Pride in the Slow Food Movement, A Reflection on 2011

What made you most proud to be a part of the Slow Food movement in 2011? We list some of our favorite responses.

by Slow Food USA intern, Alaena Robbins

Recently many of you rang in the New Year reflecting along with SFUSA staff members about what had made you most proud to be a part of the Slow Food movement in 2011. As varied as your responses were, they shared a common thread of pride in past accomplishments and hope for what’s to come.  Here is a look at what some of you had to say:

“The nourishment of ‘Slow Food’ goes beyond nutrition… it’s quality of life, livelihood, community, family.” – Martha Clark Krikava

“I am proud to be a young person who knows that slow food is WAY better than fast food and that eating more of it is better for all people, planet, and animals” – Birke Baehr

“I am most proud of the work that our leaders do to ensure that kids can grow up with a connection to real food” – Josh, SFUSA President

“I am happy that more and more people are working to have food be good, clean and fair in many different and important ways” – Doug Hiza

“I’m really proud to belong to an organization that is part of a global movement” – Sung E, SFUSA staff member

For most, the month of January symbolizes a new beginning, a fresh start, a time for change, but the New Year can also mean taking lessons from our history and using them to help us make a better tomorrow.

“I am filled with Pride…for my ancestors would be proud and my descendants will be thankful” – Barry Jarvis

What will 2012 bring for the Slow Food Movement? Will more schools do away with processed unhealthy foods?  Will you make a personal commitment to supporting local farmers and good, clean, and fair food? Will government or people have more of an impact on the food system?

What do you hope to see in 2012?

One Way to Nail the $5 Challenge: Onions

Tamar Adler, author of An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, shares a recipe for cooking a vegetable that’s always easy to find.

How to Dig for Gold

’The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold.’
-Gilbert K. Chesterton

One of the hardest parts of trying to cook affordably and well is figuring out vegetables. Fundamental to good eating, vegetables present all sorts of hurdles. They’re often expensive; they’re perishable—if you don’t get to them as quickly as you’d like, you watch your money wilt and liquefy—and unless you buy them cut up, which isn’t as good a bargain as it appears, they’re labor intensive.

Probably the greatest hurdle to regular vegetable eating is that, depending where you live and the time of year, a good, reasonably priced vegetable can seem hard to come by. I recommend considering the possibility that there’s a vegetable hiding in plain sight. There’s usually one closer at hand than you think as long as you know how to look: it’s probably hidden in the dark corner of your pantry, or in a dusty bin at your corner store. As soon as you dig it out and dust it off, you’ll find yourself rich in vegetables that you’d had all along.

More after the jump

Understanding the “Blank Spaces” on Our Maps

In California, the most productive and diverse agricultural economy in the country, the lines between the urban and rural are blurring.

by Slow Food Delta Diablo chapter leader Gail Wadsworth

All communities are dynamic. But there are shifts in rural California that are unique among all agricultural states in the US.  Recently, I heard Kathleen Merrigan (US Deputy Secretary of Agriculture) speak about the de-population of America’s rural regions and its results including: food insecurity, economic distress and community dissolution. This is the reality for much of rural America. Conversely, the Golden State is experiencing development in rural regions to the point that many, if not most, of our rural counties are no longer classified as “rural” by the federal government. 

In the 1970’s there was a quiet revolution taking place in rural California.  Non-profit organizations involved in sustainable agriculture envisioned a place where rural and urban communities were allied in the goal of creating an alternative food system. As a result of this movement, people in urban areas are more aware of how their food is produced and they are clamoring for locally grown, organic food.  They want to know their farmers. Some want food that is humanely produced while others want food that is “fair.”  Glancing at coffee bags in my local grocery, I see shade grown, bird friendly, fair trade, organic and more.  It can be confusing. 

But the issues facing California’s rural regions may be even more confusing.  During a research project, I asked an urban shopper about the landscape between San Francisco and Yosemite.  How did she describe this region?  She replied, “Oh, it’s just a blank space on the map.”  It just so happens that the blank space, as she described it, is one of the most productive agricultural regions of the world.  And the very nature of its rural-ness is changing.

More after the jump

A food fight is always more fun with friends

Thank you to the more than 1,000 “Snail pals” who donated to become members during our June campaign!

Thank you to the more than 1,000 “Snail pals” who donated to become members during our June campaign!

Here at Slow Food USA, membership really does matter. Individual donations make up 75% of our annual budget, so your generosity is absolutely critical for national campaigns that help Americans eat better and connect with where our food comes from.

Slow Food USA is truly grateful for your support of this movement in any and every way – whether you’re donating money, signing a petition, or giving your time to a local project.  After all, a good food fight is always more fun with friends! 
Thanks for being a part of it.

Reflections on Cuba: Sustainability and Agriculture

A Slow Food leader shares her observations about a recent trip to Cuba to study food & agriculture.

Linda Slezak (Slow Food East End treasurer) and I recently visited Cuba on a food sovereignty study trip with Food First. A piece I wrote about Cuba’s approach to thrift and re-use was posted yesterday on Civil Eats.  Linda shared her observations in the Slow Food East End newsletter, and we have reprinted them below.  Food First offers Food Sovereignty tours to many other places—including Mali, Bolivia, Mexico and Spain—throughout the year.

Linda provided the following observations about her experiences in Cuba.

Cuba is a case in point about the unsustainability of monoculture farming.During Colonial times, Cuba was a plantation island providing export crops such as sugar cane, tobacco and coffee. Food crops were largely imported and during the years between 1963 and 1989, chemical fertilizers and pesticides were heavily relied upon for agriculture. It was only due to the losses sustained by not having access to imported food and chemicals to grow their own, that Cuba “went green.”

Going green is another way of saying that Cuba’s agriculture underwent a major overhaul. Land has been redistributed and crops are being cultivated using natural and organic methods with sustainability as the goal. The farmers that we met at both large and small farms (urban and suburban plots are the newest form of community based agriculture) were so proud of their farms and their organic methods. Most of these farmers have developed their own innovative solutions to their climate and terrain challenges. Raised-bed farming, digging wells for water, terracing and covering fragile crops with black, overhead netting to provide shade are just some of the many solutions the farmers have devised. Farming cooperatives are another model that helps farmers to share equipment and help each other.

More after the jump

Tools for Transforming the Kitchen into the Classroom

The recent donation of cookware from Anolon to Slow Food Skagit Salish Sea means the families of Lincoln Elementary can keep on cookin’!

by Sasha Hippard, SFUSA intern

The recent donation of cookware from Anolon to Slow Food Skagit Salish Sea means the families of Lincoln Elementary can keep on cookin’!
The Lincoln Elementary Family Cooking Classes, started in 2009 by the Slow Food Skagit chapter in Washington state has been providing 1st through 6th graders and their extended families with inspiring opportunities to make and enjoy home-cooked meals together. Since the program’s establishment, Slow Food Skagit has served 30-40 students and families annually, teaching approximately four cooking sessions a year. These fun, educational, hands-on sessions incorporate seasonal produce from Lincoln Elementary own school garden whenever possible and teaches students and parents alike how to make their food good, clean, and fair.
Along with high quality cooking pans of a variety of types, Anolon’s donation also included cookie sheets and a number of different kitchen tools like spatulas and garlic presses. This new cookware has changed what volunteers have been able to cook with the students and families at Lincoln Elementary.

Cooking classes like the ones at Lincoln Elementary are a great way to not only bring families together, but promote healthy and responsible eating habits. It’s so much easier to incorporate simple, yet powerful change into your everyday life when the whole family gets on board and has fun while doing it!

There are endless dishes to try that are healthy, delicious, and responsible, but only if you know where and how to look for the recipes and inspiration. The addition of the Anolon supplies means that the Lincoln Elementary cooking classes don’t have to be limited to a few simply dishes. The sky’s the limit for these families and they are free to explore, experiment and sample all kinds of healthy and delicious meals.

More after the jump

Update: Michael Pollan picks 3 new food rules

Last month we asked you for contributions towards Michael Pollan’s next edition of Food Rules.  From the thousands of replies we received, Pollan picked 3.

Last month we asked you, the Slow Food network, for contributions towards Michael Pollan’s next edition of Food Rules, to be illustrated by Maira Kalman.  From the thousands of replies we received, Pollan picked 3.  His picks are below.

Many thanks for the outpouring of food wisdom. More than 4,000 of you answered my request for your personal food rules—truly overwhelming, and enormously helpful as I sit down to complete the new illustrated edition of Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.

After sifting through all of the submissions, I’ve decided to include these three excellent rules:

Place a bouquet on the table and everything will taste twice as good. – Gisbert P. Auwaerter, Cutchogue, NY

When you eat real food, you don’t need rules. – Mandy Gerth

Not only is there real wisdom in these words, but it seems to me the ideas here beautifully reflect the values of Slow Food. I’m grateful to have them in the book. The winners will each receive a copy signed by both me and Maira Kalman, when it is published in November.

There were many other interesting and provocative rules, though some of them were less useful or scientifically verifiable than entertaining. Three of my favorites:

Eat Pringles only with diet soda.

White bread is only good for picking up glass or cleaning typewriter keys.

Heartfelt thanks to all of you for engaging in this conversation. Your contributions vindicated the premise of both the book and of Slow Food, which is that the conversation of culture has more to teach us about how to eat healthily and happily than all the nutritional studies, government advisories, and food industry promises.

Yours truly,

Michael Pollan

Dear McDonald’s: Happy Birthday!

Today is the 56th birthday of the opening of McDonald’s first franchise store.

Dear McDonald’s,

Happy Birthday!  Don’t be mad, but I didn’t get you anything. It’s not that 56 isn’t a big important milestone. It means you’re old enough to retire! (something to consider?)

One of the first birthday parties I ever went to was at a McDonald’s. It was Tiffany’s party, on the lower level of a Manhattan McDonald’s. We had balloons on the backs of our chairs, and were served ice cream cake at the end.

It wasn’t my first time in a McDonald’s though. I grew up across the street from you and one of my first foods was a McD’s french fry. I loved the little paper bag they came in, how it became translucent with fryer grease as I slowly made my way through the bag. I loved the chairs and how they swiveled on their axes, allowing me to spin half way around and back again, bopping my head from side to side and sucking on a fry like it was a lollipop.

This was in 1978 or so, when you were a young 23 year-old company, and just beginning your world travels.  I gotta say, it was kind of a genius move, McDonald’s, inviting little kids in for parties, inscribing McD’s into our earliest memories of celebration.  You lured me in with Happy Meals (it’s true! They make you happy!); kept me occupied with plastic toys; left me grinning with each sweet/salty/greasy bite. Left me so hungry for McDonald’s I sought you out on family vacation to France.

I must confess, though, that something happened to me. You probably didn’t notice and I can’t say exactly how or why it happened, but I stopped spending birthdays with you.  I haven’t even visited for so much as a large fries in what might be close to 20 years. And not to get you really p.o’d but it’s not that I don’t eat french fries, it’s just that I don’t eat them with you.

But enough about me—this is about you!  You’ve come a long way since opening that first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois. And while I’m not sorry that we’ve parted ways over the years, I figured I’d take a moment to say “Happy Birthday” McDonald’s—hope you get to eat an apple pie in celebration (baked, these days, not fried).

Best,
Jerusha

Mission Street Food, restaurant, cookbook, friend of Slow Food

Proceeds from McSweeney’s quirky first cookbook will benefit Slow Food USA.

by Lindsay Dula

You might know McSweeney’s as a clever, thoughtful, and often funny literary journal.  It’s also a small publishing house that has launched a food imprint.  First dish up? A new book called Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant. It promises to be a fun and interesting combination of cookbook and food-related essays. Here’s how the publisher, McSweeney’s, describes it:

Mission Street Food is a restaurant. But it’s also a charitable organization, a taco truck, a burger stand, and a clubhouse for inventive cooks tucked inside an unassuming Chinese take-out place. In all its various incarnations, it upends traditional restaurant conventions, in search of moral and culinary satisfaction.



Like Mission Street Food itself, this book is more than one thing: it’s a cookbook featuring step-by-step photography and sly commentary, but it’s also the memoir of a madcap project that redefined the authors’ marriage and a city’s food scene. Along with stories and recipes, you’ll find an idealistic business plan, a cheeky manifesto, and thoughtful essays on issues ranging from food pantries to fried chicken. Plus, a comic.


We are happy to announce that proceeds from every sale of this book will go directly to Slow Food USA, with our organization receiving $10 for every $30 pre-order of Mission Street Food—but only pre-orders through the McSweeney’s store. After the publication date in July, we will receive $5 per book ordered through McSweeney’s and $1 per book purchased indirectly.


Pre-order your copy of Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant though McSweeney’s and support Slow Food USA’s efforts toward good, clean and fair food.

The authors describe the reasons for this decision on their blog; you can read it by clicking here.

Watch Slow Food USA President Josh Viertel on TedX

Watch the live steam of the TedX Manhattan event, where over 20 high-profile speakers, including Slow Food USA’s President Josh Viertel, are discussing how we can improve food and farming for everyone.

Looking for the live steam of the TedX Manhattan event, “Changing the Way We Eat”? Watch it here:

https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5986/news_item/TEDx