A Conversation with Barbara Fairchild
By Tara Lee To mark its fiftieth anniversary, Bon Appétit compiled over 1,200 of its most memorable recipes into a cookbook tome. The Bon Appétit Cookbook (John Wiley & Sons) celebrates decades of culinary influence with recipes that showcase the regional and international flavourings of Bon Appétit cuisine. The following are excerpts from a breakfast conversation that CityFood had with editor-in-chief Barbara Fairchild when she was in Vancouver to promote the new book.
CityFood: How do you first get started with Bon Appétit? Barbara Fairchild: I had been a journalism major in college, and was working at a magazine that I thought was going to be sold. I started sending out resumes and the editor of
Bon Appétit was one of the only people who answered. I went in for a courtesy interview, and it was understood that I would get the next opening at the bottom of the ladder. I really felt that I had a future there, and I guess I was right because twenty-eight years later I’m at the top of the masthead. Thank goodness the opening wasn’t in
Popular Mechanics! I would have lasted a month!
CF: What was it like being an editorial assistant? BF: Running the test kitchen was a big part of my job. We had freelance testers so I never actually tested a recipe in the test kitchen. The job was a lot of scheduling and making sure that everyone brought everything in on time. All of the recipes had to be edited into the
Bon Appétit language, typed on an electronic typewriter, and then sent to the printer off premises.
CF: Can you recount an early editorial experience? BF: When I first started with the magazine in the 1970s, we had a microwave cooking column. I was not familiar with microwave cooking at all, so I changed all the cooking terms because I didn’t understand that “High", “Medium", and “Low" were all markings on the microwave itself. My boss at the time said, “Why did you change this?" And I said, “Well, I didn’t think the recipe was that instructive" She responded, “No, no, no. That’s what the microwave says." Luckily, my masterful editing of the column never made it into the magazine. That was a really quick trial by microwave!
CF: What made you decide to publish this cookbook? BF: Three years ago, I thought that it would be a good idea to do a book around the same time that our fiftieth anniversary issue came out. I’ll be perfectly honest with you though, and tell you that there’s nothing in this book that’s fifty-years-old. I don’t think people want to cook recipes from fifty years ago. I would say that the book primarily dates from the last fifteen to twenty years. I wasn’t interested in having this book be a tome on the history of American cooking. I wanted it to be used in the kitchen.
CF: What was the magazine like when it first started in 1956? BF: My understanding is that the magazine was started by two gentlemen from the advertising business who were really interested in food, but primarily in wine and spirits. The first issues are hysterically funny because there is so much heavy duty liquor in them. Practically every recipe had some sort of alcohol in it. The magazine was about 24 pages long and cost 34 cents. Not much photography. For me, Bon Appétit really dates from 1975 when it moved to Los Angeles. The title was purchased from the Pillsbury Company by a man named Bud Knapp, who at the time owned
Architectural Digest.
CF: Bon Appétit is based in Los Angeles. How has your location affected the magazine? BF: I think the fact that the magazine is based in Los Angeles gives it a different voice and viewpoint. A lot of people are surprised that Bon Appétit is based in L.A. They naturally assume that it is based in New York, like many magazines are. When you stop and think about it, however, all of the companies that have made a huge impact on 21st century culture in America all started in the west: Amazon, Microsoft, Google. We have a real spirit of experimentation and pioneering.
CF: How do you think Bon Appétit has influenced the way its readers eat? BF: I know that part of our charge is to educate and it’s always hard to gauge whether we’re getting through to people. However, I remember once sitting in the test kitchen in 1979, and we were evaluating a recipe. I asked one of the other staff, “Is this a reader recipe? It has sun-dried tomatoes in it." And the woman who was cooking said, “Yes." That was a turning point because sun-dried tomatoes back then were a “new" ingredient that we had been talking about in our magazine. And here was a reader giving it back to us in the form of her own recipe.
CF: Do you think that your readers have changed a lot during these past fifty years?
BF: What is considered “American" cuisine has really changed. I had a real moment in the supermarket four or five months ago. I was standing behind a woman who had a little boy in her cart, and he was crying because his mother wouldn’t open the sushi. If it had been me at that age, I would have been crying because I couldn’t have the Tootsie pops. “Wow," I thought, “This little boy wants a spicy tuna roll and he wants it now!" Sushi to him was no different than having a hamburger, a taco, or a pizza. It’s all part of the big melting pot from which we all eat now.
CF: “ Bon Appétit" is a French expression. Do you think the name does justice to the increasingly more diverse and international spirit of the magazine? BF: I think the name has become very generic. To me, it’s not even a French term anymore. It’s just like saying, “Enjoy your meal." When the French decided not to go into Iraq, there was a lot of anti-French feeling in the United States. I would joke that I had no plans of changing the name of the magazine to Good Eats despite what was going on in politics.
CF: What do you think is the difference between Bon Appétit and Gourmet?
BF:
Bon Appétit is more accessible and approachable than
Gourmet. Our philosophy has always been, “Here’s how you can do it," not “here’s how we do it" or “here’s how they do it."
CF: How did you select the recipes for this cookbook?
BF: We started very logically by polling the staff, including the test kitchen, about what their favourites recipes were. A lot of the people in the test kitchen have been there fifteen to twenty years, so they all have great taste memories. We also know from many years of talking with our readers, what our readers like and what has struck a chord with them. We then put all of the recipes into their categories, and added some new material in a couple of places that needed filling in.
CF: If I had to do a blind recipe test, how would I be able to pick out the Bon Appétit one?
BF: Ease of use is what marks our recipes. We are very step-by-step with how we present our recipes and we have a lot of do-aheads. We have made a conscious effort to streamline the recipes and make them even more user friendly than they were in the past.
CF: Are you trying to gain new magazine readers through this cookbook? BF: There’s a free subscription offer for every purchase of the book. If you already subscribe to the magazine, you can extend your subscription for one year for free. I knew that readers of the magazine would really respond to 1,200 plus of their favourite recipes all in one place. However, part of the subscription offer was to entice people into buying the book and coming into our world of food.
CF: How is Bon Appétit responding to changes in technology? BF: I’ve spent a lot of 2006 getting bonappetit.com running to forge a great identity for that site. Now we’re doing podcasting, editor blogs, and slideshows that are very symbiotic with what’s happening in the magazine. We want to bring a younger person into Bon Appétit and the only way to do it these days is to get them through the internet.
CF: Will there always be room for a print version? BF: There is something about the tactile sensation of a magazine. There’s nothing like having a magazine in bed with you before you turn out the light. I don’t see that happening with a laptop.
CF: What are your overall aspirations for this book?
BF: I’m hoping that it will become the
Joy of Cooking for the modern era. This is food that is really relevant today.
Tara Lee lives in Vancouver and writes the blog Literary and Culinary Rambles .
