Brief history of the Slow Food Movement
The Slow Food Movement, was created in Italy in 1986, with the aim of protecting and preserving the traditional cooking and farming methods throughout the world. It’s founders were against the way in which food was becoming homegenous, not reflecting the rich regional and international variations. Slow Food was an angry response to the first McDonalds, established in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna. It is a resistance movement to the new fast food era that seems to be spreading all over the world through globalization and ‘westernization.’ The resistance movement began in Italy, when a gentleman named Carlo Petrini began protesting ‘the fast food nation.’ Petrini wanted to preserve organic farming, artisan cheesemaking, protect the small, interesting wineries.
The movement today has expanded into over 100 countries, including offices in Switzerland in 1995, Germany in 1998, the US in 2000, France in 2003, and most recently to Japan in 2004. It claims over 80,000 members worldwide. It has been callerd an ecology movement and is fittingly known as the culinary wing of the ‘anti-globalization’ movement. 2004 brought a new fuel to this fight when a University of Food was opened in Piedmont, Italy. The goal is to spread the cause and promote awarness of good food and nutrition through tradition, sometimes with an innovative twist.
The official symbol of Slow Food is the snail. The Slow Food Snail now graces the cover of their many food and wine publications. The first publication was a huge success when they created Italy’s best guide to wine, restaurants, and food stores. A major change came in the mid 1990s, when a new ‘eco-gastronomy’ platform was developed to extend the attention of protection from wild animals such as the panda and tiger to domesticated plants and animals. According to Carlo Petrini, "A hundred years ago, people ate between one hundred and a hundred and twenty different species of food. Now our diet is made up of at most ten or twelve species."
The Slow Food movement advocate and create programs and lobbies to help preserve native varieties of fruits and vegetables, as well as promote local and traditional cuisine and the passing down of culinary and farming knowledge. Traditional processing of animals etc, is even protected and carried out on small scale levels. Promotion and marketing departments create local and regional festivities and celebrations of traditional cuisine. Other programs are based on education of consumers and citizens about the risks associated with the tecnological movements in the industry, such as risk of fast food consumption, risks associated with agribusiness and factory farms, and even the risks of relying onso few varieties of animal and plantlife. With the common agriculture policy (CAP) of the European Union, a key issue for the Slow Food movement has been the protection of traditional small family farms. The CAP program, works more off efficiency and modernization, rather than tradition. The CAP program as well as other legisation in other areas of the world have incited a lobbying effort by the group agianst genetic modification and pesticide use while supporting organic movements.
Critics of the movement have been Slow Food “elitists” and blamed them for discouraging of advancements. The Slow Food movement claims to be working toward better farming practices, reling less on transportation, energy, chemicals, and expensive technological methods. The Slow Food movement falls in line with other organizations fighting for ‘green’ ideas, such as Greenpeace and other green parties, but it relies on the subtle and peaceful fight through education and awareness.
The movement continues to gain strength as their fight has helped calm the lingering panic over mad cow disease, the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease, and the debate over genetically modified food. The Slow Food organization has since rapidly acquired a political importance and popularity that wasn’t even expected by its founders. In 1995 the Slow Food began to take off as expanded its platform to defend endangered foods, expanded its membership another 20,000 to 65,000 members a and into forty-two countries. With the expansion and importance of the European Union toward this movement, the Slow Food movement opened offices in Brussels, where they lobby for agriculture and trade policy. Another office was opened in New York to organize trade fairs in the US as well as finding markets for traditional food producers.
Apart from serious lobbying, Slow Food sponsor many fabulous, international food and wine fairs, like the Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy, and the Festivale di Franciacorta in Erbusco, Italy. In order to join the USA chapter of Slow Food, check out their official website at www.slowfoodusa.org. To become involved, it only costs $60 a year for singles and $75 for couples. You can become involved in the local groups and participate in all programs and events. The magazine ‘slow’ and the newsletter ‘snail’ are both complementary with membership. There are even discounts on other publications and merchandise associated with the Slow Food movement. All membership fees and donations are tax deductible.
