Slow Food

The Slow Food movement

Slow Food convivia (as local groups are called) are scattered across the UK and are keen to bring the pleasure principle back to Britain's eating habits. The aim is to nurture the link between consumer and producer, to the mutual benefit of both, so that jointly consumers and producers can protect and enjoy all that's good in our indigenous food production, from pear orchards to potted shrimp.

Carlo Petrini, a food and wine journalist in Italy, founded The Slow Food movement in 1986. Petrini had become haunted by the spectre of fast food companies eroding Italy's ancient culinary culture. The opening of McDonald's on the Spanish Steps in Rome was the final straw.

That a fast food giant could open its doors in the heart of food-obsessed Rome symbolised to Petrini the vulnerability of older values to brash new industrial methods. Processed fast food was not only changing the landscape through intensive farming, it was also eroding a way of life that revolved around producing and eating food in a relaxed, sociable way.

Promoting gastro-culture

It was time to act. Petrini realised that the key to change lay in motivating people with similar concerns. Strip away the Euro-talk and it's all about motivating ordinary people to take control of how they live, work and eat. He knew that the only way to counter the threat was to tackle the problem internationally and by promoting gastronomic culture, developing taste education, conserving agricultural biodiversity and protecting traditional foods that are at risk from extinction. Slow Food, whose aim is to "protect the pleasures of the table from the homogenisation of modern fast food and life," was born.

The organisation now spans 100 countries, each with its own network of convivia (local Slow Food branches). Twenty years on, Petrini as President of Slow Food is opening up the debate on how to develop the movement further. His ideas have the potential to ignite a powerful grass-roots force that can shape the way countries live and trade with one another.

The Slow Food convivia

Britain currently has around 50 convivia scattered across the country withmore than 2,000 members. The movement is growing quickly and in 2005 Slow Food UK was formally constituted into a not-for-profit company with its headquarters in Ludlow, Shropshire.

Each convivium is different, depending on the interests of its members. Most are made up of both producers and consumers. The latter are called 'co-producers' in Slow Food-speak as they shape the success of any product as much as the producer. Some convivia organise events such as special meals, tastings and visits to small, artisan producers. Others are developing food links with their local communities such as planting vegetable gardens in local schools or devising delicious local 'slow food' trails.

Education is seen as a key element of the convivia. In particular, the development of mutual understanding to help ‘re-localise' consumption and agricultural production. Chris Walton, an organic farmer in the Borders is a good example of how it can work. In 2004 he was approached by the British Pig Association to exhibit his Tamworth pork at the Slow Food Salone in Turin. "It was a fantastic eye-opener to discover that artisan producers from around the world are experiencing the same problems as us, but in response they were forming a supportive global network that gave hope," he says.

On his return, he joined his nearest Slow Food convivium in Edinburgh, before helping to set up a local branch in Berwick-upon-Tweed. The convivium forged links with local restaurants, shops and food-lovers, who in turn learned about the complexity of producing lamb, beef and pork organically, while he began to create a bespoke service to fulfil their culinary needs.

Slow Food Markets

Under the auspices of Nick Miller, Bristol's convivium has developed the UK’s first Slow Food Market. "I wanted to give everyone access to Slow Food," explains Miller. He rapidly gained the support of the city council, who gave him a prime site in the centre of Bristol the first Sunday of every month.

The Bristol convivium, meanwhile, set about rounding up the best artisan suppliers they could find. This proved slightly problematic in that, by their very nature, many were small, specialised family-run businesses. Thus if the seas were too rough to launch a boat, no fish would be sold or if the spring was late, the goats’ cheese seller didn’t have enough milk to make cheese to sell.

The market has proved such as success in the last two years that there is talk of expanding it. At the same time, the Slow Food network is spreading to a far wider number of food producers and consumers, who might otherwise not have become involved.

Cittaslow

In 1999, the Italian Slow Food movement created the Cittaslow (which translates as 'slow city') scheme. It was designed to engender Slow Food values into local communties. The British scheme has developed in close collaboration with UK Slow Food members. Ludlow in Shropshire was the first British town to be admitted into the Cittaslow network in 2003. Aylsham and Diss in Norfolk, Mold in Wales, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Cockermouth in the north of England, and Perth and Linlithgow in Scotland have since followed.

As with the convivia, each Cittaslow town chooses its goals and unites disparate local groups to bring them about. Ludlow Cittaslow, for example, have transformed the local leisure centre’s fast food restaurant into a healthy eating café, fought to protect local pubs, filled the town with flowers and have tackled the towns parking problems.

Graeme Kidd, President of Cittaslow UK, believes that the movement will slowly gather momentum as each UK region gains a Cittaslow town. Certainly, if Slow Food UK’s progress is any guide, that's highly likely. After all, who wouldn’t want their local town to become a gastronomic idyll?

Reviewed July 2009