Salina Isola Slow: A Model of Slow Living

posted by Geoff Andrews at Saturday, July 10, 2010

At the end of May into the beginning of June I attended Salina Isola Slow, the annual event organised by Slow Food Valdemone and held on the beautiful Aeolian island of Salina, made famous by Michael Radford’s film Il Postino. I was there to give a presentation of the Italian edition of the Slow Food Story. The night before, in Messina, I had given another talk in Circolo Pickwick, an excellent bookshop in the heart of the city. The evening was enlivened by the surprise appearance of the poetessa Maria Costa, aged 83, who entered with a small dog in one hand, and a walking stick in the other. We ended up joining in an unlikely duet, with the poetessa singing beautiful poems in Sicilian dialect (many lost in translation unfortunately), giving another dimension to the importance of terroir and the crucial relationship between food and the popular art of the people. The talk accompanied a dinner of sustainable fish, which included the excellent allalunga, the alternative to the threatened blue fin tuna.

The next day, Saro Gugliotta, the convivium leader of Valdemone, drove me and his family to Milazzo where we took a boat to Salina. Five years ago Saro had introduced me to the rich variety and wonderful hospitality of Slow Food Sicily. He also provided me with some great interviews and stories for my book. He drove me up the Nebrodi mountains to see the ‘suino nero’, then back again to taste the historic interdonato lemons, arranging further meetings with an Etna peach producer and a Catania chef. Now, he introduced me to the specialities of Salina. After the first of many splendid lunches in Rinella I was driven around the island to Signum, a hotel situated in a wonderful spot in Malfa, one of the three comune of the island. During the course of the three day event I was introduced to some exceptional local people: including two of the islands three mayors, bee keepers, chefs, a group of ‘slow women’, (a group of 30 or so local cooks who specialise in the island’s delicacies, and who helped prepare the opening dinner on the small jetty of Salina Maria Salina), Salvatore D'Amico, who produces the islands presidium capers as well as local wine, and Fabio Giuffre, the owner-chef of ‘nni Lausta restaurant; Fabio was the first chef on the island to reject blue fin tuna in preference for allalunga.

Each year, the organisers involve different local restaurants, thereby sharing the conviviality and hospitality of the event. Indeed Salina, if not completely self-sufficient, is the most sustainable Aeolian island, maintaining a stronger local identity where Lipari and Vulcano have become more tourist-driven. Tourists, in fact, are regarded as curious visitors eager to get to know the land and the 2,300 inhabitants. Much of the distinctiveness of the island comes from the local produce; the soil and climate, and in the smells and flavours of produce such as the capers, malvasia and honey; the three Slow Food presidium products of the island.

Attending a Slow Food event here helps to understand, in a more profound sense, the meaning of ‘slow’ in the movement’s philosophy. It is easy to envisage, on a sustainable island like Salina, what a slow way of living could include. This was apparent in the mixture of talks and tastings, characteristic of all Slow Food events. The United Nations year of biodiversity featured strongly and was given a real significance here; not only in the need to preserve the unique landscape, species and produce but also in the need to safeguard pleasure.

The concept of ‘slow’ has a wider meaning then how to eat (as the Slow Food Manifesto, written by the poet Folco Portinari in 1986 illustrated). It is about creating an alternative way of living. Perhaps it is best captured by the idea of a slow island where the pace of life is by nature slow, cut off from the rat race, reached only by boat and with a romantic idea of getting away from it all. It was a pity that in my ‘race’ to get the last boat, in a scene reminiscent of Nanni Moretti’s film Caro Diario, also partly set on Salina, I had to miss a stroll round the herb garden of the Mayor of Santa Marina Salina. Here, Massimo Lo Schiavo had promised I would experience the real smell of Salina. Next time.