Slow Food

I'm leaving for Italy in a week, so my mind is on the European way of eating. A few years ago we visited Spain, and the phenomenon known as the "French Paradox" was extremely apparent. As a general rule Europeans - not just the French - find the culinary Puritanism of Americans quite amusing. They eat plenty of rich meats and cheeses, and in some countries (such as Spain) not a whole lot of vegetables. They drink wine with abandon. They smoke. Yet they live longer, on the average, than Americans do, with lower rates of cancer and heart disease. During the three weeks I spent in Spain, I saw plenty of stocky, solid people, but not a single obese one.

Several factors probably contribute to this paradox. In Europe local organic agriculture is the norm rather than the exception. The European Community has successfully resisted such wonders of modern technology as GMOs and hormone-treated dairy cows. Exercise isn't relegated to the gym in Europe: instead, walking and biking are standard forms of transportation. While hiking in the Pyrenees, our reasonably athletic young family was repeatedly passed by impatient septuagenarians with canes.

But I think the major difference between Americans and Europeans is not what they eat, but how they eat it. Traditionally, a French, Italian, or Spanish lunch is a two or three hour affair, followed by a nap. When we traveled through small Andalusian villages, we noticed a distinct food-driven rhythm to the day. Breakfast was a desultory affair - coffee and rolls - though some locals weren't averse to downing a glass of champagne as accompaniment. Around 11 a.m. women began appearing on the streets, trudging up the steep hills with fresh goods bought at the market. By noon the scent of garlic filled the air. Buses brought men home from work and children home from school. By 1 p.m. (the heat of the day) the streets were empty, the houses shuttered, and we could only imagine the culinary delights being savored behind closed doors. In the evening people resurfaced, strolling the streets then lingering until the early morning hours in the village square. Children rode bikes and played soccer, while their parents chatted, drank wine, and ate plates of snails or potatoes with garlic mayonnaise. Contrast that with the dominant American mode of eating, where home cooked family meals seem to be relegated to a nostalgic past. Here we shove food - healthy or otherwise - speedily and solitarily into our mouths while we do something else more important: rush somewhere in the car, or watch TV, or prepare for a meeting.

The health of the mind and the body are intricately intertwined. The medical community is gradually becoming more aware of both the physical roots of mental illness and the effects of mental stress on physical illness. Surely the manner in which we ingest our food must affect how we biochemically process it.

While fast food is spreading like crabgrass throughout the world, the Europeans are fighting back. In 1986, spurred by the appearance of McDonald's golden arches in Rome's Piazza di Spagna, Carlos Petrini, a food and wine writer, started the Slow Food movement. An international movement was founded in Paris in 1989, and has grown to include over 60,000 members in all five continents, including a branch in Minnesota. Slow Food's main offices are located in Bra, a small town in southern Piedmont. The Slow Food manifesto states; "May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency." Their philosophy praises "slowness," "rest," and "hospitality."

In recent years, the sociopolitical implications of the slow food movement have become clear, and the focus of the movement has expanded from the purely aesthetic to the political. As they state on their website: "The fact is that our pleasure is...connected to the equilibrium we manage to preserve and ...the environment we live in."

Slow Food promotes many projects and activities throughout the world, and runs a publishing company, Slow Food Editors, which specializes in tourism, food, and wine. They publish "Slow," a beautifully designed quarterly journal with idiosyncratic articles on food, wine, and health.

One of their most exciting projects is the "Ark of Taste," which aims to identify and catalogue "endangered species" of animals, plants, and recipes. These foods are threatened by an increasingly homogenous market. American products in the ark include heirloom apples such as Gravensteins, (too fragile too satisfy conventional agribusiness) and West Coast abalone (almost destroyed by overfishing and habitat destruction). The ark protects biological and cultural diversity, as well as family farms and artisan producers. It promotes an old-fashioned craftsmanship rapidly disappearing in our speed-worshipping, mass-produced world.

Slow Food also stages "Taste Education" events, such as taste workshops, tasting courses, and large-scale exhibitions of unusual wines and cheeses. "Salone del Gusto," held in Turin, Italy, included 154 taste workshops, 50 meal sessions with celebrated chefs, 300 food purveyors, 2000 wines for tasting, and more.

One of Slow Food's current crusades is the protection of raw milk cheeses, which have been produced for thousands of years and are perfectly safe under controlled conditions. Raw milk is essential for the unique taste of certain cheeses, such as Parmesan Reggiano, Pecorino Romano, Emmenthal and Gruyere. In the United States many small cheesemakers produce raw milk cheeses. Some of the best known are Organic Valley Cheddars and Colby, and Juniper Grove Feta. While raw milk cheeses present a slightly higher food poisoning danger, and should not be eaten by people with compromised immune systems, that is no reason to outlaw them for everybody. Labeling raw milk cheese - a growing practice in U.S. supermarkets - is a far more sensible solution.

Slow Food also has led to the birth of the Slow Cities movement, a group of towns and cities committed to improving the quality of life of their citizens, especially with regard to food issues. Slow Cities maintain and develop the unique characteristics of their metropolis, promote local businesses and sustainable technologies, and encourage "hospitable" communities.

One would hope that rather than rushing blindly into thoughtless "growth", more of our metropolises take a cue from Italy and elect to become "slow cities."