The Globe and Mail and Los Angeles Times reviews of The Slow Food Story

posted by Geoff Andrews at Monday, September 01, 2008

The Globe and Mail 30 August


Slow down, you're eating too fast


By SASHA CHAPMAN
Saturday, August 30, 2008

THE SLOW FOOD STORY
Politics and Pleasure
By Geoff Andrews
McGill-Queen's University Press,


Never before has grocery shopping been so politicized, as a growing number of people (mostly middle-class and educated) shell out dollar after dollar to buy sustainably grown heirloom tomatoes and fair trade espressos. These are the critical consumers, a new class of people who - however jaded by conventional politics - vote with their shopping carts. Whether they realize it or not, their choices have been influenced in part by the global Slow Food movement and its charismatic Italian leader, Carlo Petrini.

Geoff Andrews, author of The Slow Food Story, sees Petrini as heir to the "personal-is-political" counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, and its expansive view of politics, "which sees the private, personal and local as sites of political struggle."

Andrews, a British writer who has been following contemporary Italian politics for years, is clearly a believer, dubbing Slow Food "one of the most significant global political movements of modern times" and a "complex and prescient response to life in the era of globalisation." His fascination with the movement's ever-widening appeal is infectious, as he traces the history of Slow Food from its origins in Piedmont's leftist politics to an organization that is now 84,000 strong, with an active presence in more than 120 countries around the world.

The movement began two decades ago with a manifesto penned in response to the opening of a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome. From the very beginning, it was about more than just food; it was a critique of a way of living. "We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life."

Andrews argues that Slow Food is radically different from other leftist political organizations because it sees the universal right to pleasure - especially traditional pleasures, such as sipping a well-made Barolo wine - as its central tenet. This in a Western society that often views pleasure and politics - or pleasure and virtue, for that matter - as diametrically opposed.

Slow Food could have easily lived out a life of irrelevancy as an elite gourmet club, where well-heeled members gathered to muse over the complexities and differences between tupelo and orange blossom honey. And there are probably convivia (as the local Slow Food chapters are called) around the world that are just that. But as the movement has evolved over the last two decades to adopt its principles of "good, clean and fair" food, it has become clear that Slow Food's political agenda runs far deeper than its critics first gave it credit.

Many of the misconceptions surrounding Slow Food stem from its central tenet, the universal right to pleasure. In the West (or at least in English-speaking, historically Protestant countries), we have a tendency to equate the pursuit of good food and its pleasures with elitism. We forget that food is central to all cultures, and to people at all levels of society.

I blame Christianity for the dichotomy, which has always taken a dim view of life's pleasures. Just look at the modern definition of an epicure (which is really a Christian reinterpretation of the term) as "one who is devoted to sensual pleasure" or "one with sensitive and discriminating tastes, especially in food or wine." This is a far cry from the teachings of Epicurus and his followers, who sought pleasure in living wisely and justly and with knowledge.

Petrini's concept of pleasure is also intellectual. In his own writings, he makes a distinction between the gourmet and the gastronome. While a gourmet may spend half a day tracking down a perfectly ripe raw milk roquefort to serve with his orange blossom honey, the gastronome knows that roquefort was a victim in a trade war with the United States, and that it was the impetus behind sheep farmer Jose Bove's famous decision to drive his tractor into a half-built McDonald's in Millau, France. A gastronome doesn't just consume raw milk cheeses; he enters into the debate over whether raw milk sales should be legal in Canada and supports farmers like Michael Schmidt who are agitating for change to legislation.

For Petrini, a gastronome is someone who is culturally aware - someone who has a more profound and holistic understanding of food in a global context, uniting the two principles of pleasure and ecological context. Heady stuff. But while Slow Food philosophy can veer into navel-gazing territory, there is no disputing the movement's many accomplishments in promoting "good, clean and fair" foods. In Toronto, where I live, Slow Food has contributed to a vibrant and political food scene, supporting beleaguered farmers like Michael Schmidt and almost single-handedly rescuing foods like Red Fife Wheat from extinction.

Andrews believes that the future strength of Slow Food lies in the marriage of ecologic concerns with gastronomic ones: eco-gastronomy. But Andrews' story of Slow Food, like the movement itself, depends heavily on Petrini himself for interest. (Like any successful political leader, Petrini is a master of the witty aphorism.) It is hard to imagine either the book or the movement succeeding without him.

In recent years, Petrini has tried to shift the balance of the Slow Food movement from consumers to producers, staging, most famously, Terra Madre, a biennial think tank that brings together farmers and artisans from all over the world - imagine Nepali yak herders rubbing shoulders with celebrity chefs like Jamie Kennedy and Michael Stadtlander.

But even we, the consumers, are producers according to Petrini - the final actors in the production process. Too often, we forget this and assume our role in the food chain is passive. We blame the supermarkets and the industrial food complex for the rock-hard Chilean peaches in January, forgetting we were the ones who chose to buy them in the first place. While nine out of 10 Canadians say they'd like to see genetically modified organisms labelled, most of us continue to swallow whatever foods anonymously appear on our grocery shelves, GMO-free or not. And we wonder why our farmland is disappearing, even as we buy another pint of California strawberries and drive it home over some of Canada's most fertile soil.

Sasha Chapman, a columnist for both The Globe and Mail and Toronto Life, became a card-carrying member of Slow Food earlier this year.

Related Reading

SLOW FOOD NATION'S COME TO THE TABLE
The Slow Food Way of Living
Edited by Katrina Heron, Rodale, 159 pages, $32.95

While the United States has given us McDonald's, it is also home to the largest Slow Food movement outside Italy. Labour Day weekend marks a milestone for Slow Food USA, as thousands of people gather in San Francisco to celebrate the slow life. This book, timed for the event, is very much rooted in California, celebrating the small farmers who "keep the faith," as Alice Waters writes in her foreword. The book captures the optimism of eco-gastronomy perfectly with a series of photographs and essays; sidebars parse the Slow Food philosophy and offer concrete suggestions for living according to it. With recipes.

THE PLEASURES OF SLOW FOOD
Celebrating Authentic Traditions, Flavors, and Recipes, by Corby Kummer, Chronicle Books, 174 pages, $26.95 (paperback)
This 2002 work pretty much introduced the Slow Food concept to North America. Author Kummer discusses the beginning of the movement as well as its philosophy and its unimagined success, and profiles food producers from around the world - cheese makers in Vermont, cured meat and sausage makers in Germany, heirloom potato growers and many more - who embody Slow Food's spirit and objectives.

Los Angeles Times Susan Salter Reynolds September 14

The Slow Food StoryPolitics and PleasureGeoff Andrews McGill-Queen's University Press: 196 pp., $19.95 paperTHE SLOW FOOD movement is a beacon of hope. Born in the Italian town of Bra in Piedmont by Carlo Petrini, the movement held its first Terra Madre conference in 2004, attracting people rich and poor from all over the world, the elite gourmet foodies and the growers from developing countries. Slow Food is a political and aesthetic movement. It is more, Geoff Andrews writes, than "a nostalgic retreat from the realities of the contemporary world," though that is an important source of its appeal. It is also, in its emphasis on locally grown food, a "prescient response to life in the era of globalisation." "The Slow Food Story" takes us all around the world, beginning in Italy. It is the story of a visceral, powerful effort, committed to cultural and biological diversity, to the value of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage, to eco-gastronomy and to a scale of living that is economically and spiritually more human.