May 19, 2009
As a special treat for today's blog entry, we have a guest blogger. Liz Horner, one of C&C's own students in the Group Study program in Spain, agreed to allow us to use her excellent presentation notes from yesterday's class as a blog entry. We could say it no better than Liz says it herself!
"So far throughout Spain, we have addressed a multitude of issues regarding food, consumption, and globalization. In pre-departure classes, we explored a variety of definitions and also problems in understanding globalization. We were provided with a grounding from which we could move on to analyze our own experiences. As all of you have shown in your own presentations, we are beginning to develop and contextualize our own definitions of globalization in relation to our food, through both classes and our own experiences. You may be forming opinions about whether you feel it is a good or bad thing, or, more likely, you remain thoroughly confused...
Our presentation continues the explanation of globalization's influence on food, our culture, and our identity. Today, we will be telling you the tale of slow food. We will be reviewing two articles: 'The Harvest' by Carlo Petrini and 'Slow Journeys: What does it mean to go slow?' by Daisy Tam.
So... what is slow food? Slow food is both a movement and an organization started in 1989 by Carlo Petrini. It began as an endeavour to re-establish lost relationships between producers, consumers, and associated institutions. It’s efforts are focused on preserving quality, tradition, and craftsmanship in the cultivation, production, and distribution of our food from seed, field, and sea to table. The movement's interest lies in the preservation and protection of our food, its quality, biodiversity, and also the pleasure we receive from it.
Slow food began and continues as a response to the homogenizing effects of fast food and our increasingly fast-paced lives. For example, slow food is a response to the emergence of McDonald's and its existence in nearly every major city in the world, and increasingly, even in the lesser-known ones. Slow food is a response to the fact that you grab Wendy's after your meeting to eat in the car while driving home, where you'll do homework, watch TV, and text your friends. To this, slow food is both an action and an attitude. As an action, the consumption, preparation, and production of food is slowed. As an attitude, the movement seeks to establish respect for and pleasure in food because it is a cultural product that represents the labour, tradition, and economy of a country. As Carlo Petrini says, 'Food and gastronomy, hunger and taste, consciousness and pleasure, could not be considered separate entities.' Therefore, we should follow his principles of slow before speed, pleasure before profit, and human beings before head office when understanding and interacting with our food.
Several key events and phenomena sparked the creation of this movement. For example, in an era when trading blocks such as NAFTA and the EU have begun to erase the existence of separate nation-states, where mass production by global corporations have swallowed up small local farms, or left them defeated in an inability to compete, slow food demands change. Slow food was started also as a response to the increasing popularity of genetically modified organisms, or GMO's, which threaten and replace the existence of indigenous species and also the quality and heritage of our food.
Given the growing popularity of GMO's, the slow food movement also works to preserve biodiversity. It reestablishes food roots (and routes), literally and metaphorically with the land and its historical region. Biodiversity comes back to the notion of understanding and respecting our food. Today, one species of plant dies out every six hours,
Juan in his garden: Chef Juan shows us the fruits of his labour in the school garden. Photo by Lisa Stowe and 75% of the planet's fish reserves are endangered. Slow food recognizes that humanity is headed to, as Petrini says, an 'unnatural planetary disaster.' Thus, slow food proposes we change our eating habits, learn about our food, but also emphasizes pleasure in doing so.
In summary of the 'what' and 'why' of slow food, we need to emphasize a few points. Food is intrinsically linked to land, culture, and individual identity, and where our food and land are being threatened, we, as communities, are also threatened. Also, we must emphasize the urgency and passion to preserve the quality and flavour of our food.
To make it simple, slow food was our first meal together in Madrid. It was both the fish head and the community and pleasure that emerged from the meal. It was the olive oil press and the vineyard. It is the manchego cheese and Iberian ham you have shared for dinner in your hotel rooms or the park. It was Chef Juan's garden, and it will be the farmer's market in Barcelona."
Brunch at the olive oil press: Food moves slow in Spain. Photo by Brad Wrobles
It is with great pride we show you here the work that our students are producing. Thanks, Liz, and the whole Slow Food student group, for allowing us to share your presentation with the readers.