Pleasure or Necessity ?
Food magazines inform, guide and entertain both amateur cooks and food lovers. Their core topic lies in the pleasure of cooking and eating. Yet, pleasures are always related to a set of necessities, such as food affordability, time or economic constraints, and so on. Far from being opposed, pleasure and necessity are always intertwined. However, their meaning and importance vary across time in accordance with the gastronomic, as well as the broader social and cultural context, which affect the way food journalists work and their dominant representation of the audience.