Grannie Goes Gourmet

Now that we are sadly done with Alcoa's foil-wrapped nightmares, I wanted a new seasonal book to kick off each month. Then I happened upon a library-bound volume of 1977's Gourmet magazines, so this year we are finding out what rich (or at least the pretentious, aspiring rich) people read about food in 1977.

You might notice that the January cover is surprisingly devoid of food for a magazine called "Gourmet." Well, I guess the buildings are munchable if you're a hut-devouring sea monster, but I don't think that's the target market. You'll notice that the subtitle of "The Magazine of Good Living" suggests this is more than just a food magazine.

In fact, I'd call it more of a travel magazine, as the issue implores readers to holiday in Tahiti, then go skiing in Taos and shopping in Lyons before it gets serious about offering any recipes.

Since I usually prefer much more downscale recipes, we're going to check out their "budget" food article, unpretentiously titled "Gastronomie Sans Argent."

In this world, being down on one's luck means serving chicken drenched in herb sauce from a French copper casserole.

The recipe is definitely upscale from what I usually see. You know the sauce would be canned cream of something soup in a church cookbook, but here we have a roux-thickened stock-and-sour-cream sauce with fresh dill.

Chicken fricassee is the money-saver of choice, as the article lists plenty of variations on this theme. My favorite is the one (in a very hard-to-scan spot) that includes sausage-based dumplings, as we all know that when you're trying to rein in the budget, it's cheaper to make dumplings with sausage than with plain old flour....

We're off to a Gourmet start. Now I'm just hoping 2018 will magically bring us all a Gourmet budget.