|
Slow Food in a Fast
City
Finding health and supporting sustainable agriculture by embracing
the
sensual nature of food.
By: Sherri Brooks Vinton
November 3, 2005
Delight and enjoyment may not be the words that come to mind
when you think about healthy eating. After all, so much of
the discussion on eating right focuses exclusively on deprivation.
But in today's era of ever expanding "don't eat" lists, foodies
will be surprised to find that the pursuit of healthy eating
is ultimately in the doing. If you are tired of being told
what not to do, maybe you should consider joining a different
conversation. Slow Food is an international organization whose
mission is to preserve the pleasures of the table, the sensual,
festive joy of eating, and the conviviality of sharing the
experience. Through building communities around the enjoyment
of organic, seasonal and locally produced food, as well as
artisanal food products from around the world, the organization
is creating a lifestyle of sustainability essential to the
health of our culture, our environment, and ourselves.
Slow Food's focus on the pleasure of eating may lead
some to dismiss the
movement as a gathering of hedonists. But while Slow Food
does its share of
wine swilling and chocolate munching, the goal of the organization
is not
just good eating; it's eating for good.
Slow Food recognizes that the only way to preserve heirloom
varieties of
produce, heritage breeds of animals and traditional foodways
is not by
designing a museum to showcase such items, but to savor them.
Through this
enjoyment, we keep those who grow and produce these wonderful
treasures in
business so that future generations can have the same pleasure.
Essentially, Slow Food is a counter-movement to the lava-like
creep of sameness blanketing the world's food supply
and culture. Such homogenization is perpetuated in large part
by the expansion of fast food restaurants whose standardized
menus deny the gastronomic and social differences that are
vital and necessary expressions of locality.
The Slow Food Movement
Although the Slow Food movement had been brewing for a number
of years, its
ideals were crystallized by the invasion of fast food culture
into the heart
of Italian heritage. In 1986, McDonald's set up shop
in Rome's famed Piazza
di Spagna. Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food, was outraged
by this
affront to the cultural and gustatory traditions so important
to his
country. Petrini's symbolic opposition to one fast food
location quickly
grew into an international movement that is represented today
in fifty
countries with more than 80,000 members, 12,000 of them in
the U.S.
The structure of the organization encourages appreciation
for regional
diversity. This is not top down management. Each individual
Slow Food
chapter, or convivium, as they are called by members, is as
unique as the
food products and traditions they seek to protect. Convivia
design events
that reflect the local bounty or highlight a food, beverage,
or process that
is indigenous to a particular area.
In the U.S., Slow Food convivia host wine tastings among
the vineyards of
Sonoma, crab feasts on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, and
Apple Week here
in the Big Apple. Importantly, convivia also organize Japanese
tea
ceremonies in Manhattan and Italian wine tastings in Chicago
that allow
dedicated eaters to celebrate native cuisines and products
from outside
their immediate food shed.
Slow Food New York City
The New York convivium (SFNYC), of which I am a member, is
the largest in
the United States, with nearly one thousand members. To give
one a
perspective of scale, consider that the average-sized convivium
would easily
fit into a member's backyard, or even living room. And
indeed, sometimes the
size of the group can seem to threaten the intimacy of the
eating experience
on which Slow Food hangs its hat.
Until, that is, you get us eaters together. SFNYC recently
held its first
annual meeting at the Brooklyn Brewery. In a city of apartment
dwellers
where real estate values have made many abodes "kitchen
optional" SFNYC flew
in the face of fashion and hosted a family style potluck.
The group showed
up in significant numbers bearing dishes that ranged from
a favorite treat
that members had picked up at Murray's Cheese Shop, to
impressively
gargantuan bastillas, to a wide assortment of delicious concoctions
from
recipes that had been passed down for generations. In that
moment we were
not a group large enough to fill the Brewery, we were not
one thousand
sophisticated foodies, we were individual eaters feeding one
another.
The SFNYC annual meeting, like so many Slow Food events, had
the same
feeling that one gets at the best house parties, where everyone
gathers in
the kitchen, helping out or just hanging out around the hearth‹the
spontaneous conviviality that only chopping, dicing, and/or
breaking bread
together can breed. You certainly don't get that nurturing
feeling from the
drive-thru. And that's the sweet spot that Slow Food
aims to protect.
Slow Tables
There is a growing community of chefs, in NYC and beyond,
who are building
their reputation, and their menu, around the principles of
Slow Food. The
flavorful and authentic results of their efforts are manna
to the converted
and are seductive introductions to those less familiar with
the Slow Food
movement.
The relationships these chefs build with their eaters are
forged in no small
part by the care taken not only in preparing, but also in
sourcing your
dinner. Rather than relying on third party distributors, the
standard method
of procurement, such chefs partner directly with farmers and
producers.
Often, they are out there visiting the farmer's markets
or even the fields
to bring eaters the freshest, most authentic food possible.
They share the
spotlight with their growers and producers by calling out
the provenance of
headliner ingredients. Such care reads on the plate as much
as it does on
the menu.
A dinner at Dan Barber's Blue Hill Restaurants in NYC
or The Stone Barns
Center for Agriculture, Galen Zamarra's Mas, or Colin
Alevras's Tasting
Room, for example, says as much about the respect the chef
has for his
producers and his diners as it does about his exquisite talent.
And each
dish is more delicious for it.
Making Time for the Slow Life
When confronted with the prospect of eating Slow, many throw
up their hands
in frustration and point to the ever ticking clock/stop watch
that meters
their days. Fine for a foodie, or for the chef, but not for
me. Yes, we all
lead busy lives, but time spent in pursuit of nourishment
is an investment
that offers impressive returns.
Take a typical grocery-shopping excursion. Option 1: The
Mega Mart. You
charge through 20 aisles of advertiser space that, even at
a mad scurry, can
take a considerable chunk of a Saturday morning. At the end
of the Mega Mart
race, eaters are rewarded with a boat-sized cart of out-of-season,
flavorless produce, vacu-sealed meats of dubious quality,
and an assortment
of cheap, processed foods.
Now consider Option 2: The Local Farmer's Market. You
can stroll through,
chatting with fellow eaters and the growers as you go. You
come away with
some creative tips for using up the season's surplus
zucchini, a projection
of the harvest to come and a week's work of real food
with real flavor,
produce plucked from the field that morning, farmstead cheeses,
yeasty
handmade breads, even meat and eggs from area pastures.
Your Saturday morning doesn't feel "spent"
but rather, enjoyed. And most
importantly, you've kept dollars in your community. And
because all of those
dollars have gone directly to the farmer, rather than the
series of
middle-people it would take to get food from field to fork
through the
retail sector, you have helped your independent grower maintain
their
autonomy.
Protecting Food Diversity
When we think of the conviviality of the table, the feast
and the company
come to mind, but the joy extends far beyond the placemat.
It goes back to
the field, farm, and fishing line. After all, farm fresh eggs
wouldn't be so
without the farm. As food production becomes increasingly
consolidated, we
are in danger of losing much of this value.
According to the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, 30,000
vegetable
varieties from around the world have become extinct in the
last century, and
one more is lost every six hours. During this time, an astonishing
93% of
the American food product diversity has been destroyed. The
loss of these
items irreversibly alters the global food culture, further
narrowing the
scope of flavors available to eaters.
The Ark of Taste is a program developed by Slow Food that
recognizes
endangered food items threatened by the ongoing push of industrialized
food
production. Ark items span the globe: American, European,
South American,
and Middle Eastern foods are all represented. The products
on the Ark run
the gamut from cheeses, produce, honeys, beverages, and herbs
to breeds of
sea and land animals.
Combined with the Presidia, the branch of Slow Food that
provides practical assistance to farmers producing Ark products,
these programs have saved rare and indigenous food items,
such as heritage breed turkeys in the U.S., from falling by
the wayside in the wake of factory farms. And they have encouraged
a market strong enough to support farmers who can now rely
on these products as a means to remain economically viable.
Find out more about the Presidia programs and Ark products
at Slowfoodfoundation.com
Getting Involved
But for all of its work, its revolutionary leaders, accomplished
chefs, and dedicated growers. Slow Food could not exist without
its members. At the end of every fork is the most important
catalyst for changing the eater. Each time we sit down to
a meal we are voting for our food future. We are answering
the chef who invites us to a feast of local bounty. We are
supporting our growers who, as Wendell Berry suggests, "keep
agriculture in our culture." And we are nourishing each other
through our commitment to flavor and community. And what could
be healthier than that?
####
Sherri Brooks Vinton is a member of the steering committee
of Slow Food NYC. Her first book, The Real Food Revival:
Aisle by Aisle, Morsel by Morsel was published by Tarcher/Penguin
in June.
|
