Before Bon Appétit, before Saveur, before Food & Wine, there was Gourmet magazine. It’s the original foodie bible, the first to launch in the U.S. back in 1941. Month after month, the publication brought its readers mouthwatering recipes, beautiful imagery and now-iconic essays (such as David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster) — but it also went beyond that, covering travel and all things, as the tagline went, “good living.” For seven decades, with contributors as wide-ranging as James Beard and Anita Loos, Gourmet inspired generations of devotees — and delivered a page-turning experience as dreamy as the cover here.

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