About Slow Food

Contents

What is Slow Food, Anyway?

"Slow Food is a non–profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 by Carlo Petrini to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.  Each of our 100,000+ Slow Food members around the world are a part of a chapter (convivium). Our chapters (convivia), including Slow Food Utah, are the local expression of the Slow Food philosophy.  We build relationships with producers, campaign to protect traditional foods, organize tastings and seminars, encourage chefs to source locally and provide assistance, nominate producers to participate in international events and work to bring taste education into schools.  Most importantly, we cultivate the appreciation of pleasure and quality in daily life.  Every Slow Food member can participate in convivium activities anywhere in the world."

"The mission of Slow Food is good, clean, and fair food at fair prices. Slow Food people are connoisseurs of taste, protectors of food heritage, and champions of local producers."

"Through its understanding of gastronomy with relation to politics, agriculture and the environment, Slow Food has become an active player in agriculture and ecology. Slow Food  links pleasure and food with awareness and responsibility. The association’s activities seek to defend biodiversity in our food supply, spread the education of taste, and link producers of excellent foods to consumers through events and initiatives."
      (From the Slow Food Mission Statement.)

"Slow Food  is a very big creature, large enough to accommodate more than one point of view as to what it is exactly. Like the blind man patting the elephant to determine its nature, anyone who’s drawn to Slow Food can probably find what they’re looking for based on their own interests. To the gastronome, Slow Food might have to do with artisanal foods and wines. To the person seeking a tempo of life that is more in step with life’s natural rhythms, unlike America’s present fast-paced model, Slow Food offers a sympathetic response. For those whose concerns run to the historical aspects of food, traditional methods of cheese making might be of particular interest, or the examination of traditional foods and food methods found in different regions of the country. Those whose historical quests are more aligned with animals and plants will find that Slow Food, through its Ark of Taste initiative, provides a place to actively debate the merits of old breeds, from turkeys to sheep, or oysters to apples, and to become actively involved with their preservation. If your concerns are with the politics of social change, you may find yourself in harmony with Slow’s commitment to land stewardship and food that’s grown by sound and sustainable methods. And all seekers join hands at the table, for Slow Food sees ’the kitchen and the table as centers of pleasure, culture, and community.’ The lens through which Slow Food views the world of food is a wide one indeed."
      (From "Slow Food Collected Thoughts on Taste, Tradition, and the Honest Pleasures of Food," Edited by Carlo Petrini, with Ben Watson and Slow Food Editore. From the forward by Deborah Madison.)

"Slow Food is the intersection of ethics and pleasure, of ecology and gastronomy. A stand against the homogenization of taste, the unrestrained power of the multinationals, industrial agriculture and the folly of fast life. Slow Food  returns cultural dignity to food and the slow rhythms of conviviality to the table. Slow Food welcomes with equal ease Japanese chefs and the fishermen of the Chilean Islands, sommeliers from the greatest French maison and Siberian dairymaids. It is a universe of people who exchange knowledge and experience. It is a humanity that has raised the basic enjoyment of food to a political act. It recognizes that behind every dish are the choices made in fields, on ships, in vineyards, at schools and in parliaments."
      (From the "Slow Food Companion.")

Slow Food obviously connotes a contrast to "Fast Food." Slow Food  is about considering Social, Economic and Political aspects of Food. It is about Making Connections. Connecting Plate to Planet. Linking Producers and Consumers. Linking and Supporting Farmers and Chefs. Building Community through Food. It is about Discovery and Traditions. Discovering and Preserving Traditions of food production and preparation. Traditions of Celebrating with food and food itself. Expanding individual vocabularies of food types and varieties. Discovery of foods that are new and different to what individuals have come to know. Slow Food  is about Local Foods, and examining the efficacy of transporting foods great distances.
    Slow Food is about the difference between foods picked before they are ripe, shipped, stored and shipped again, versus finding foods closer to home, shipping them shorter distances and having higher quality foods.
    Slow Food is about Healthy Food and Healthy Eating. Considering the health implications of highly processed foods and their true costs both economically and physiologically.
    Slow Food is about considering the implications of the use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical treatments of food, and the related impacts on soils, the bio-sphere and human health.
    Slow Food is about putting human health above corporate profits.
    Slow Food is about preserving ancient genetic food lines both vegetable and animal, defense and preservation of biodiversity.
    Slow Food is about making Choices. Discovering that we can choose not to live a fast life. Choosing to eat as if life depended upon it.

Slow Food is simply about taking the time to slow down and to enjoy life with family and friends. Everyday can be enriched by doing something slow – making pasta from scratch one night, seductively squeezing your own orange juice from the fresh fruit, lingering over a glass of wine and a slice of cheese – even deciding to eat lunch sitting down rather than standing up.
    * Join a local Slow Food  Chapter. * Trace your food sources. * Visit a local farmers’ market. * Join a CSA. * Invite a friend over to share a meal. * Visit a farm in your area. * Create a new food memory for a child! Let them plant seeds or harvest greens for a meal. * Start a kitchen garden. * Learn your local food history! * Find a food that is celebrated as being originally from or best grown/produced in your part of the world. *

  "The Slow Food Companion" offers a well-done and concise overview of what Slow Food is all about. The "Slow Food Companion" is available in hard-copy to new members upon joining, and may also be downloaded as a PDF file in English, along with several other languages: Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Another excellent publication is "An Overview of the Slow Food Movement," which begins with the founding of Slow Food by Carlo Petrini in Italy, in 1986.

For an excellent over–view of many of the issues addressed by Slow Food, please read the September 11, 2006 issue of The Nation, "The Food Issue."  More information is available in the Slow Food Utah article "The Nation: The Food Issue," under the "Listen - Read - View - Discuss" Topic.]