October 2008

In this issue:

	Editorial byCarlo Petrini SLOW EDUCATION    Events at the Salone and Terra Madre    Open Gate    Canadians Elna and Doug welcome    students to their farms    Cooking up a Contrast    High school students comparing locally    and industrially produced food through    culinary classes    A Slow Kids Event    A ten-day Slow Village event for children    in urban Jakarta    The Young Ecologists    An educational project for land democracy    in India YOUTH FOOD MOVEMENT    A Multicultural Kitchen    Refugees and immigrants form a catering    group with Slow Food Wien    A Mighty Bite    Christian’s passion for cheesemaking with    mites    Eat-In    A protest against food that is fast, cheap    and easy.

SLOW EDUCATION

Events at the Salone and Terra Madre

  
Slow Food will stage a rich program of educational activities at the Salone del Gusto. In the central area of the Slow Food Educates stand (Pav. 2), there will be Taste Test, a sensory game for young children, and the Slow Food Café will host various events including Food and Cinema (Saturday afternoon), the presentation of the National Festival of Convivium Gardens (Friday, 11.30am), and the presentation of the book La Pedagogia della Lumaca (The Snail's Education) by G. Zavalloni (Saturday afternoon).

Pavilion 5 is entirely dedicated to education. Here you will find the School Garden area (bookings required) for schools. It is organized into four different activities: Seeds—practical lessons in germinating seeds and planting seedling; Biodiversity—an investigation to varieties for growing in vegetable gardens; Seasonality—a competition to design the best ‘four seasons’ pizza; Tasting—guided tastings of food prepared from the great autumn vegetable, pumpkin. Further, the Master of Food program is offering classes for secondary school students in the morning and courses for adults in the afternoon. Last but not least, the extensive program of Taste Workshops and Theater of Taste will also take place here.

The Virtuous Way – a guided route to discovering the world behind what we eat - leads to the Dream Canteen space, which has been designed to help visitors find out about Slow Food’s vision of better collective dining, in association with partners experienced in this field. Meals inspired by Slow Food philosophy will be served twice a day. Round Table discussions will be open to the public free of charge (every day at 4.00pm). Issues to be covered are as follows:
Thursday 23: Health on a plate. The importance of good food for patients.
Friday 24: Close and seasonal. The organization of purchasing in catering management.
Saturday 25: Canteen cooking is also an art. Discussion between cooks and catering professionals.
Sunday 26: Canteen cooking we can all agree about. Food education for school children
Monday 27: Local economies and global health. The social dialog underpinning initiatives at local and European level to develop food education, promote local economies and solve environmental problems.

At the Terra Madre world meeting, two of the delegate’s Earth Workshops will be focused on education: The Dream Canteen, (October 25, 10.00am Sala E)and Learning Communities, (October 26, 10.00am Sala B) which will compare and present some international educational projects.

Terra Madre delegates can also visit To the Origins of Taste, a sensory trail describing basic aspects of the sensory properties of various foods (Friday October 24 and Saturday October 25, 10.00am-5.00pm Sunday October 26, 10.00am-4.00pm balcony Terra Madre pavilion).
The trail is organized in three parts:
Video room: a video with animations and commentary illustrates how the sense organs work and gives advice on how to train and use them more effectively.
Sensory trail: six stations where visitors can begin to train their senses (taste, sight, smell, touch, hearing).
Tasting room: designed to enable people to refine their sensory abilities.

At the Salone del Gusto you can attend the conference The school garden network (October 26, 3.00pm Sala Cittàslow) which will talk about examples of sensory education and school gardens in Italy and around the world.

Click here to see the complete program of Conferences at Terra Madre and the Salone del Gusto.


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Slow Food is currently working on a report that explores the grass root activities in over 65 countries, run by Slow Food convivia, Terra Madre communities and all those that believe that eating differently and changing the existing agro-food system is possible. Here are a few extracts from this report.

Open Gate Canadians Elna and Doug welcome students to their farms

Edgar Farms sixth-generation family property in central Alberta, Canada, is today managed by Elna and Doug Edgar who have launched an on-farm educational program, opening their fields to school groups during the harvest window in late May and June. The tours, for students between 10-11 years old, offer hands-on experience in the various aspects of the farm: dairy, beef and asparagus, bean and garden pea crops. Elna encourages the children to ‘touch, taste and feel’ and to pick the produce as she leads them around the property and teaches them about natural life cycles and seasonal consumption.
The couple developed the program to tap into the food education ‘gap’ in conventional curriculums, teaching a basic principal which is often a novelty for children: that food does not simply come from grocery stores, but from farms. ‘Children have the extraordinary power to influence their family buying behaviors and become preachy supporter of fresh farmer produce: it is common to see them come back with their parents on weekends,’ commented Elna.
‘When the school bus leaves the farm taking away the children and their shouts of joy, a feeling of emptiness comes by, but it is quickly replaced by the thoughts of our next visit’, says Doug, ‘We go back to our duties with the promising memory of their genuine joy at being on the farm: rewarding for us, for the land and for the future’.

Contacts:
Doug y Elna Edgar
Innisfail Fresh Vegetable Producers food community.
elna@edgarfarms.com


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Cooking up a Contrast High school students comparing locally and industrially produced food through culinary classes

In the town of Berioza, situated in the Brest region of Belarus, Slow Food is working with a local school to deliver a Taste Education project that highlights the differences between industrially produced food and local fare, and brings pupils into contact with many of the region’s producers and chefs. Conventional home-economics classes have been transformed into comparative taste workshops by using a simple and effective format: students produce two versions of a dish—using different raw materials—and then do a sensorial analysis of the results.
A course has now been designed, with each lesson covering a different local product: fish, cheese, sausage, honey and chicken. The classes also include a lecture from a local producer. For example, the chicken class begins with a presentation from a small-scale farmer who explains traditional methods of rearing and processing chickens and compares these with those used by industrial breeders to produce fast-growing birds. The students then follow a recipe to prepare the two types of chicken meat, and then evaluate the two dishes through a guided sensorial tasting.
To gauge the overall response of the students to the project and how it may have changed their eating habits at home, a questionnaire was circulated to parents and students after the first class. The children’s responses have been overwhelmingly positive: one girl happily commented that she now cooks fish regularly at home with her mother; another student said ‘I’ve never had a lesson like this before and couldn’t wait for more’; and another liked it very much because of the focus on ‘taste and health’.
Berioza Secondary School hopes to make the classes a permanent feature of their curriculum in coming years - expanding upon the existing topics and providing opportunities for parents to participate – and hopes that their model will encourage schools across Belarus to follows suit.

Contacts:
Vistunova Lidziya
Slow Food Berioza convivium leader, Belarus.
j.vistunova@slowfood.it


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A Slow Kids Event A ten-day Slow Village event for children in urban Jakarta

Gregory believes you can tell people that certain foods are bad for them until the cows come home, but more drastic action must be taken to bring about real behavior change. Schools may be teaching nutrition but the supermarkets don’t teach us the origins of food. With childhood obesity becoming a public health crisis, the Lippo Karawaci convivium decided it was time to do something proactive to teach youth the differences between processed foods and naturally grown products.
In collaboration with a nearby university, Slow Food Jakart organized a ten-day food festival consisting of taste workshops and a Slow Food village. Slow Food Lippo Karawaci collaborated by introducing taste education to the community’s youth in workshops held in four large tents - each on a different subject and hosted workshops for 20 elementary school children at a time.
The first theme, Developing Sense taught children to differentiate between quality raw products and their poorer quality counterparts. In another workshop, children were asked to pass around and smell six different ‘flavor containers’ and to guess the food held within each one.
The Dairy workshop taught children about the origin and health benefits of milk, and of its different forms – from industrial powered milk to unpasteurized milk direct from the farm. After helping to milk a cow, children were invited to taste fresh raw milk and compare it to various pasteurized milks available commonly in stores.
The inventive Mindful Eating workshop proved to be a very powerful educational tool. First the children were asked to eat a piece of banana while loud news recordings played in the background. Next they ate in silence and were prompted to concentrate, feel the banana in their mouth, note its color, shape and smell and to concentrate on its flavor. Afterwards, they discussed their experiences of eating in two very different ways and were reminded to eat with awareness in their daily life.

Contact:
Gregory Ernoult
Slow Food Lippo Karawaci convivium leader, Indonesia.
gregerni@hotmail.com


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The Young Ecologists An educational project for land democracy in India

A new generation of Indians is growing up to know very little about the food they eat. Concerns about food origins, quality and sustainable agriculture don’t make it into the food discourse—even while India’s ancient farming¬ and agriculture culture is facing great problems, brutally obvious through the high number of farmers taking their own life each year.
Supermarkets are pushing small retailers out of the market; governments want peddlers off the streets; recent agricultural reform has supported cultivation of genetically modified foods; and fast food restaurants are taking off. All of this is part of a rapidly changing culture gaining momentum every day. Understanding these problems, Rahul Rahul Antao of Slow Food Mumbai, was motivated to work for the empowerment of youth to improve this situation. In March 2007 he began collaborating with The Young Ecologist Initiative, a collaborative venture between Slow Food convivia and the Indian based NGO, Navdanya, founded by Dr. Vandana Shiva, Vice-President of Slow Food International, who hopes that: ‘through the Young Ecologist Initiative we will be able to create a platform for children to have a voice in envisioning the future that they inherit’.
The program’s educational framework revolves around four pillars—actors, content, resources, and objectives. The classes are conducted through interactive means such as story telling, brainstorming, group work, games, discussions, and theatre—with each activity facilitating learning in a different way. Lesson topics include: Earth: Soil, Seeds and Food Politics; Air: Climate Change and Energy; Living: Consumerism and Sustainability; and Water. The range of classroom activities and lessons are further complemented with cooking classes, using traditional grains and locally grown organic vegetables. In some cases the children also grow vegetables themselves in learning gardens based on organic principles.
The Young Ecologist project assists educators of elementary, middle, and high schools, on how to effectively raise awareness, skills, and active participation among youth. These youth in turn are working to create their own good, clean and fair future.

Contact:
Maya Gobhurdhun
Navdanya Foundation
navdanya@gmail.com


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YOUTH FOOD MOVEMENT

A Multicultural Kitchen Refugees and immigrants form a catering group with Slow Food Wien

Young Jelka Perusich is coordinator of the project Wien Cooks, launched in Vienna in 2007 by the local convivium.
In order to do something about the need to help refugees and immigrants integrate into Viennese society, the Slow Food convivium decided to collaborate with the association Connecting People and set up a project enabling refugees to become cooks.
Some of the refugees are young people or adolescents who arrived without their families and are seeking a new life; others are immigrants who have lived in Austria for many years. What they all have in common is their passion for cooking together with significant artisan skill. Through their catering company, the cooks prepare traditional local dishes from their countries and offer guests an opportunity to try new foods. They also often provide demonstrations of the different cuisines being prepared for a meal when providing their professional catering service.
Jelka says the philosophy of the Viennese Cooks is based on the belief that cooking, eating and sharing meals are an essential part of every culture. ‘Food heritage is just as basic to our identity as music, literature, art, language or religion. The aromas and flavors of our infancy remain in our memory and are an intrinsic part of us’. This is particularly true for people who have lost their roots through displacement or migration, or have had to leave their homeland. Cooking their traditional dishes helps these people to keep their culture alive and share it with those who are part of their new home.
Dishes are prepared using top quality fresh, seasonal, organic local products.

Contact:
Jelka Perusich
Member of the Slow Food Wien Convivium.
jelka.perusich@slowfoodwien.at


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A Mighty Bite Christian’s passion for cheesemaking with mites

Christian is a young German man of 21 years, a theology student at Leipzig University, who decided to produce cheese using mites! His hometown of Würchwit, in the State of Saxony-Anhalt, is where the tradition of mite cheese originated in the Middle Ages.
Christian set up his venture in the spring of 2006. Mite cheese starts with a well drained curd cheese, made from goat, sheep or cow's milk. The cheese ripens in wooden boxes with special cheese mites. This process takes three to six months and requires extreme care. The cheese is only produced from spring to autumn, because the mites are not active in winter, and is fully mature when it reaches an amber color and a semi-hard or hard texture. It has a very distinctive aroma, with bitter notes. Würchwitz Mite Cheese is a Slow Food Ark of Taste listed product and Christian is one of the young delegates attending Terra Madre 2008.

Contact:
Christian Schmelzer
christianschmelzer@gmx.de


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Eat-In A protest against food that is fast, cheap and easy

Slow Food Nation held this August saw the debut of a unique initiative of the Youth Food Movement: the Eat-In. he Eat-In. The first Eat-In was held in San Francisco’s Dolores Park and saw 250 students and young farmers, cooks, artisans and activists from across the United States come to the long table that dominated park. The huge success in San Francisco has seen the “Eat-In Manifesto” (below) circulated widely with similar events being planned across the globe, not least of which is one planned for the Saturday night of Terra Madre for the 1000 plus young delegates coming to Torino.

What is an Eat-In?
An Eat-In is a protest against food that is fast, cheap and easy.
An Eat-In is a demand for food that is good, clean and fair.
An Eat-In is a statement that eating is our common language and a universal right.
An Eat-In is a celebration of the people who grow, produce, sell and cook our food.
An Eat-In is a call to action for the generation inheriting our food system to get out of their cars, turn off their computers and come to the tables.

How to Eat-In
• Invite old and new freinds into your kitchen to cook. Invite other friends to cook in other kitchens. Five or fifty people can Eat-In.
• Go to Farmer’s Market and groceries. Shake the hands that feed you.
• Set your table in a park, on a farm, in front of a city hall or across the drive-thru lane of your local McDonald’s.
• Eat together

For further information and to see photographs of the San Francisco Eat-In, click here.


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