Unexpected discovery is part of the pleasure...

I visited my grandmother often when she was still alive. She had a vast knowledge of the most weirdest facts, especially anything kitchen or food related.

When I was a kid, I remember scramming through a box with recipe cards. It was a subscription recipe collection which came in the post every month. A pack of recipes with a mix of cooking, baking, preserving etc. And her box was almost full.

Did she use any of these recipes? Absolutely not as she understood cooking better than some of the food writers I have met since.

People who knew my grandmother kept telling me how similar to her I am. I too collect recipes. I have over 400 cookbooks but still buy food magazines, especially when I am abroad.

You might think, ‘why would someone buy cookery magazines when she has so many cookbooks and the internet being full of recipes’?

Online, you can search for almost anything food-related and be presented with thousands of results. A good magazine has already done the filtering. Editors, writers and photographers have chosen what they believe is worth your time.

They also encourage discovery. You may pick up a magazine intending to read one recipe and end up fascinated by an article about Korean fermentation, a new cheese producer in Ireland or a restaurant you had never heard of.

The unexpected discovery is part of the pleasure. Food magazines abroad reflect the food culture of their country. A food magazine from Ireland can reveal something about Irish tastes, producers and current concerns, while a magazine from Italy, France, Germany, the UK or the US may have very different priorities.

What is considered important enough for a cover story can tell us quite a lot about a country's food culture. Magazines can introduce readers to producers who don't have enormous marketing budgets. A feature on a small cheesemaker, baker, brewery or family-run food business can give them visibility that they might never achieve through traditional advertising.

And there is something rather lovely about buying a food magazine. No password required, no wi-fi connection, no notification popping up to tell you that someone has just posted a video of a three-ingredient pasta recipe. Just a cup of tea, a comfortable chair and several pages of food waiting to be discovered.

I have a few lovely Canadian food magazines from a previous visit. We visited a supermarket and I saw a stand with magazines and grabbed three. The price at the cashier shocked me a bit as I didn’t expect to fork out over $40 but when I started reading them, I noticed that almost no advertising was present.

It is expensive to publish a good food magazine. Recipes need to be tested a few times, food styling, photography, copy text, typesetting and printing is all time and cost consuming. Hence, our magazines tend to have almost what seems like an overload on ads.

Do I have a favourite magazine? YesChef would be one of them. Not only because I know the editor and publisher but because the recipes are restaurant standard.

And an American one that is dedicated solely to pumpkins. Both of these make a wonderful read on a rainy afternoon with a steaming cup of tea.