NEW YORK — Gourmet, the nation's oldest food magazine, is closing.

That's according to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, which reported today Gourmet's owner, Conde Nast Publications, is shuttering the title along with Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Cookie, a parenting magazine.

Conde Nast had no immediate comment.

Consultants from McKinsey & Co. have been helping the magazine publisher identify ways to cut costs in a brutal media slump.

Gourmet's ad pages were down 50 percent in the second quarter from the year before, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

Conde Nast Publications, run by billionaire S.I. Newhouse Jr., also publishes such magazines as Vogue, The New Yorker and Wired and is a unit of privately held Advance Publications.