Marcus Samuelsson
Despite the fact that men are just as likely to be found in the kitchen as women, publishers haven’t always embraced the male gourmand.
But recently, a new crop of food-centric outlets—from Bon Appétit to David Chang’s McSweeney’s collaboration Lucky Peach—are finally ditching the feminine aesthetic to attract an audience of both genders.
“The notion that guys are into food is not new,” says Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport, who’s been behind a recent rebranding of the magazine. “Maybe it’s just that right now, the publishing world finally understands that they can tap into that sort of enthusiasm.”
Marcus Samuelsson’s recently launched site Food Republic goes even further, not just including guys, but specifically targeting them with articles like “Salsa, the Best Sports-Watching Food” and “Women We’d Cook For.”
“Men interact with food a little bit differently,” Samuelsson says. “It might be gadget-driven, it might be knife-driven, or it might be, ‘We want to know about burgers.’ No matter who you are, food is part of our conversation, and as a guy, you don’t want to be left out.”
