Bait and switch food magazines burn my biscuits
Posted on Jul 29 in Food Pornby NikaPrint
When I was a kid, I was such a food nerd, I got Bon Appetit instead of some pimple magazine for teen girls (yikes, atrocious at any age). I would pour over each issue, reading the recipes, visualizing how to do each step. They were the protocols (as we call them in the lab) for success, guides to new flavors and precious experiences.
In some ways, it was almost enough to know the recipe and see the photos, the eating never really came close to the imaginative savorings. You would know what I mean if you read the Harry Potter books and then saw the movies – almost there but nothing is ever as vivid and fantastic as one’s own imaginings.
I remember making a homemade peach melba ice cream cake (made the ice cream by hand and all the meringue, by hand). My family seemed to enjoy it!
For Christmas 2007, my husband got me subscriptions to several food magazines (something which I never do because it seems like an unwarranted excess in light of the budgetary needs of getting a few toys for the kids), including Bon Appetit and Gourmet. Now, it’s not about cooking so much as food photography. Instead of simply being a food nerd, I now consume the photos in a wholly different way.
But, I need to kvetch about one negative in what should be a purely aesthetic experience… these magazines are really not about food but about the luxury lifestyle.
This consumerism is a major negative for me. With an honest understanding about climate change, peak oil, the state of the economy as a nation and our own, consumerism is unethical, it’s a key part of the problem. These beliefs are critically important to my personal ethic, along with Buddhist principles that guide one away from attachment and living in the now and not to live for things.
I flip through these magazines, savoring the mysterious darkness of one shot, crab legs peeking from a creamy soup, deep living colors and then the next page is all about these super luxury residential cruise ships that cater to my every need (if, that is, I had millions to spend on an alternative residence, far from the hue and cry of the brown rabble).
Totally spoils the food porn experience, utterly.
I guess I am a populist food pornographer. I prefer to focus on the best of us that arises from the intersection of cultures instead of the pretentiousness of that which arises from within an exclusive food culture.
Food should be for all. Good food should be for all. One pint of pick-your-own local blueberries from your local surrounds is vastly superior to a foie gras terrine flown in by jet.
A simple hearty corn chowder crafted from homegrown corn from your own backyard is leagues and leagues far superior to some molecular gastronomic construction of cubic veal collagen overlayed by persimmon gastrique nanospheres that levitate when the magnet under your table is turned on.
This is an overwrought cry to you all, help me find a good source of food photography that is not really about multi-million dollar homes in Aspen, luxury residential cruises and all manner else of useless fripperies.
If you can recommend something, please do!
I am not going to be renewing my subscriptions.
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I feel the same way and that’s why I didn’t renew my subscriptions for those magazines. I always felt out of my league. I don’t know if it fits the food porn qualities you’re looking for, but I love Fine Cooking magazine and have been subscribing for 7-8 years. Always happy with it.
Scotte: will definitely look and see what Fine Cooking is like! Glad I am not the only one to have these feelings!
You are so right about this. I also completely second the motion about Fine Cooking. My absolute favorite food magazine. And their recipes are fantastic too.
awesome. Their site is definitely content-deep! Will see if I can find a way to get a copy to check it out.
hmmmm.. maybe its time to have a grassroots ads-free blogger foodie magazine!
could have it POD through lulu.com
anyone interested, let me know!
Nika, like the post, just sent you an email about things that relate to it
btw what is up with the garden….anything new?
superkewl, will look for that email. You can see all things garden at my garden blog http://www.humblegarden.com
just wanted to let you know, never got an email from you
EXACTLY.
I admit that I still subscribe to Gourmet, because what I love about the magazine is partly the food and partly reading about food “destinations” – it’s a fun fantasy escape, and frankly a better layout than Vegetarian Times, my other food magazine. But I would embrace a focus on food cultures around the world that aren’t trying to sell cruises – yes, tell me about this fantastic cheese they make in the Swiss Alps, but I don’t care about the resort I could stay at – I’d rather be at a small B&B if I could afford to go there at all.
I love the idea of a grassroots foodie magazine, though I think foodblogs, being free and online, do sort of serve that purpose already.
Judith,
I agree, food blogs are absolutely the grassroots electronic version. If I had a way to publish my favs (especially fav food photography) to hold in my hands and enjoy away from the computer – that would be fantastic.
I also agree about the B and B versus the luxury hotel. If you watch No Reservations with Bourdain .. you get food, travel, stories, people, and zero hotel ads or other fripperies.
We all cant travel like Bourdain (or, good lord, eat like him) but we have something unique (we being the food blog world), we are every where. Every where is LOCAL, blows your mind huh?
So instead of having one person travel the globe and gee-whiz over this and that, we each blog about what we know (or soon know because its in our backyard).
My fantasy would be an artisan publication where content is queen and profit it irrelevant. (god now I sound like some sort of food socialist or communist – bring it on!)
Content for the love of content (not unlike the tenacious souls who write and publish books/mags/zines on poetry).
I am not against some ads (I have blogher on this blog – The main reason I keep it on my blog is because I believe in the blogher people not so much for the small profit I get on occasion – sorta kookie huh?) but when the entire purpose of the mag is just to sell ads, its obvious and I am not very interested in it.
I do not know if this would be a viable idea but its nice to think about. I am so used to blogging for the love it I can conceive of a magazine where its done solely for the love it and not a profit (ensuring that there are no intrusive ads) but I am sure that this idea makes some people’s skin crawl!
I wholeheartedly agree. I haven’t bothered with food magazines the last few years. What inspires me are certain cookbooks- but not slick styled recipes. I like to see tables set in natural settings with real sunlight and shadow, with glimpses of gardens, some pottery, flowers. It’s personal taste, maybe. But I’m turned off to the so called allure of excess and wealth. You are right- it’s killing our planet.
Thanks for giving me something to ponder tonight.
you’re right, the beautiful food mags here (in Oz) are all about the glam lifestyle, with too much advertising for competitive consumption and display of luxury… but, if you flick through the ‘economical’ food mags, they’re full of ‘recipes’ along the lines of “stir through XBrand’s sauce jar”… no thanks! where is the eco-friendly, minimal-leaning, gourmet, gorgeous-food-porn magazines?!
you know, that you can take to the beach! Can’t read blogs everywhere, unfortunately
I’ve long ago given up on bon appetit for the same reasons. And actually one more: too often their food is so fussy no right minded home chef could attempt it for anything other than the specialist of occasions, and after all that expense and fuss, the food sometimes disappoints because it is just…okay.
I actually really like cuisine at home because it is just all about the food (and one feature per issue that reviews different kitchen gadgets) and whenever I have made something out of there it is mouthwatering, receives rave reviews, and somehow finds its way into my frequent rotations. That is something no recipe from bon appetit ever did.
Karina: Yeah, I love images of rustic set tables (mason jars for cups, gingham fabrics, etc) and simple food. When you see this in mags they usually have the settings listed in the back for insane prices.
Glad to be a part of your pondering
Zoe: I completely agree about the econo-mags and they are really not that much better, still chock full of ads.
Am seriously pondering starting a low/no carbon food mag project .. all about a peak oil aware ethic which has a lot to do with food but which needs to be uplifting because food can do just that… Idea is still percolating.
Erin: Will look for that mag .. good to know their recipes are well tested!
I totally agree. And your pictures speak for themselves.
Though we don’t read all the same magazines, they’re mostly the same in any part of the world.
So I don’t subscribe to any magazine at present, and just pick up whatever I want at the library or buy the ocassional one on impulse.
yes! I totally agree with you. I want accessible food and lifestyle reading. Realistic and non-wasteful.
I really like that “food snobs” are “going eco”. I would like to suggest Cooks Illustrated for a great “ad free” cooking magazine. Not as many photos as I would like, but great content.
Sorry for all the “.
I would have to say Donna Hay magazine, I am not sure if it is available everywhere being Australian, but it is the only food magazine I still subscribe to here in New Zealand.
Loving your photography, it’s so difficult to get it right, and I know we haven’t yet been able to find a process to crack it. But Kris who we use is very talented and I’m sure we’ll get there for the food.
Aparna: Thats usually the way I do things
a-la-carte
Jaden: you said it! I have to admit that I find most of Food & Wine off topic for me because I do not (cant really) drink wine (I am hypersensitive to sulfates – even in supposed sulfate free wines and also to alcohol in general).
Sam: Excellent suggestion – tho yeah like you say .. its more about illustrations which is fine too tho it isnt as captivating.
I dont think I am your usual food snob … I dont have that sort of budget. When I think of food snob I think of people who take a flight just to go to El Bulli or The French Laundry or Alinea .. yeeesh, I have to budget the cost of gas getting to my big box grocery store, not whether or not I might fly off this weekend to visit this cute little restaurant that just opened on the coast of France.
It would be great that those food snobs would go eco too but I doubt it!
Emma: Yeah, Hay is pretty much one of the biggies re: food photography (and setting trends tho the Hay look is starting to get a bit long in the tooth but I can articulate what the post-Hay look is)
I would have to get an international subscription that, last time I checked, was like $100 USD for 6 issues – yikes!.
Thierry: Gosh thanks! Your concept, while popular here in the US and seems to be spreading to strip-malls, looks really fresh and very well done on your site. I love that you are bringing the local and organic ethic to the prep-a-supper concept. I hope you all do very well! It looks like you all have all the skills and great friends and backers. If I lived closer (by several 1000 miles) I would be there in a flash!
I think that your photos are beautiful and do a good job of speaking to abundance.
I am sure you all will work it out
My only suggestion might be bring out a warmer light and bounce it deeper into the abundant amounts of food. So: shift color a bit warmer and bring up the intensity. Your photographer may have wanted a particular look that includes these attributes so my suggestions may not be relevant.
I love the idea behind this franchaise of magazines based on local food news.
Edible Publications
I’ve read copies of Edible Grande Traverse and Edible Wow and liked both.