Anti-fast food fair spreads epicurean revolt

By Mathias Wildt

TURIN, Italy, Nov 6 (Reuters Life!) - Carlo Petrini was so incensed when a McDonald's outlet opened next to the Spanish Steps in Rome, he launched an "epicurean revolt."
That was two decades ago. Today, that revolt has gone global through Slow Food, the international movement he founded to challenge the spread of fast food.

Slow Food, which hosted its sixth annual "Flavor Fair" in Turin in late October, promotes the production of traditional, quality food in an environmentally sound way.

"Eating is an agricultural act," Petrini said. "Choosing quality food, produced respecting the environment and local traditions, can protect biodiversity and a fair and sustainable agriculture."

It's a message that resonates today as consumers become increasingly concerned about man's effect on the planet, be it through climate change or the destruction of natural habitats.

The United Nations says food production is the major cause of pollution and destruction of ecosystems because of the massive use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

All of the delicacies on show at Slow Food's fair in Turin -- including Peruvian potatoes, vanilla from Madagascar and Himalayan pink salt -- were organic, produced without synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or hormones.

The taste fair brought together over 600 producers from around the world: Andean Indians wearing black hats and bright woolen vests displayed their wares alongside women from Mali in traditional cloth dresses, a farmer from Montana wearing a Stetson and Dutch cheese makers in straw hats.

From its origins as a personal crusade, Slow Food now has around 85,000 members in some 130 countries. They meet to educate people about eating well and to promote the understanding of how food is grown or raised through visits to producers. They also meet for dinners, of course.

LINKING PLATE AND PLANET

Slow Food's Web site describes its philosophy as "eco-gastronomy - a recognition of the strong connections between plate and planet."

Petrini says the movement, which has a snail as its symbol, is a rebellion against "the virus of fast life, which forces us to eat fast foods."

"Man invented the machine and then took it as a life model," said the sociologist who used to write restaurant reviews.

Slow Food has published books and founded a gastronomy university with officially recognized degrees in Petrini's hometown of Bra in northern Italy.

It has also evolved from promoting a life of sybaritic enjoyment to educating consumers so they can become "co-producers" and so affect the way food is produced through their everyday shopping choices.

The fair, which attracted more than 150,000 people over five days, showed the progress already made by Slow Food's push to create demand strong enough to affect the way food is produced.

Italy's Modena white cows -- which risk extinction -- are making a comeback as customers get to know and appreciate their richer Parmesan cheese, which was on display in Turin.

Albenga's purple asparagus, grown on only 10 hectares (25 acres) in the Ligurian town of that name, is surviving thanks to Slow Food's marketing.

At the other end of the scale, Italy's second-largest pasta maker, De Cecco, said at the fair it would start selling pasta made with Kamut, an Egyptian cereal with a third more protein and vitamins than the normal durum wheat used for pasta.

For Alessio Follone, 25, from Salina, an island north of Sicily, the fair offered a chance to promote hotels and boat rides, as well as the volcanic island's famous capers.
"I'm here to sell the island as a whole," he said.

Alongside the taste fair, Slow Food brought together 5,000 food producers from around the world to take part in a meeting called Terra Madre, or Mother Earth.

"They represent 1,700 communities, millions of people," Petrini said. "To the evils of globalization, we respond with Terra Madre: a virtuous global network to strengthen local economies and local production."

The producers form an informal network, and meet to exchange ideas and techniques and to share problems.

Slow Food aims to expand Terra Madre over the next two decades, but wants to keep its light, ad hoc structure.

"We should not become giants," Petrini said. "We should remain a small organization fostering a democratic, autonomous network of producers and co-producers."