Newsweek: Food Blogs Considered Harmful

I understand that Jennie Yabroff's Newsweek article "How Food Blogs Led To The Demise of Gourmet" is meant to be a slam on food blogs, but it sure doesn't sound like it.  

Aside from conflating two possibly unrelated events (the recent death of Gourmet magazine, and the rise in popularity of food blogs), Yabroff's article reads like a condemnation of Gourmet magazine rather than a hagiography.  She posits - I think correctly - that Gourmet magazine was meant as a "lifestyle aspirational" magazine, in the words of magazine marketers.  

Much like Martha Stewart Living, the readers of Gourmet magazine fancied themselves as being the kind of person who did the things the magazine talked about.  Martha Stewart readers indulged in the fantasy of spending an entire afternoon getting the consistency of their buttercream frosting just right.  Gourmet readers imagined themselves as being the kind of person who "possessed a mandoline, a passport, and a working knowledge of Portuguese."

For me the real question is, why did we stop aspiring to this?  I think the appeal of food blogs is obvious.  (And I don't just say that because I write for one.)  As Yabroff herself says, "we're hungry for writing about food the way we actually prepare and eat it, crumpled paper napkins and all."  I know she means this as a critique of food blogs, but I think it is plainly and trenchantly true.

Furthermore, I think the waning popularity of Gourmet magazine has ties to the loss of interest in conspicuous consumption in American culture.  Or at least a shift in the conspicuous ways in which we consume.  I don't doubt that people who formerly laid out copies of Gourmet in order to impress visitors are now laying out copies of MAKE or Dwell instead.

When I think of Gourmet magazine, I think of the late 1980s.  Maybe this is because that's the time period I associate most with the only person I've ever known who was a subscriber.  (Did she ever make a recipe from the magazine?  Do you really have to ask?  The answer is, No.)  I think of Grey Poupon commercials, and the Ferrari Testarossa, and cocaine-addled stockbrokers wearing $15,000 watches.  In short, I think of the era which was so deftly punctured by Brett Easton Ellis' novel, "American Psycho."  Patrick Bateman would absolutely subscribe to Gourmet magazine.

Meanwhile, it's the year 2009.  No one reads anything these days, hadn't you heard?  Well, or maybe it's just that no one is willing to pay to read anything.  Because with the "rising popularity of food blogs," people must be reading something, right?

I think Yabroff puts her finger right on the problem.  People don't want to pretend like they are eating ortolan in Paris, or whatever.  We just want pictures of pretty food, and instructions on how to make it, from a regular person just like us, but a little bit more clever and well-read.  A little bit more willing to experiment with ingredients.  And a little bit more willing to come across as a regular person, with regular plates from Target, instead of a silver service for 12.