The comments on my previous post have led me to this one. Dear Decadent Housewife, I have to say, never should I have gotten rid of my collection of Gourmet magazines from the 80s and 90s. It was because we were moving...
...and now I'm trying to rebuild from used-book sales, which is silly, really. But they were so good...so much better than what followed...
After Ruth Reichl took over, I was not so fond of the direction it went in. It got very New York Times dining section-y, and mind, I love Wednesdays and my dining section, but not re-hashed into my Gourmet.
Chocolate-Orange Gateau Paris-Brest, recipe below at the end of this post.
Gourmet used to be where you could find something refined and tested, and you didn't need the frantic New York foodies breathing down your neck. Also, the writing was high quality and the art -- and later, photography -- was first rate.
In the old days, it always seemed like the food might be styled on a silver platter, but a down-at-the-heels cook wasn't beyond the editors' imagination; as if they were fine channeling the old-money comfortable, patched-sweater approach to life -- so preferable, if you are dealing with money at all, to the snobbish and slick new-money "you don't have a Wolf range??" attitude.
I felt robbed when they started the "renovating your kitchen" series, as if those who love good food necessarily have a spare $100,000 lying around for the upgrade, or, furthermore, that there aren't many publications devoted to renovation, and very few to really good yet accessible food. Way to eat up precious pages with something other than recipes!
I liked staid. I liked elegant without ironic. I liked the thought of a magazine spending months on articles about British (!) and Viennese food, along with discussions of curries and herbs that were way before their time. I liked rambling pieces on personal memories of far-off childhoods spent absorbing culinary secrets from impatient servants.
Anyway, last week I found a cache of magazines from the 50s and 60s on freecycle. Oh my! I hope to share some pictures with you...this is a bit of a setback in the de-cluttering aspect of my life, but what a joy to see these old issues!
Commenter Joy from the South asked for the recipe for the Gateau, so here you go. Hopefully you can click on it and read it okay. The cake came from the October 1990 issue featuring "Desserts for Entertaining" -- I ripped out the whole section for my files when I was discarding my stash. Sigh. At least I had the wisdom to do that much, because this recipe is not on the website.
{The old Gourmet two-volume cookbook has shored up my menu-planning many a long year, and now I see it's not available either! I got rid of my first set in another move, and then replaced it with a yard-sale find. Phew.}
A couple of hints: when you make the choux paste, do let the flour mixture cool slightly before adding eggs, because if it's hot enough to cook the eggs, the dough won't rise when baked. And you might think you can skip taking out any moist dough after cooking, but no, take it out, or you will get a soggy crust.
As for the filling, all I can say is that it's just really extremely good...
13 comments:
I'm not old enough to remember very far back in the history of any food magazine but I generally dislike most of them nowadays. One I subscribe to and love (as does my husband) is Saveur. Do you know it? It seems little-known which I do not understand because it is excellent: utterly unsnobby, fantastic writing, fantastic photography. It just cares about good food and cares not about where it came from. It will occasionally feature a kitchen and that kitchen will sometimes be a crazy expensive renovation but, just as often, that kitchen will be a white formica galley in the home of someone who just loves to cook.
I have never even seen a single issue of Gourmet, but it sounds like you dislike the new ones for the same reasons I dislike Martha Stewart living. I do refer to Martha for certain recipes (and I really like her Everyday Food show and recipes), but for most of my purposes it's just too highbrow.
This recipe intimidates me, but I am resolved to try it as soon as I redeem myself for the woeful Lemon Chiffon Cake of Easter last and master the Lemon Pound Cake recipe my sister has given me.
Gateau just sounds like such a fancy word!
I remember reading somewhere, maybe in a book about World War II cooking, that Gourmet was the only magazine that didn't focus on using available rations in their recipes. They kept their focus on cooking good food with good ingredients.
Well I know the angst of getting rid of something that you find later you should have kept. I've been driving myself crazy looking for a book on entertaining large crowds from the '60's that I put somewhere in this house, but I'm very afraid that I put it in my Goodwill pile.
I can read it! Thank you! Thank you!
We make cream puffs sometimes, so I know how to make the choux paste, although I've not made one in a big ring shape. And we've made ganache, so that looks easy, too. Mmmm, we'll do this for something special!
I have to tell you that my daughter called me from work while I was sitting in the car, waiting for another daughter to finish a violin lesson and said, "Mom! Your name is on the Like Mother, Like Daughter blog!" She was so excited and so am I! Thank, again.
I've never cooked gourmet recipes (not for lack of exposure! My dad was a chef...), but we live in the south and I have a fondness for finding old southern cookbooks...old church cookbooks with compilations of old-timey, simple recipes, always seasonal, always practical, and always fun to read because they usually have a story attached to them too. :)
They just don't write magazines like they used to. I picked up some old Country Living issues (early 80's)and they are so much better than the current ones. I, like you, like long articles and essays. If I want a picture book, I'll fish one out of my kids' shelves.
I definitely thought that Joy from the South had asked for the recipe for Balawa... and I was curious about how that was going to play out. (NB - My mother is rather jealous of her balawa recipe. It's the only one I've known her to guard with heirloom-appropriate secrecy!)
Gateau Paris-Brest is one of my absolute favorites. I think there may have been one or two Easters when my Mom has surveyed a menu, complete with several desserts already in place, and said, "Maybe we don't need to do the Gateau Paris-Brest this year..." and then I've (we've) thrown a How-Dare-You-Consider-Forgoing-A-Holiday-Staple tantrums that we LMLD girls are very good at throwing, and talked her into making it anyway. I could easily eat one by myself -- probably in one sitting. Even after the coffee cake, eggs, salmon, rolls, lamb, potatoes, balawa, etc. It is divine.
Hey, what's with the exclamation mark after "British"...?;) We're world leaders in food these days, you know.
Love your blog, and visit often.
God bless.
Haha, Puffin Hen! I am certainly willing to test your claim, but remember, these magazines are from the 50s, and there are literally dozens of articles about Britian...I think mostly about travel ;)
Totally with you about today's food magazines. You lucky, lucky girl. Those are elegant ladies you've found.
Some time ago, I pitched all my Country Living from the 80's. But don't feel too bad - good church/community cookbooks fill that void.
Here I am to gush! It never rains but it pours with me.:) I've been extra busy, not blogging, and hardly reading, but I came here to catch up. *happy sigh* It's always delightful to visit this place, Leila.
I loved hearing about your Easter celebration--makes me wish I'd stopped to take pictures on our really full-of-people-food-and-joy day. I can't seem to remember in the thick of things...And your philosophical discussion regarding the old and new Gourmet said it all just the way I'd thought it (only perhaps more charmingly) and made me smile. I'm so glad you take the time to write here!
We're having early spring here in Minnesota, too! Isn't it wonderful? It does a world of good for the long dark winter psyche...
Blessings from here!
Melissa
That's the way I felt when I had to give away all my original Victoria magazines before a move to another state.
It had also went downhill after a change of editors. The new version is good but nothing compares to those 1980s-1990s issues. I've been able to find them off and on.
Ms. Leila,
I was unfamilar with Gourmet magazine until becoming a reader of this blog. After your raves about the publication (as well as the recipe for Gateau Paris-Brest), I found myself lamenting the fact that I have never seen one old copy for sale. Today, while at a used book sale at my local library, I found two big, hardback editions of The Best of Gourmet--1988 & 1989--from Conde Nast Books. I was so excited! The best part? They were $1 and $2, respectively. I look forward to experimenting with them, and thank you for recommending them!
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