It was the National Geographic of food magazines, the one that never got thrown away. Julia Child learned to cook French food from it, while legions of readers devoured articles about "Gastronomie Sans Argent" -- or more recently, pointed polemics on the ethics of eating lobster.

Monday, though, Gourmet Magazine's 69-year run as America's upscale food bible came to a sudden, unsavory ending when staffers were told by their bosses at Conde Nast Publishing that its last day would be Friday. Even its celebrated editor, Ruth Reichl, tweeted her followers that she was "stunned, sad."

But truly surprised?

"Everybody saw that changes were coming, that there were financial troubles," said Anne Mendelson, a noted food historian who frequently contributed articles to the magazine. "Everyone was sort of saying, 'brace yourself.' "

While readers and members of the food establishment mourned Gourmet's demise, don't write an obituary for printed food magazines just yet.

"I think the magazine industry's decline may be bottoming out," said media analyst Ed Atorino, noting that the latest numbers for the third quarter's ad revenues will be released Saturday-- while adding that magazines heavily dependent on high-end advertising have suffered the most.

Conde Nast remains committed for now to Bon Appetit, a larger, mass-market publication that focuses on entertaining and recipes. While it also suffered a drop in ad pages in the first half of the year, they were smaller, at 35 percent compared to Gourmet's 46 percent decline. Saveur, which chronicles the world's cuisines -- and whose back issues are as coveted as Gourmet's were -- has experienced its best year ever, protected, perhaps, by a subscription price of $30 for nine issues.

"We have the most affluent audience in the entire category," said Merri Lee Kingsly, publisher of Saveur, which is owned by a private Swedish company. "We're not about putting tomatoes on a piece of bread. To read us, you have to get into a story about lamb and the heritage of lamb and all the different ways it's used around the world."

Saveur, she noted, isn't a "glamorous" magazine. It doesn't have -- and never did have -- blingy ads for Chanel, Cartier and Napa Valley wine weekends, which made Gourmet vulnerable when the luxury market collapsed last year.

Ms. Reichl, former New York Times restaurant critic and author of several best-selling memoirs, is credited with revitalizing Gourmet when she arrived nearly 10 years ago. She added colorful photo layouts and politically provocative journalism -- during her tenure it won three National Magazine Awards -- while always revering the magazine's past, digging deep into Gourmet's archives for recipes for various anniversary issues and a hugely successful cookbook published in 2006.

But even Ms. Reichl's nervy energy wasn't enough to forestall the magazine's demise, exacerbated not just by the recession but by the proliferation of upscale food and recipe blogs on the Internet. Moreover, stories about $14.50 steaks didn't seem to fit with Gourmet's mission.

"This was a magazine that was really iconic, that catered to people who were really into the world of food and losing themselves by going somewhere else," Ms. Kingsly noted. "You started seeing articles about cheap eats and about people hovering at home rather than getting on planes and traveling."

"I don't know that the quality of the magazine declined. There was an awful lot of good writing even up to the end," said Ms. Mendelson. "But the focus changed, and frankly every editor nowadays, every publisher, every editor-in-chief is just up against it trying to keep people reading print magazines."

Still, Gourmet "was not as close to the ground as it needed to be," said Maggie Green, who edited the latest versions of "The Joy of Cooking" cookbook and now runs its blog, JoyKitchen.com. "A lot of it didn't seem very real, or seemed out of reach to most people."

While Jane and Michael Stern's road trips ferreting out America's favorite greasy spoons in Gourmet were aimed at a more budget-conscious reader, "a lot of people would look at the magazine and think, hey, I can't jump on a plane and go to Thailand tomorrow."

In fact, Gourmet did try, from its first issue in 1940, not just to appeal to elites, said David Strauss, a history professor at Kalamazoo College. There were many articles about cooking food from victory gardens and rationing.

Gourmet also had a powerful influence on Julia Child, a longtime subscriber, who complained, however, that many of the French recipes were shoddy.

"This drove her to write recipes that she thought would reach the novice housewife -- and the rest is history," Mr. Strauss added.

The Gourmet brand isn't going away, only morphing into new forms on television and the Internet. "Gourmet's Adventures with Ruth" will premiere on PBS later this month, and its Web site, Epicurious.com, remains. And there's a new cookbook, the 1,000-page "Gourmet Today," which was released Sept. 22 -- although it also includes a free subscription to the magazine with purchase.

Indeed, it was telling that one of those saddest about Gourmet's demise was Lidia Bastianich, owner of a chain of celebrated, eponymous restaurants (including one in Pittsburgh) and cookbooks.

"It was like hearing of the loss of a dear friend and somehow being far, not being able to say goodbye," said Ms. Bastianich. "It will be a tremendous loss for our industry and America."

Ms. Bastianich, it should be noted, was in Italy -- filming her new television show, "Lidia's Italy."

Washington correspondent Daniel Malloy writes the "Pittsburgh On The Potomac" blog exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.