Is it possible that much of the reduction in cooking is due not to the implied increases in family income in the US, but instead significantly to increases in opportunity for women over the past 50 years (the same changes that have helped reduce the number of nuns in the Catholic Church), and the increase in family households where both parents, or the only parent, work(s)?

Are these “people” those who have higher incomes? News reports recently have suggested that there is less eating out among families generally, and particularly lower-income families.

None of the above are fatal to the post’s main point to consider the difference between audiences and audience roles for Gourmet and Saveur.

Maybe, the people Gourmet was aimed at, i.e. people who probably have a higher income and work much, but have therefore less time to actually cook, are more interested in the culture of food.

Also, you can find recipes online. You would not need to buy a magazine for that.

Saveur has been my magazine of choice for the very reasons you mention – I do love to cook but mostly I love to eat food, read about food, enjoy the culture of food. By the way, Cucina Italiana is another excellent choice for just that purpose.

Gourmet, as a commenter correctly says above, is an anachronistic word. We aren’t “gourmets” anymore – that’s an outdated idea. We just care about things a little differently than we did 10 years ago.

And no, I don’t think it’s about cooking – it’s about knowing.

Oddly, Bon Appetit sent my husband a free subscription. We have no idea why.

I belong to a community of people, mostly women, who produce at home and blog about it. (My blog shows cooking, sewing, knitting, tie-dying, gardening and the occasional computer programming trick from my market job as a physicist.)

I watched the parade of kids at work last year on “Bring your daughter to work day”, and I realized that most kids watch consumption more often than they watch production. That is, we bring them shopping with us, but we don’t bring them to work with us. As Witold Rybczynski pointed out, home is both a workplace and a place of repose. Kids can be innoculated from commercial messages if they see home production as daily practice.

I read “The Enthusiast” blog to find out what Heather had for dinner last night.
http://theenthusiast-heather.blogspot.com/http://theenthusiast-heather.blogspot.com/

It’s interesting to see her creative use of seasonal ingredients and leftovers.

I am the neighborhood coordinator for a CSA program.
http://badmomgoodmom.blogspot.com/search/label/CSA

I tried to explain to someone that I don’t really cook (in the Mark Miller sense). I just process food every weekend in preparation for the frantic workweek in a 2-career family with children. I described to a friend how I make salad dressing in little blender jars, make yogurt in an incubator (glorified thermos but more expensive), make a giant vat of soup and a medium one of slow-cooked oatmeal, make a fruit salad, boil eggs and chop up veggies for weeknight salads–in about 2-3 hours each Sunday.

It wasn’t until I read Pollan’s article that I realized that qualifies as cooking. Have you ever read a Mark Miller recipe? It relies on obscure ingredients that I will not find in my local grocery store. It would take a treasure hunt, even in LA to source all his ingredients. I have yet to make a single recipe out of the Coyote Cafe cookbook for that reason.

Anyway, sorry for the long ramble. I have so many food issues. I guess that is why I am a blogger.

Give me a heads up when you visit LA and I can bore you with how giving measurements in recipes can actually reduce the quality of the outcome. I say that as someone who worked her way through Berkeley in an analytical Chemistry lab and also as an assistant kitchen manager at her dorm.

I read an old Michael Pollan article recently and, to paraphrase, “More and more people are sitting on the couch watching cooking shows, but less people are cooking.”

People enjoy the IDEA of being creative and making something with their hands, but in this age of instant gratification it’s just easier to have someone else make it.

With the conspicuous consumption era over, having a Gourmet (means nothing differentiated today) magazine on your coffee table seems like you are trying really hard to show off your refined-ness.

Advertisers and their agencies are tuned in to this and ad pages shrink.

Oh and BTW, CN still sells in a very 1.0 way. Assuming their titles and brands still mean something to advertisers.