Slow Food Movement

The Slow Food organization first came to public attention in 1989, in association with protests over the proposed opening of a McDonald's in Rome's Piazza di Spagna. The name “slow food” (always in English, despite its Italian origins) was thus defined from the outset in opposition to fast food and marked a rejection of both the homogenized cuisine associated with fast-food chains and the utilitarian mode of consumption associated with this type of food (designed for eating “on the run”). In November 1989, the nonprofit organization was officially launched at a ceremony in Paris, attended by representatives from fifteen countries who ratified the “Official Manifesto for the International Movement for the Defense of and the Right to Pleasure.” This manifesto, which advocated the importance of pleasure in daily life and the threats posed by modern civilization's obsession with speed, [Page 1292]laid the foundation for an organization that has used a staple of human existence—food—to critique modern methods of production and consumption while at the same time celebrating taste, conviviality, and hospitality. Slow Food also adopted the symbol of the snail as an effective means of declaring a challenge to the orthodoxy that faster is better, which remains prominent in the organization's literature, marketing, campaigns, and events.

Prior to the protests in Rome, a small group of left-wing activists in Piedmont had begun to advocate the importance of local cuisine and the pleasures of the table in the mid-1980s. Led by Carlo Petrini, the group originally called Arcigola hosted food events and launched a newspaper supplement on Italian wines that was highly successful and would subsequently influence the direction of the publishing arm of Slow Food, Slow Food Editore, established in 1990. Today the Editore continues to publish successful annual guides to wines and restaurants in Italy, a quarterly journal Slow in six language editions (Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese), books on slow food, and a comprehensive website that charts the movement around the world.

The early days of Slow Food established a philosophical core that remains central to the organization. With an emphasis on the pleasures and ethics of food and a critique of globalization in the practices of food production and consumption, the organization has launched a range of campaigns to preserve local food cultures and to recognize the “connections between plate and planet,” as Slow Food puts it. From being seen as primarily a gastronomic organization, the organization subsequently re-branded itself as “eco-gastronomic,” signaling its commitment to sustainable methods of agriculture and food production. Under Carlo Petrini's continued leadership from his hometown of Bra, in the Italian Piedmont, where the organization is still based, Slow Food has hosted a number of high-profile food events that showcase heritage cuisine and celebrate small-scale local producers from around the world. Notably, Slow Food's Salone del Gusto (Hall of Taste), held in Turin every two years, attracts over 100,000 visitors over five days and has proved an effective way of publicizing the need to protect artisanal food products. Similar biennial events showcase cheese (in Bra) and fish (in Genoa), with the purpose of taste education and bringing artisanal producers and consumers together. In 2004, Slow Food launched an associated event, Terra Madre, to be held in conjunction with Salone del Gusto, that was envisaged as a meeting of representatives from food communities around the world, many from developing countries, to develop networks of what Petrini has called “virtuous globalization,” a coalition of expertise that it is hoped may begin a process of challenging the dominance of multinational agricultural corporations. Most recently, Slow Food has launched a campaign called “buono, pulito e guisto,” supporting “good, clean and fair” food that marks its clearest articulation to date of the connection between taste and ethics in food production and consumption, explicitly linking animal welfare and environmental responsibility with economic sustainability for producers, especially those in underdeveloped nations.

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