Gourmet Magazine Hits the Garbage Dump...

"Gourmet will speak that Esperanto of the palate that makes the whole world kin..."
from the first issue, 1941.
In other words, pass me the cheeseburger, or in this case 'the McKinsey burger'.

Condé Nast just underwent a three-month study by McKinsey & Co. to see how it could cut costs (three other titles— Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, and Cookie—also will be closed). Well, tells you something about modern day marriage. There are "similarities between Gourmet and Condé’s other food title, Bon Appétit—and in this economy redundancy is death." You wanna say that again?

It's chilling (think refrig) to think what the food world will be like without Gourmet (you listening McDonald's), said Gabriella Gershenson in Time Out New York. "What will young people today who love food aspire to? Chinese tak-e-out-e, Cheaply won celebrity chefdom?" Reality TV? Blogs with nothing but restaurant gossip (did you see what's she is eating?). Let's hope people who "crave quality" find a way to fill the void, like dollar meals and KFC.

And here are some of the reader comments aimed squarely at McKinsey:

This choice was nothing but cheap cynicism motivated by a bunch of young semiliterate MBAs from McKinsey. Can you hear them? Nobody reads long articles. The type is too small. Cooking isn't about being a gourmet, it's about takeout food. A food magazine is about aspiring to set a nice table, not actually cook. When will somebody do an expose about McKinsey?

More than sad. Pathetic that publishing experts would rely on nonreading, nonpracticing, nonhuman MBAs who profess to know about magazines.

As we say, “Consultants are like the bottom half of a double boiler: They get all heated up but don't know what's cooking.”