(Grubstreet) - Looks like people did read at least one Hugh Hefner magazine for the articles. Food & Wine reminded readers today of a little-known fact about the Playboy founder, who passed away last night at 91: Believe it or not, he was also responsible for the glossy food magazine’s launch in 1978. The first issue ran in March of that year — as a supplement inside Playboy, which had the words “Special Insert: Preview Issue of ‘Food & Wine’ a New Magazine” on the cover, right next to “Sex Gadgets: The Good, the Bad, and the Boring.”

One of Food & Wine’s founders, Ariane Batterberry, writes out how she and her colleagues struggled to cobble money together for seven years. When Hef heard their pitch, he apparently agreed that America had enough middle-class epicureans to sustain a Gourmet rival that wasn’t into “truffled pomposity.” He let them stick a pullout of their International Review of Food and Wine into Playboy, which at the time had roughly 5 million subscribers.