Slow Food: The French Terroir Strategy, and Culinary Modernism
Slow Food, say its advocates, takes gastronomy to another and higher level. Somewhere between a latter-day religion and a political program, this version of gastronomy will save us from the widely-recognized problems associated with modernity. Slow Food is founded on the purported revelation that pursuing pleasure protects the environment, creates a sustainable agriculture, preserves culinary patrimonies, increases the good, the true and the beautiful, and has the potential to save us from ourselves.
Corby Kummer, one of America’s leading food commentators, tells us that signing of for Slow Food is a win/wine move: by eating well we can do good. Albert Sonnenfeld, professor of French at Columbia University and editor of a distinguished series of books on culinary history, explains that the table is an “altar” that offers “the template for the preservation of human rights and the environment.” Alice Waters, revered founder of the restaurant Chez Panisse, say that Slow Food teaches us “compassion, beauty, community, and sensuality.” Mario Batali, of the famed Babbo restaurant in New York, praises it as “far more spiritual, nay religious, than any club (or religion, for that matter) I have been asked to join.”
And Carlo Petrini, the entrepreneur who founded Slow Food and whose book under review here lays out the history and agenda of the organization, leads the chorus. “Faced with the excesses of modernization, we are not trying to change the world anymore, just to save it.”
In the half-dozen years since I published this excerpt as part of an essay review of Petrini’s Slow Food a lot of the shine has gone off the movement. In recent days, though, I have had several requests for a pdf of my review “Slow Food: The French Terroir Strategy, and Culinary Modernism,” so here it is.
And here is the full reference. Rachel Laudan. “Slow Food: The French Terroir Strategy, and Culinary Modernism. An Essay Review of Carlos Petrini, trans. William McCuaig.” Slow Food: The Case for Taste (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). Food Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 7. 2. (2004), 133-144.
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By Jupiter, Rachel, I love you for these pieces. My personal interest with home workouts was a result of my interest in Roman history, which later expanded to the topic of nutrition, so your words resonate very well with me.
On topic: While I see the general idea of “slow food” as something good, it indeed is a luxury. What it reminds me of is the “paleo diet” movement – those that condemn the advent of agriculture and see it as man’s downfall, while failing to realize that without agriculture it would have been impossible to live in the big clusters we now call cities, which would effectively have prohibited the development of an advanced civilization.
Good blog !!
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SF has made some radical changes these last years. The Ark of Taste, which singled out heirloom varieties of things worth saving has been neglected while the 5 dollar challenge is now the focus. I thought the point was to pay for food and pay what it actually costs and to support craftspeople who are carrying on food traditions and producing locally, organically, blah blah blah.
I recently heard the head of Slow Food on a podcast and he suggests you buy and roast a delicious chicken and the use the leftovers for chicken salad for the kid’s sandwiches later in the week. This is what people who love to cook do naturally. Tell this to a busy, single working mom and she’s likely to look at you and say, “Are you nuts?”
Steve, I can always rouse you on Slow Food. I have to admit I have not been following their doings as they seem increasingly isolated and irrelevant. I had not heard about the 5 dollar challenge. It all seems such a wasted opportunity.