Photo: Sara Bonisteel
The magazine, owned by Conde Nast, has been published since December 1940. Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride are also slated for closure, the paper said.
"Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support," Ruth Reichl, the magazine's editor in chief, said Monday afternoon on Twitter. "It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad."
The cuts come after a three-month study by McKinsey & Co., which looked at the publishing company's costs, the Times said.
In an e-mail obtained by Gawker, Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend said Gourmet will live on through television and books. "Gourmet magazine will cease monthly publication, but we will remain committed to the brand, retaining Gourmet's book publishing and television programming, and Gourmet recipes on Epicurious.com," he wrote. "We will concentrate our publishing activities in the epicurean category on Bon Appétit."
Drew Schutte, a senior vice president at Conde Nast Digital, said Gourmet.com would "remain up at least through the end of the year," Mediaite reports.
Sources tell Slashfood that staff has to be out of building by the end of day Tuesday.
Leave your thoughts about Gourmet's demise in the comments below.
[Via New York Times]
10-05-2009 @11:11AM ChileDoctor said... This can be viewed with sadness and dismay (even anger), or as one of the early fallouts of the Internet pressure on cooking magazines. I'll miss Gourmet, a bit...
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10-05-2009 @11:24AM Kat Kinsman said... I'm heartbroken. That's a lovely bunch of people and a deeply inspiring publication. It will be sorely missed.
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10-05-2009 @12:10PM Carol King said... The publishing world is diminishing and it saddens me. I like to hold magazines/newspapers, turning pages and admiring clever layouts. It pains me to see the demise of yet another print publication.
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10-05-2009 @12:40PM nicole said... Haha I just got my renewal notice in the mail last week good thing I haven't mailed it back out yet!
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10-05-2009 @2:34PM Jasmine said... I'm very sad! I always purchase a gourmet magazine in the airport. Now I have nothing to read
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10-05-2009 @7:44PM rainey Smith said... I don't understand retaining Bon Appetit and canning Gourmet. I'm glad there will be at least one but I certainly would have preferred to be able to read Gourmet.
I'm sure Ruth Reichl will land on her feet and I'll look forward to reading whatever she does next.
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10-05-2009 @8:14PM Texas Hill Country Tom said... I hated what Ruth Reichel did to Gourmet I have been reading it for forty odd years. I was prepared to cancel my subscription when it runs out. Ruth Reichel turned this formidable force in the food industry into a tool for her personal ego aggrandisement. They should have renamed it "RUTH". The appeal shifted from food and its accoutrements to Ruth and her cosmopolitan cronies. It changed form a gourmands journal to a foodie shoutout. I saw the decline and I knew why. Too bad Ruth couldn't see the forest for her own reflection.
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10-06-2009 @1:31AM Andre said... My uncle used to have a subscription, as it was needed for his line of work in a restaurant. I remember it as dense, wordy and packed with information (for my 14 yr old mind!) and probably the first time I've seen recipes measured out in metric versus cups/tsps/etc.
I thought of it as old guard and stodgy but changed when I found out that Sara Moulton was Executive Chef of Gourmet magazine. Although I didn't get to pick up another issue, I do peruse the epicurious website as well have their app on my iPod touch. So sad to see a magazine that had me, a casual cook, go to the print medium boneyard.
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10-06-2009 @6:42PM Barry said... Yeah, I'm with rainy Smith above, why would you keep BA and can Gourmet? I dig Gourmet. Bon Appetite I could take or leave.
I don't have historical perspective as Texas Hill Country Tom does though (nor do I have the delicious Hill Country BBQ!). I only know the post-Ruth era. How was it different?
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10-10-2009 @3:31PM Athena Creamer said... I am with your readers. I am thankful for my back issues, 1986-1998. If civilization as we know it should come to an end, at least I will have Gourmet to remind me of how glorious it once could be. Believe me, I will cook all my upcoming holiday meals this year out of Gourmet.
Every luncheon or dinner menu I attempted (and photographed) was not merely a meal, but a milestone in my life.
Athena Creamer
http://heiressarts.blogspot.com/
"The Impressive Art of Straightening the Home."
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10-12-2009 @7:22PM carole jeanne said... Carole King, you said exactly what I do about all things in print, especially encyclopedias AND PHOTOGRAPHS! Enough with photographs,recipes, etc mainly on computers, or phones (horrors!) We need books and magazines!
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10-12-2009 @7:22PM carole jeanne said... The computer is ruining what we once had in print, yet I find myself needing to use it to get this message out! Too bad!
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