Has anyone seen this Epicurious article? (more)

Thanks so much for sharing this. Fascinating reading, especially after watching the TV drama

"Halt and Catch Fire" that is set in the 1980s. This season was partly about the beginnings of chat rooms growing out of gaming sites because people were willing to pay the gaming fees to participate in the chat room. It made me think of Gail's chat when I watched it. It seems to me there were people who went there that weren't interested in cooking.

Was the chat room at Epicurious a forerunner of the Gail's site or were they started at the same time?

And is there anyone here who remembers the Alaskan Airlines incident? That's funny.

 
Thanks Cathy - that was interesting! It appears they have no Forums on the site any longer

or if they do, I couldn't locate them

I thought it was particularly interesting the mention at some point in the article about the traffic at Gail's taking down their servers at one point. I wonder what would have happened if they had dealt with the whole switch over to a new format in a better way.

I'm very grateful to Eat.at & Paul for making this space and tool available for us.

 
I don't know. Maybe I hold a grudge too long. I read this and still felt like...

...they didn't truly appreciate what they had at Gail's, and they never gave a rat's rump about taking proper care of it.

I know, I know. What did I pay to get in? Nothing. But it still seems like a ridiculous WASTE of an amazing resource.

And I still hear a bit of SNOBBERY in that article. Still.

I started lurking when I got my first internet connection, in August of 1995. It was RvB who got me to participate. It was a string in March of 1996.

I had no idea I was part of something ground breaking.

Michael

 
The chat room came out of Gail's Swap. The "regulars" wanted a way to interract...

...in "real time", so that they could continue discussing recipes and techniques without having to reload the Swap and get incredibly long strings running off the page.

IMHO, it devolved into a snarky, cliquish mess where, at it's worst, certain regulars would discuss starting flame wars on Gail's Swap. It got ugly a lot in those days. Most of it was from Swap participants, but some famous incidents started in Chat.

There were people who logged on to Chat who never participated in the forum, and vice versa. Some 'regulars' in Chat were there practically every day, and for HOURS on end!

To each, his own, I guess.

Michael

 
Me too...

I got my Internet connection in December 1995. DH asked what I wanted for my birthday, and when I asked for an Internet connection, complained that a guy at work said the Internet was boring, and he'd be paying for it for the rest of his life. He was right about the second part.

I started lurking on Gail's early in 1996, and thought I was coming late to the swap. smileys/smile.gif

I am so thankful for all of you, and especially for Michael, who told me how to get back with you on FK.

 
Me three (more)

I found Gail' s around 95-96 too and thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was my first chat room experience and those days I printed off almost every recipe that was posted. I still have some of those 'keepers'.

 
Does any magazine have a community any more--Fine Cooking's was

closed also.
I think the server problem was early on when there was not much knowledge in how to deal with traffic. It was a question of volume which surprised them.

 
Ditto at this end. In 1995 Gourmet magazine ran a ad about *Epicurious* and I thought

the NAME was so BRILLIANT that I ripped it out and kept it at my work desk (the only place I could access the Internet.)

I still have copies of recipes I printed out WAY BACK THEN.

My very first posting was a request if anyone had a Hellman's mayo recipe for Carrot cake. (Yes, I know...mayo? But it' actually clever...mayo takes the place of the oil and eggs.) I had used that recipe for years and it was buried in one of my storage boxes while I was working in NJ for LM.

Some kind person replied back and told me I was actually posting in the 'CHAT ROOM" and that I should put my request out at Gail's Swap. No one ever replied with the recipe (I found it!) but the friends I've made since then are priceless.

 
Me, too - "but the friends I've made since then are priceless"

How fortunate it is that we all found each other and how much richer life has been because of it! Ah, food and friends - nothing better! Colleen

 
Cooking Light and Taste of Home have forums. From what I've seen, posters are polite and

considerate of other posters, unlike some on the boards that have been shut down, such as Fine Cooking and Cook's Illustrated.

 
I also posted a question on the chat and was directed to the swap. I was immediately hooked.

I posted as "curious" because I was asking a question and continued to use that name. Much later, while doing a search, I realized someone had already been posting with that name. I am sorry for that.

 
Oh, and a typical chat session late in the game would be several regulars taking about everything..

...under the sun. It was a 'friends room'. I rarely saw any food being discussed.

Michael

 
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