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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Slow Food brings many issues to the table
  • Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:08:35 -0600


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/29/MNKQ12K54L.DTL&hw=slow+food&sn=004&sc=543

Slow Food brings many issues to the table
Friday, August 29, 2008
Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic


Alexander Rose of San Francisco's Long Now Foundation say... Author Katrina
Heron says technology is a tool, not an en...

The 50,000 people expected to convene in San Francisco this weekend for the
Slow Food Nation festival will have their minds and mouths trained on all
things edible. Skeptics might argue that the last thing the Bay Area needs is
another dose of foodie fanaticism for the well-to-do.

But as both Slow Food disciples and outside observers see it, the growing
international movement's underlying principles have implications that reach
far beyond the dining rooms of the fad-chasing upper middle class.

In its rebuke of fast food, big agribusiness and global distribution and its
embrace of local products, biological diversity, sustainability and the
sensual delights of the table, food is a touchstone for everything from
energy policy and net-roots politics to the ways Americans both seek and
sabotage pleasure.

A Slow Food sensibility can offer new perspectives on diabetes and childhood
obesity, both fueled in part by a convenience-food lifestyle. It makes us
consider the enlarging possibilities of thinking and acting locally - not
only about food, but housing and transportation as well. It invites people to
reset their personal clocks and reconsider how they use - and allow
themselves to be used by - technology.
Back to the table

The Slow Food mind-set fosters local communities of people with shared
interests, whether for neighborhood school reform, a quilting bee or a block
party. Ideally, it summons people back to the table awakened to the power of
personal choice across a broad spectrum of issues.

If there are strains of agrarian nostalgia and 1960s back-to-the-earth
simplicity, Slow Food advocates make no apologies.

"This is all about a response to industrialization and a reclaiming of what
feeds and nourishes us," said Slow Food Nation Executive Director Anya
Fernald. "It's a push back against a global system bent on the
commodification of everything."

Joel Barker, a St. Paul, Minn., futurist and coauthor of "Five Regions of the
Future," sees Slow Food in the context of a change in the way we think
technology should apply to our lives and our world.

By rejecting what Barker calls the Super Tech values of global production for
Local Tech ideas about the appropriate use of a given location, Slow Food
offers a "radiating" approach to various problems. Corn and barley are good
choices for the Midwest, while rice is not, he says. Wind power is most
effective in some regions, wave power in others and solar power somewhere
else.

"If Slow Food Nation does nothing more than catalyze this idea that lots of
variety is preferable to monolithic solutions, it will have a tremendous
impact," Barker says. "We've already started to realize that in energy and
housing. Transportation may be the next frontier."

Katrina Heron, co-author of the forthcoming book "Come to the Table: The Slow
Food Way of Living," echoes Barker's thoughts about technology.

"Remember when the digital revolution was going to slow things down by
speeding them up? It was going to make it possible for us to engage in
interactions and conversations on our own time."

Instead, as Heron did not need to conclude, we often feel enslaved by e-mail
and BlackBerrys and swamped by an Internet awash in undifferentiated
information, special pleading and falsehoods.

"Technology is just a tool," said Heron, in the Slow Food mode of reclaiming
things that have veered out of control. "The question: How can we use those
tools in a more connective and satisfying way?"
Farmers' markets

Answers come for Heron in things like Web sites for sharing recipes and
iPhones that can help people locate farmers' markets. "It's the age-old thing
of community building, in a 21st century way."

Alexander Rose, executive director of San Francisco's Long Now Foundation,
argues that "when you start paying attention to the production of food, you
begin to see the lengthy product chain in other things, like clothing and
furniture. How much carbon was consumed along the way? How much is made in
China? How much is disposable?"

As Rose acknowledges, it's not as simple as adopting a "buy local" strategy
and leaving it at that. Economies of scale dictate that things like
toothpaste and AIDS treatments, in his examples, are better produced in a
centralized way.

"I don't think all agribusiness is necessarily bad," he adds. Neither is
speed. "A faster computer is better. A faster meal is not."

One knock on Slow Food is that it remains a pursuit of an educated elite that
already gets it. Few attendees at this weekend's festival are likely to take
their lunch breaks at McDonald's. But with 200 chapters in 47 states, Slow
Food USA is gradually spreading the word.
Linking civics with science

Marion Fass, a biology professor who designed a Slow Food course at
Wisconsin's rust-belt Beloit College, says her students make connections to
everything from farm bill politics to the environment to marketing. Students
will "always be more interested in a scientific issue," said Fass, "if they
can link it to some issue of civic concern. Slow Food does that."

One "aha" moment came in a spontaneous discussion of the Frito Lay product
Flamin' Hot Cheetos. "The kids who had grown up in urban areas were all
familiar with them," Fass recalled. "The kids who grew up in rural areas had
never heard of them. What they all realized is how companies - and not just
food companies - target certain segments of the population. It was a real
revelation."

Jim Dator, director of the Hawaii Research Institute for Future Studies, can
sound fatalistic about his state's vulnerability to energy and global
economic issues.

"We are 90 percent dependent on oil and the import of oil-fueled products for
everything do here," Dator wrote in an e-mail. "Within that context, Slow
Food is essential for our survival. It is not an optional cultural
preference."

On a mainland that feels somewhat less imminently endangered, Slow Food is
unlikely to catch on as an antidote to impending doom. Politics can get
tiresome at any table, no matter how urgent or eloquent the arguments.
Pleasure lingers

Slow Food's strongest advertisement for itself may always be pleasure - the
neighborly connections of shopping for fresh local products, the
gratification of preparing food from scratch and the communal satisfaction of
lingering over a meal with family and friends.

"Fast food takes the pleasure out of eating, even when it briefly tastes
good," said Slow Food Nation's Fernald. "It's the equivalent of bowling
alone."

Fernald acknowledged that many remain conflicted about fully investing in the
joys Slow Food promotes. Millions of dollars are spent each year on lavishly
illustrated cookbooks and fancy cookware that never gets used. "We've made a
lot of progress in the Slow Food movement," she said, "but yes, we still have
a long way to go."
If you go

Slow Food Nation begins today in San Francisco, with various events running
through Labor Day. Most events are sold out, but the Civic Center ones are
free. Highlights are listed below, but go to slowfoodnation.org for complete
information, schedules and ticket purchases.

The Marketplace. Civic Center Plaza. The Marketplace includes a farmers'
market with more than 60 vendors, tours of the Victory Garden, an outdoor
food bazaar and a "soap box" featuring speakers and performances.
Today-Sunday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Free.

Taste Pavilions. Fort Mason. The Festival Pavilion has been turned into an
artisan food-fest featuring 16 mini-pavilions dedicated to specific regional
artisan American foods, such as bread, ice cream, coffee and cheese. Samples
will be available at each pavilion, along with presentations about the making
of each food. Cooking demonstrations from restaurant chefs are also scheduled
throughout the two days. Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-9 p.m.,
$65 ($45 students). Note: All sessions are sold out, although a few
discounted tickets for the second Sunday session may still be available at
Bay Area Whole Foods Markets.

Food for Thought. Speaker series and film screening. Herbst Theatre. Today
and Saturday, $20 ($10 students).

Slow Dinners. Various restaurants throughout the Bay Area will host special
dinners in partnership with nonprofit organizations focused on building
healthy communities. Tonight-Monday. Prices vary. For a complete schedule and
how to reserve a dinner, see slowfoodnation.org.

Slow Food Rocks. Great Meadow at Fort Mason. Saturday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.;
Sunday, 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Performers include Gnarls Barkley, Ozomatli, Phil
Lesh and Friends, G Love & Special Sauce. General admission $59 per day ($79
at the door); reserved seating $79 per day ($99 at the door).

Food for Thought Free Films. Sunday, Cowell Theater, Fort Mason. Three
sessions. Free, but online RSVP required.

E-mail Steven Winn at swinn@sfchronicle.com.




  • [Livingontheland] Slow Food brings many issues to the table, Tradingpost, 09/02/2008

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