We're still mourning Gourmet, which ceased publication after 68 years in 2009. It was the food magazine we grew up on, the one that revealed what it was like to dine in Paris or Hong Kong or Goa long before we ever got there. And so we snatch up back issues whenever we come across them. Whether it's an eggnog recipe from 1955 contributed by Ella Brennan of New Orleans' Commander's Palace or a 1980 article by Asian food expert Nina Simonds on the Chinese way with fish, there is always something fascinating and useful inside. Stories by longtime contributors — Louis Diat, Lucius Beebe, Joseph Wechsberg, Caroline Bates, Jonathan Gold — represent some of the best food writing ever put to print.