Food Magazines Begin to Consider Cooks’ Budgets. (NY Times)

After covering eating trends that have included haute pub food, exotic fruits like yuzu, and restaurants that dehydrated, foamed and froze everything from meat to dessert, upscale food magazines are writing about an even more unexpected topic: cheap home eating.

Reflecting the bad economy, Gourmet, which usually writes about expensive restaurants and faraway travel, has added a feature about what to do with leftovers, and put a ham sandwich — albeit a fancy one — on its March cover.

Food & Wine’s March issue includes an essay on buying the cheapest bottle on a wine list. Bon Appétit’s April cover trumpets a “low-cost, big-flavor” pizza party.