Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Slow Food Nation Celebrates The Good, clean and Fair

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Slow Food Nation Celebrates The Good, clean and Fair
  • Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 12:16:41 -0600

Saturday, August 16, 2008 by Point Reyes Light (California)
Slow Food Nation Celebrates The Good, clean and Fair
by Molly Birnbaum
http://www.ptreyeslight.com/cgi/latest_news.pl?record=176

Slow Food is a tomato, plucked from the garden. It is a wedge of Red Hawk
cheese from Cowgirl Creamery and beef short ribs from Marin Sun Farms. It is
Peter Worsley and Warren Weber. It is a discussion and a debate, a concept
and a crowd. Slow Food, exalted by some and disparaged by others, is a
movement that has seen a worldwide explosion in the last two decades. Its
mission: to create a food system that is “good, clean, and fair.”That mission
is gaining momentum in the national media: Slow Food Nation, a gargantuan
festival in San Francisco set for Labor Day Weekend, will be the first-ever
American gathering to unify the sustainable food movement. It is no surprise
that West Marin is playing an active role in the event-the mission fits
comfortably in the county’s vibrant community of organic farmers and
conscientious local eaters.

On Saturday afternoon of this week, a lunch hosted by celebrity chef and Slow
Food champion Alice Waters was held on Peter Worsley’s farm in Point Reyes
Station. Organized by Marin Organic, Marin Agricultural Land Trust, and Point
Reyes Books, the event raised $4,000 for Slow Food Nation and the Point Reyes
Farmers’ Market.

It was an “opportunity for Alice, jut being there on Peter’s farm, to
reinforce West Marin as an epicenter of slow food,” said Steve Costa, owner
of Point Reyes Books, which will be the festival’s official bookseller.

Slow Food Nation has been advertised as the Woodstock for gastronomes.
Fifteen pavilions designed by volunteer architects in the Bay Area will be
filled with things like cheese, beer, and pickles; there will be discussions
and panels on subjects ranging from climate change to education. There will
be rock concerts, hikes, and art exhibits. A large “Victory Garden” has
already been planted in front of San Francisco’s City Hall. The festival aims
to promote a way of life filled with food that is delicious, environmentally
friendly, and socially just.

Its organizer, Slow Food USA, was founded in 1998, 12 years after the
movement began in Italy. Its goal is to incite radical change in the way
America eats-”away from the destructive effects of an industrial food system
and fast life,” reads their website manifesto. The international organization
boasts 122 countries and more than 83,000 members, and has 16,000 members in
America.

In 1986, Italian writer and editor Carlo Petrini started Slow Food in the
Piedmont region’s town of Bra in protest of a McDonald’s set to open in Rome.
He wanted to preserve a way of life: agricultural biodiversity and a
tradition of local foods. “I always say a gastronome who isn’t an
environmentalist is just stupid, and I say an environmentalist who isn’t a
gastronome is just sad,” he told the New York Times last year.

West Marin, with its long history of organic and local agricultural growth
and production, epitomizes much of what Slow Food hopes to accomplish. Slow
Food Marin, Marin Organic, Marin Agricultural Land Trust and Marin
Agricultural Institute are all involved in the planning and operation of
events for the festival. They will be hosting a few “Slow Journeys,” which
involve trips to farms in Bolinas, as well as creameries, ranches, and
vineyards across Marin.

Warren Weber operates Star Route Farms, the oldest continuously certified
organic farm in California, and will be giving a tour of his farm for the
“Mysterious Bolinas” Journey.

“We’re definitely pleased they’re having it out here,” he said. “They are
recognizing the value of local sustainable food, organic farming, and it
highlights what our region is doing.”

A bevy of farmers, chefs, and producers from West Marin will be bringing
their products-from raspberry jam to Mint Confetti Ice cream-to the taste
pavilions at Slow Food Nation. Point Reyes Preserves, Cowgirl Creamery,
Ancient Organic Ghee, Three Twins Ice Cream, and Straus Family Creamery will
be there on Saturday and Sunday of the weekend festival.

“We love the whole idea of local food and making local product,” said Peter
Malakoff, co-owner of Ancient Organics Ghee. He and his partner, Gilda
Zucolella, make ghee, a clarified butter from India, using Straus butter on
waxing and full moons in a commercial kitchen in Richmond.

The festival’s buzz is contagious. Postcards and posters hang near Toby’s
Feed Barn, in Point Reyes Books, and on tables at the farmer’s market.
Articles have been written in many major newspapers, including the San
Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times, and blogs are vibrating with news
and hype. Many hope that the national attention will bring change towards an
organic, environmentally friendly way of life.

“We’re definitely going to see changes,” said Weber. “Marin, of course, is
one of the counties that will exemplify that.”

Slow Food USA has been criticized in the past as having an elitist
image-touting fancy wines and cheeses unattainable and unaffordable to the
majority of America. The festival has received criticism as well.

“For me, Slow Food Nation represents a bit of a breaking point for me with
Slow Food. I either walk away invigorated that people are trying to do the
right thing, or pissed off that while the cloud-high intentions of Slow Food
are sound, but the way in which they are chased makes them unobtainable to
all but the wealthy,” wrote Bill Burge, a UNIX administrator from St. Louis,
in a comment on eggbeater.com, a blog exploring food in the Bay Area. “I do
okay in life, but even I think that the pricing on the events, with each one
costing money, means that most people are unable to attend.”

But for many, Slow Food Nation is a chance for Slow Food USA to revamp its
image. Though tickets to the taste pavilions at Slow Food Nation are between
$45 and $65 and lectures are $20, the group is making a vast and concerted
effort to include a wide range of people and politics in the festival.

“I think that this occasion will be a marked change,” said Malakoff. “Its
like the first day of spring, which is not always sunny, but even then holds
a sense that spring is coming.”

The festival will feature panels on hunger, race, and diversity; Slow Food
USA is adding college chapters, and trying to bring more people into the fold.

Constance Washburn, education director at Marin Agricultural Land Trust, who
is curating a panel for the festival called “No Farms No Food! Preserving the
Land Base,” thinks that the energy exploding from people who attend the
festival will make its mark. “The philosophy will radiate out from there,”
she said.

On Saturday afternoon in Point Reyes Station, Alice Waters sat at a long
table festooned with flowers and radishes. Sixty other diners filled the
chairs around the celebrity chef, who glowed in a yellow-gold blouse. They
had spent the afternoon walking among the corn stalks and tomato plants,
sipping wine and tiny cups of cucumber soup.

Just before dessert, Waters stood to talk, shielding her eyes from the sun.
She spoke of the need to support local farmers and her desire to implement
agriculture in the school systems, to unify and to empower, to cultivate good
food and gardens. Though the most important thing, she said, is to be present.

“If we make the right choices, we can save the world,” she said.




  • [Livingontheland] Slow Food Nation Celebrates The Good, clean and Fair, Tradingpost, 08/16/2008

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page