Slow Food: Grass Roots

When we used to holiday in the French countryside lunchtime never failed to impress us. All the folks who were working the land would put down tools at noon and go for lunch: a daily ritual come rain or shine, and one that has remained the same for centuries. All the workers gather round long tables in the local hostelry and have a real meal. These labourers, mainly men, would be sitting alongside brothers, cousins and fathers; their grandfathers and great-grandfathers had most likely done the same. In the French countryside it really is about slow food.

Slow food is about good eating, resting up for while, and conviviality with friends and family, or in the case of our farmhands - fellow workers. Slow food is about the goodness that goes into the food, not only in terms of the ingredients but also in terms of the time and care that is taken to bring a meal to the table. These farm workers have tended the field, grown the crops, and raised the animals that have now been transformed into the lunch on the table. There is something to be said about cooking and eating that which you have grown or that which has been grown nearby, and especially by someone you know. One has a completely different respect for food when one is in touch with its source. We would waste so much less if we had raised it or grown it. A farmer wouldn't kill a steer that he had raised from birth only to use the best bits, the rib-eyes and tenderloins, and throw away the rest: and he wouldn’t let his children waste the food on their plate if he had raised the meat and tended the vegetables that were on the table. We get food easy and fast and we eat it in the same way, and just as easily throw away what we don't want.

I was reminded of my French holidays when I visited White Oak Pastures just recently. Owner and stockman Will Harris has created a place for his workers to eat – not exactly a restaurant or a dining hall - it is simply a quality built, open-sided tasteful wooden shelter, probably about 50 feet long, with a long wooden table and bench running down the centre, rustic tasteful lights provide ambience, and there is a modern clean kitchen for cooking up tasty meals. The dining area is set to the side of an open pasture and with the big industrial sized ceiling fans is able to capture and utilize whatever breeze is available in SW Georgia - a most inviting setting.  Now why would Mr Harris go to all this trouble, work and expense to create this wonderful space simply for his employees to eat lunch?  Granted the ‘restaurant’ is open to the public, but Bluffton is hardly a metropolis and passing trade will definitely not be thick and fast, so restaurant revenue is not his motivation.  So why is he doing it? Because he cares about the welfare of his workers – they give him their ‘pound of flesh’ in terms of hard work and hours, and in return he pays them with a fair wage, health insurance and now a hearty home raised, home grown, and home cooked lunch (for a dollar a plate!!)  

photograph from Atlanta Bearings

Will doesn’t want his workers grabbing a fast-food lunch everyday (although it would have to be very fast indeed as the nearest ‘McDs’ and its cousins are 12 miles from the farm). Neither does he want them lunching on vending style food such as chips, candy, or Instant Ramen Noodles.  The butchers, the farm labourers, and office staff sit down to eat in a communal environment with meat straight from the pasture and vegetables straight from the garden - as Will Harris calls it "Pasture to Plate". Now this all sounds very pastoral and utopian and I am not suggesting that everyone sits down in a community of bountiful blessings - but having shared in the work of the day, the week, and for some of them the years, eating the spoils of that shared work does, even unconsciously, connect the participants.

The Slow Food Movement has its origins in Italy where it was set up in reaction to fast-food, specifically by Carlo Petrini following his outrage at a McDonald's restaurant opening up near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Slow food has been a 'way of life' (not a ‘movement’) in many European countries for centuries so I am sure some folk are wondering what the fuss is about, but there is no doubt that the Slow Food Movement has taken off in Europe and many other nations, including the U.S.  Unfortunately it is quite easy for the ethos of the movement to get lost or hidden by the culinary artistry of the chef, and can become a brand name.  As I understand it Slow Food is a philosophy not a brand or a recipe.  

I believe that in Carlo Petrini's vision there is no room for industrialized farming practices in Slow Food. If we are literally farm to table, or as Will Harris puts it ‘Pasture to Plate’, then slow food begins from the seed that is planted in the ground to the calf or the piglet that is born on the farm, and it follows that we nurture the livestock and crops through natural and healthy methods. Slow food goes even deeper, literally beyond grassroots, right to the very essence of the soil - the livestock and the crops can only be as good as what is in the earth – so Slow Food is also about sustainability and replenishing the earth with what we have taken from it.  The Slow Food Movement is not simply opposing the fast track cooking and conveyor belt style of serving of the likes of Burger King and McDonald’s; it would not be doing its job if it was simply about a style of cooking: what good would it be for the future of the food community if it was. For example a chef might braise a piece of beef for hours with vegetables and bone marrow stock, and serve it with whole grains;  but what good would that be for the greater good of the food community if the steer was finished off on a CAFO, the vegetables were sprayed with umpteen pesticides and the grains were genetically engineered.  

These are the three guiding principles underlying the Slow Food Movement Good, Clean, and Fair :-

“GOOD - a fresh and flavorsome seasonal diet that satisfies the senses and is part of our local culture; CLEAN food production and consumption that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; FAIR accessible prices for consumers and fair conditions and pay for small-scale producers”.

- A grass roots movement with grass roots ingredients.

Slow Food is about re-engaging - we need to educate ourselves and connect to the source of our food - right down to the seed that is planted in the ground, and to every plant and living creature that makes its way to our plates.

Industrialized food producers rely on consumer ignorance to get away with genetically engineering our food, commodifying and abusing animals, and poisoning our crops with harmful chemicals. When we, the consumers, engage with the source of our food then we can begin to change its methods of production.
 Let's get back our food intelligence.  We can call it slow food if we want to or we can call it real food.  Whatever term we use it will only be through re-engaging with it, and demanding healthier methods from our food producers through our food dollar that change will begin.  ~ THE ACTIVIST

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