EATWELL SLOW FOOD
SUCCESSES, CRITICISMS & EVOLUTION Slow Food has certainly grown over the years, and it has evolved, too, just as the Fast Life speeds up. Yet the organisation is not without its critics. Key criticisms have included that Slow Food is: antiglobalisation; elitist, with the argument that spending time and money on food is a luxury for the rich; and a movement driven by first-world consumer values and Italian culture, influenced, for example, by a disdain for any meal that doesn’t involve sitting down at the table to eat. As Geoff Andrews writes, here’s how Slow Food has responded: • Slow Food isn’t anti-globalisation, per se, but it is critical of the current global capitalist economic system and its impacts. The movement, though, is global itself and aims to address the concerns of individuals worldwide. • The cheap prices at supermarkets are possible only because of the cheap labour that food companies employ in developing countries, and a lower percentage of incomes is spent per household on food now than in the past. In addition, there are serious health and environmental risks that accompany a Fast Food lifestyle. Changing attitudes towards food and
TIPS FOR TAKING IT SLOW Want to leave Fast Food behind? Here are some tips to get started: •Slow. It. Down. Take the time to source ingredients locally, cook your food with care and enjoy eating your meals in the company of others. •Engage. Become a co-producer, not a consumer, by getting to know your food as well as the local growers who produce it. •Get involved. Seek out Slow Food members, become a member of your local convivium or start one up yourself and join the movement towards a more sustainable, connected and enjoyable food future.
better lifestyles, Slow Food movement organisers argue, will only come about through education. • It was partly due to the last point — and the organisers’ desires to create a more holistic, embracing movement that extended beyond developed-world consumers — that in 2004 Slow Food held its first Terra Madre: a meeting of global producers, farmers, consumers, intellectuals and activists to “meet, unite, exchange experiences and share their knowledge”. That first Terra Madre represents a key turning point for Slow Food in that its organising principles changed to become “good, clean and fair”. Today, these guiding tenets still stand, as noted on the movement’s global website. “Good” means a fresh, flavourful, seasonal diet that satisfies the senses and is part of local culture. “Clean” means food production and consumption that doesn’t harm the environment, animal welfare or human health. “Fair” means accessible prices for consumers and fair conditions and pay for small-scale producers. It also represents a commitment to helping improve social and economic conditions of people in developing countries. Terra Madre has since grown into a network of 2000 food communities around the world that practise smallscale and sustainable production of quality food. Other programs and networks that Slow Food has fostered include: • Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, which involves thousands of producers and co-ordinates projects to defend local food traditions, protect local biodiversity and promote small-scale quality products. Its first project was the Ark of Taste, which aims to rediscover, catalogue, describe and publicise products that are at risk of extinction and represent important traditional and cultural symbols. • Slow Food Youth Network, the youth arm of Slow Food, which unites young food enthusiasts, chefs, activists, students and producers who raise awareness of important food issues and introduce young people to the world of gastronomy. • University of Gastronomic Sciences, an international education facility in northern Italy that mirrors the Slow Food mission and focuses on the links between food and cultures.
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Terra Madre has since grown into a network of 2000 food communities around the world that practise small-scale and sustainable production of quality food.
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farms and producers, group meals and tastings, and events that educate people about farming methods, sustainability and where their food comes from. Cook, author and restaurateur Maggie Beer introduced Slow Food to Australia in 1995 and 18 convivia now exist here.
HOW TO SLOW FOOD DOWN Activism is where Slow Food started and it remains at the beating heart of the movement 30 years on, with its members worldwide working to help shift the ideologies and actions of corporations, governments and individuals towards eco-gastronomy: re-valuing food as a giver of pleasure and good health, not a peripheral commodity, and in so doing protecting cultural, political and environmental wellbeing. On a practical level, as Petrini points out in Slow Food: The Case for Taste, Slow Food starts in the home. It’s about returning to traditional recipes, locally grown foods and wines, and eating as a social, pleasurable event. And it’s this way, through food, that the movement serves to remind us all to consider where our food comes from and how its production impacts on our health and the wider environment. So if you want to bring a slower, more conscious style of eating and living back, begin today, knowing you have a movement many thousands strong beside you.
RESOURCES Slow Food Australia, slowfoodaustralia.com.au Slow Food International, slowfood.com Slow Food: The Case for Taste, Carlo Petrini The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure, Geoff Andrews
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