Slow Food

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Some great ideas to take on board.

 

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18900

 

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Slow on the Uptake

 

By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, The Nation

June 8, 2004

 

Slow Food, a growing international movement, is perhaps best defined as an

alternative to its fast counterpart. McDonald's means unhealthy fare,

ecological exploitation and usurpation of local idiosyncrasies; Slow Food

means nutritious and tasty diets, preservation of food-source biodiversity

and locally, sustainably grown food.

 

Slow Food's adherents are far-sighted hedonists, committed to protecting

the sources of their treasured foods and fine wine. Gustatory pleasure is

the cornerstone of Slow Food's philosophy, and environmentalism the

corollary – call it eco-gastronomy.

 

Mirroring Slow Food's multifaceted philosophy, the movement's followers

promote its message in various ways. From chapters throughout the world,

they plant gardens, hold tastings and educational events, disseminate

manifestos and publish newsletters and guidebooks. This summer, events

include the Second Annual Italian Wine Tour, hitting cities throughout the

country, and a New York Taste and Learn Series Seminar focusing on the

local dairies.

 

Another new Slow Food project is a guidebook, recently published by

Chelsea Green, for " slow " New York City restaurants, bars and markets. The

book, the first in a series, evaluates establishments on criteria

typically unnoted by the likes of Zagat's, such as sustainability and

conviviality. Patrick Martins, head of Slow Food USA and co-editor of the

guidebook, recently talked to The Nation about both the movement and the

book.

 

RTD: Can you talk about the origins of the Slow Food movement?

 

PM: Slow Food was founded by a journalist named Carlo Petrini in 1986, as

a joke reaction to the opening of a McDonald's franchise near the Spanish

Steps in Rome. Because fast food was a household name, he wanted Slow Food

to become a household name as well. And so he started Slow Food through a

pasta-eating protest in front of the Spanish Steps.

 

At the time, Slow Food was very much a gastronomic organization. It was

about long, drawn-out meals, drinking delicious wine, cheeses, staying up

until the wee hours of the morning talking about philosophy. Eventually,

they understood that being purely gluttonous was not sustainable, and was

not going to change the world. And Carlo looked around the world and saw

that biodiversity was being threatened, and that we were losing many

varieties of fruits and vegetables and farm animals, and so he decided

that something needed to be done. That's when Slow Food became more of an

environmentally conscious organization, and now we define ourselves as an

eco-gastronomic organization, dedicated to preserving food and food

traditions from soil all the way to the table.

 

Can you talk about the differences between the movement in the United

States and the one in Italy? Italy seems like a country you'd think of as

being ideally suited to something like this, and the US, as the home of

fast food, less so.

 

It is a little different, Italy and the US. The US has a rich array of

terroirs and tastes. It's just that in Italy people embrace these things

more. Everyone knows what cheese is being raised in their backyard.

Everybody knows what wine is local to their environment. What Slow Food in

the US is trying to do is get people to understand that we have that same

diversity, that same richness. The US is not just the fast food center

that people think. We have farmers' markets, we have the richest

beer-brewing culture in the world, great bread culture, a great artisanal

cheese culture that's growing. Bourbon whiskey. We have some of the best

wines in the world here now. So I think there's general quality of the

foods. It's just that I don't think it's embraced in the same way as in

Italy.

 

Can you say a little more about what exactly Slow Food USA does? I know

you published the New York City guidebook...

 

We publish a newsletter called The Snail, which is really its own magazine

now. We have projects, like the Ark of Taste, where we list products in

danger of extinction because of the industrialization of our food supply.

We have a children's education program. Short-term, we're opening school

gardens and we're trying to teach children the importance of traceability

in the food supply. The long-term goal of that is to introduce dietary

education – lunch class – as a part of the curriculum, just like math or

science. Then obviously our individual chapters – there are 125 in the USA

– organize events on a local level: tastings, barbecues, picnics, but

always with an educational component in mind.

 

We live in a very puritanical society here in the US, and pleasure is

something to be avoided. And we're saying that it's OK to enjoy things. In

fact, all of the foods we promote taste good. We really believe in

promoting local, great-tasting foods. So we're a very positive

organization. We don't believe in being dire, like many environmentalists.

We believe that in order to be an eco-gastronome in the twenty-first

century, you have to have respect for where your food comes from, but you

also have to enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, then what's the point? The

exact reason it's important to save those farms is that they're producing

the greatest-tasting, best-cared-for food in the world, and if we lose

them then we're left to factory farms and genetically modified foods.

 

Maybe we can talk about the guide now. You mentioned in your introduction

that it might seem counterintuitive to associate Slow Food with New York

City, but that New York is actually a very " slow " city.

 

I think it's the slowest city of all. It's the care that people put into

preparing their food, and the great availability of produce through one of

the biggest and oldest green-market systems in the country.

 

Sustainability is the reason the guide was written. So that's why, if an

establishment excelled above and beyond the call of duty for

sustainability, we gave a snail rating [the book's equivalent of a

Michelin star] to those eateries. Babbo is a restaurant like that. The

vegetarian restaurant Angelica's is definitely on that level. I'm not a

vegetarian, but in terms of the sustainability aspect, Angelica's excels.

There are also some very cheap restaurants like Zum Schneider, an

inexpensive German restaurant in the East Village that purchases all its

foods locally, and buys Amish pretzels and local meats. We're trying to

encourage restaurants to earn the snail rating. In New York, obviously, it'

s hard to ignore tradition and conviviality, so places like Katz's

delicatessen and Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse do well. And we put a lot of

effort into remembering those great bagel shops and knisheries, and real

old-school delis and restaurants. But the reason for the book was to get

people to buy locally. Local foods from local farms taste better. And that

is a very inspirational reason to stay healthy.

 

Are other guides going to follow this?

 

The Chicago guide is being published this month. And the Northern

California guide will come out in the spring of 2005.

 

Slow food is not a protest organization, although we do often support in

spirit organizations that do protest big business. We are also not

anti-globalization – we believe in a virtuous globalization, where small

farmers and producers get the same advantages as the big guys. Our efforts

so far in the USA have revolved around increasing business and attention

for the farmers and producers who deserve it.

 

Does the movement have any plans to get involved in electoral politics in

the United States?

 

I think the extent of it will be that we will come out with statements on

obesity and about the direction that the United States should be going in

terms of agriculture. We'll also issue manifestos, mission statements and

declarations. But I think we'll still always stay connected to the

pleasure aspect.

 

Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, a Nation intern in fall of 2003, is a freelance

writer based in New York City.

 

 

 

 

" From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in

August. "

--ANDREW H. CARD JR.,White House chief of staff, on why the Bush

administration waited until September to press for public support of its

Iraq policy.