The One Food Magazine You Need to Buy in March — Between the Covers

What are food magazines for?

In an age when every recipe in the world is just a Google search away, and you can instantly download almost any cookbook that's ever been printed, what exactly is the role that food magazines play?

What's the point of them?

Well, for one thing, they can still open your eyes to new food traditions, unfamiliar ingredients, and exciting new chefs. They're a monthly way to curate the world of food and cut through some of the noise. And that is a wonderful, valuable thing.

But sometimes they can do more.

Food magazines can convey vital stories that need to be told. They can shine a spotlight on the defining issues of the moment — even troubling, controversial ones — that are reshaping the world of food. This was a hallmark of the Ruth Reichl era at Gourmet, with stories like Barry Estabrook's award-winning 2011 exposé on the plight of people working in the Florida tomato industry. With Gourmet becoming a more and more distant memory, important coverage like this seems to have become less frequent.

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