cans at Asian markets."
Take this month's issue.
Love it: A beautifully photographed feature on how to use ripe figs (which are in season now), including recipes for chicken with figs in ras-el-hanout and couscous and lamb chops with fresh herbs and roasted figs.
Hate it: The irritatingly chirpy "Fast, Easy, Fresh" section, featuring sandwiches "so filling that you won't need a side dish!" (fattie); a seared mahi-mahi dish with "ONLY 377 CALORIES!" (because everything else in this mag is too fatty for you, fattie); a cutesily named "chicken curry in a hurry" that's basically a pre-cut chicken slathered in bottled curry paste; and a pork recipe that calls for a cup of sweet bottled pineapple juice AND 3/4 cup of sugar.
Love it: The "Best new restaurants" feature, which includes gorgeous photography (the shot of the black cod with fennel chowder and smoked oyster panzanella at Spring Hill in West Seattle is almost pornographic), doable renditions of restaurant recipes, and ingredients that push at the edge of the typical American cook's comfort zone (pigs' feet, goat's milk, smoked oysters, catfish).
Hate it: The incessant unnecessary explanations of relatively everyday ingredients—including, in this issue alone, sea salt, panko, hoisin sauce, juniper berries, pancetta, and poblano peppers (!!).
And, hate it: The utterly superfluous snippets about the nutritional qualities of various ingredients that appear in minute quantities (e.g., 1/2 tablespoon per serving of red jalapenos, which "are a good source of folate and vitamins B6, C, and K,").
The magazine's bizarre fixation on specific nutrients is an example of what Michael Pollan has termed "nutritionism"—a belief that the value of food is in the discrete nutrients it contains, and not the food itself. Who's going to eat enough red jalapenos to get the level of folate that would make a difference? Who can afford to buy enough figs (expensive in or out of season) to achieve better "bone health" (whatever that means)? By promoting foods as vehicles for particular nutrients (as opposed to promoting an appreciation for the foods themselves), Bon Appetit maintains the delusion that we can eat our way to health by consuming enough of specific ingredient (or eating foods that contain JUST 377 CALORIES!), rather than consuming a balanced, enjoyable diet.
What I want in a food magazine isn't health tips, or diet tricks, or recipes for me and "the whole family." What I want is an immersive aspirational experience—travel stories about places I'll never be able to afford to go, lavish spreads about dinner parties I couldn't throw without a staff of ten, and recipes I could only think about attempting on a Sunday. If I wanted quick-easy-n-healthy, I'd subscribe to Cooking Light. That's why I hope Gourmet never goes away.
[/caption]Things are looking bad all over for Conde Nast—publisher of grocery-store glossies like Vogue, GQ , and Self—but particularly so for its high-end cooking mags like Gourmet and Bon Appetit . According to the latest numbers, Gourmet's ad pages were down 46 percent from the same period last year, compared to 34.5 percent for Bon Appetit. That's terrible news for Gourmet , which may close down or merge with Bon Appetit. And it's even worse news for food snobs like me.
See, here's the thing about Bon Appetit: It has pretty pictures, and even some recipes that are worth clipping, but it just doesn't try hard enough. Unlike Gourmet —which includes elegant recipes, travel tips, party ideas, and stories on food politics—Bon Appetit assumes you're a harried working mom who only cooks because you have to, what with the hungry husband and whining children and unexpected guests perpetually at the door. And it assumes you're completely comfortable—cozy, even—with overpriced "convenience" foods, like store-bought pesto, stale cut-up veggies, and canned broth.
Oh, and also, you're looking for diet tips.
What really frustrates me about Bon Appetit , though—and, paradoxically, the main reason I keep re-upping my subscription—is that it gestures toward people who actually enjoy cooking, but pulls back too quickly to its "quick-n-easy" comfort zone. The magazine suffers from a split personality: On one page, it assumes you know what lemongrass is and how to use it; on the next, it's explaining that coconut milk comes from coconuts and is "sold in cans at Asian markets."
Take this month's issue.
Love it: A beautifully photographed feature on how to use ripe figs (which are in season now), including recipes for chicken with figs in ras-el-hanout and couscous and lamb chops with fresh herbs and roasted figs.
Hate it: The irritatingly chirpy "Fast, Easy, Fresh" section, featuring sandwiches "so filling that you won't need a side dish!" (fattie); a seared mahi-mahi dish with "ONLY 377 CALORIES!" (because everything else in this mag is too fatty for you, fattie); a cutesily named "chicken curry in a hurry" that's basically a pre-cut chicken slathered in bottled curry paste; and a pork recipe that calls for a cup of sweet bottled pineapple juice AND 3/4 cup of sugar.
Love it: The "Best new restaurants" feature, which includes gorgeous photography (the shot of the black cod with fennel chowder and smoked oyster panzanella at Spring Hill in West Seattle is almost pornographic), doable renditions of restaurant recipes, and ingredients that push at the edge of the typical American cook's comfort zone (pigs' feet, goat's milk, smoked oysters, catfish).
Hate it: The incessant unnecessary explanations of relatively everyday ingredients—including, in this issue alone, sea salt, panko, hoisin sauce, juniper berries, pancetta, and poblano peppers (!!).
And, hate it: The utterly superfluous snippets about the nutritional qualities of various ingredients that appear in minute quantities (e.g., 1/2 tablespoon per serving of red jalapenos, which "are a good source of folate and vitamins B6, C, and K,").
The magazine's bizarre fixation on specific nutrients is an example of what Michael Pollan has termed "nutritionism"—a belief that the value of food is in the discrete nutrients it contains, and not the food itself. Who's going to eat enough red jalapenos to get the level of folate that would make a difference? Who can afford to buy enough figs (expensive in or out of season) to achieve better "bone health" (whatever that means)? By promoting foods as vehicles for particular nutrients (as opposed to promoting an appreciation for the foods themselves), Bon Appetit maintains the delusion that we can eat our way to health by consuming enough of specific ingredient (or eating foods that contain JUST 377 CALORIES!), rather than consuming a balanced, enjoyable diet.
What I want in a food magazine isn't health tips, or diet tricks, or recipes for me and "the whole family." What I want is an immersive aspirational experience—travel stories about places I'll never be able to afford to go, lavish spreads about dinner parties I couldn't throw without a staff of ten, and recipes I could only think about attempting on a Sunday. If I wanted quick-easy-n-healthy, I'd subscribe to Cooking Light. That's why I hope Gourmet never goes away.
Filed under
Share
Show Comments
