The slow food movement

Introduction

In a delicious blend of political awareness, social consciousness, and sensuality, the International Slow Food Movement was founded in 1986 by leftist journalist Carlo Petrini in a determined effort to wage intellectual war on the homogenization of food around the world. Spurred by the opening of Italy's first McDonald's in Rome, Carlo started the organization determined to save regional foods and small producers from extinction and to revive and celebrate taste and the senses.

Discussion

The backbone of the non-profit organization, headquartered in the Piedmont region in Northern Italy, is a world-wide collection of small convivia, or chapters, each a group of people who meet informally to share and promote local small producers, to learn about culinary traditions and culture, and to arrange tastings. Numerous events, open to the public, are organized each year around the world, such as the three-day Slow Food Festival of German Food, a small-scale version of the annual Il Salone del Gusto. That five-day extravaganza of taste, guaranteed to light up even the most jaded palate, has 300 food stalls and 325 food workshops on subjects ranging from 'Monastery Cheeses' to 'Palestine and Israel: Table Talks', as well as dozens of special meals at restaurants throughout the city, plus tasting workshops for children(Andrews 118).

The Ark of Taste project, which is an important aspect of Slow Food was introduced to identify and publicize endangered foods such as tuna roe and Moselle red peaches, and to encourage people to seek them out, with the theory that if the market demands, supply will increase(Petrini 45-56).

Another important component of Slow Food is the commitment to teach children about taste and food and to develop their senses and their appreciation of food and the pleasures of the table. Slow food festivals, whether international or national, always have sessions for children on tasting. Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse restaurant, ardent supporter of vegetable gardens and kitchens at elementary schools, and founder of the new Berkeley convivium, reports enthusiastically that Slow Food has developed an instructional book of tasting for children which is now being translated into English and will soon be available. It is already in use in Italy.

Carl Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement explains the slow food philosophy as, “It is useless to force the rhythms of life. The art of living is about learning how to give time to each and every thing.”

The Slow Food movement has three main focuses(Petrini 112-119):

1. Being attentive to the harvesting and manufacturing practices of the food industry, and choosing to support those farmers and manufacturers that are most gentle to the Earth's land and water.

2. Properly compensating food producers. .

3. Eating food that both tastes good, and is nutritionally nourishing.

The founders of the Slow Food movement strongly believe that convenience foods and the modern way of getting food from it's rawest form to the form that appears on our dinner plate is slowly eroding our food supply, as many traditional food choices and methods of preparation are being pushed ...