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February 2010
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Slow Food
key
words
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Earth
Markets
Earth Markets are farmers' markets that have been established
according to guidelines that follow the Slow Food philosophy.
These community-run markets become important social meeting
points, where local producers offer healthy, quality food
directly to consumers at fair prices and guarantee environmentally
sustainable methods. In addition, they are focused on
preserving the local food culture and biodiversity of
edible plants and breeding.
For more information: www.earthmarkets.net
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From Land to Table... |
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Terra
Madre Brazil
The network of 50 food
communities gets together |
Brazil – Since the Brazilian network
was initiated in 2004 it has grown to include 50 food
communities as well as various universities, Slow Food
Presidia producers, cooks, students and artists. The network
has strengthened year by year, appreciated for the opportunity
it provides to discuss important food issues, and for
the activities organized to defend Brazil's abundant gastronomic
heritage.
The first Terra Madre Brazil event was held in 2007, and
the second edition will take place in Brasilia from March
19 to 22, 2010 at the FUNARTE cultural complex. More than
500 delegates and over 200 observers (representatives
of local institutions and civil society, journalists and
food industry professionals) are attending the four-day
event, and will participate in workshops to discuss key
issues facing small producers and sustainable food production.
In addition various other activities will be held, many
of which are open to the public: taste education workshops
for adults and children, a sensory activity trail, culinary
demonstrations by Terra Madre cooks and talks and seminars
on food quality, sustainable production and agricultural
biodiversity.
A Biodiversity Market will be set up outside the venue,
where visitors can taste and purchase products from Brazilian
food communities, Ark of Taste and Presidia projects.
The program also includes a range of cultural activities
connected with food, such as exhibitions, feature films,
music, theatre and dance.
For further information: Slow
Food Brazil
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All
Go for Markets
New activities
for Earth Markets in Italy
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Italy - Bologna
Earth Market held its first onsite cooking lesson on February
20, in the city’s historic center. Chef Antonella
Bonora guided participants around the stalls and then
demonstrated how to prepare a series of dishes using the
producer’s seasonal offerings. The resulting meal
- a creative take on a traditional menu – was shared
by participants and their guests at a convivial lunch
in the centre of the marketplace.
The first Milan Earth Market of 2010 included a number
of guest producers from outside the local region: cheesemakers
from the Lodi Pannerone Presidium in the Lombard region
as well as Sicilian red orange growers and fishermen from
Catania. Visitors to the market also had the opportunity
to take part in Taste Workshops organized by Lombardy’s
convivia, and to stop at the Tables of Conviviality for
a chat or a taste of newly purchased products.
Cooking lessons at the Bologna Earth Market: Saturday
February 27 and Saturday March 6.
Next Milan Earth Markets will be held on March 20 and
April 17
For further information on all of the Earth Markets: www.earthmarkets.net
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North
to the South
A meeting between
Argentinan and Canadian members |
Inspired by stories of members meeting up from diverse
regions of the world, Ghislain Trudel, leader of Abitibi-Témiscamingue
Convivium (Canada), and his daughter Martina, traveled
to the Cuyo region of Argentina in January to visit some
of the interesting Slow Food projects in the area. They
were welcomed by members of the Rayz de Cuyo Convivium
and over several days visited organic farms, walked along
rows of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon and tasted wines
produced by convivium leader Miguel Mas. Lunch one day
was a shared feast of home made dishes made form the members
own produce, including cured meats, cheeses, olive oil,
balsamic vinegar, wine, bread, seasonal fruit and vegetables.
In a mixture of English, Spanish and French, new friendships
were born and a small but significant link in the Terra
Madre network was forged. Such exchanges are an indispensable
way of strengthening the Slow Food network.
"The energy running through Terra Madre enabled us
to meet in a spirit of full understanding despite our
different languages and the huge distances between our
communities."
Miguel Angel Mas
Slow Food Rayz de Cuyo convivium leader
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Slow
Wine
Small-scale
vignerons unite |
Georgia –Joining the Vignerons
d'Europe meeting last December in Tuscany were two producers
from the Georgian Wine in Jars Presidium – formed
in 2008 to increase the quality and commercialization
of this traditional, natural wine produced in one of Europe’s
oldest wine regions. The technique of fermenting and aging
the wine in large terracotta jars buried in the earth
is at risk of disappearing in a market that favors larger
winemaking operations and modern technologies.
The Georgians joined more than 600 small-scale winemakers
from around Europe at this second edition of Vignerons
d’Europe. The occasion provided the producers with
an opportunity to discuss how to renew the quality of
the continent’s wines, address the modern threats
to their profession and to propose solutions. “I
was afraid that the situation here (Italy) in such a rich
traditional winegrowing area would be very different from
what we face in Georgia,” explained Solomon Tsaishvili,
a wine producer from Kakheti region. “But after
spending a week with other winemakers, I realized that
small-scale producers share the same problems and hopes
whether they are in Italy, Georgia or any other country.”
Following the event, the Georgian producers were hosted
by Tuscan vignerons and Slow Food convivia in the region.
A meeting with the Cammino Autoctuve association, which
promotes traditional wines from the Maremma and Elba Island
in southern Tuscany, led to a new ‘twinning’
between winemakers from the two regions, with a training
session lead by an Italian enologist to be held in Georgia
next year.
Click to read the European
Manifesto of Sustainable Winegrowing and Winemaking
developed during Vignerons d’Europe
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Grandmothers'
Day
Slow Food Ireland
celebrates lost skills… |
International - The second annual Grandmothers’
Day will be celebrated on April 25 to remember and record
the forgotten skills and the precious inherited food wisdoms
of previous generations. Launched as an idea at the Terra
Madre meeting in October 2008, Grandmothers’ Day
presents an opportunity to pass on practical knowledge
and skills in your communities and families, whether it
be through planting a garden, cooking a meal, preserving
the season’s produce, or sharing stories. The Irish
convivia are once again organizing a range of activities
across the country, and extend the invitation to convivia
and communities, grandparents and grandchildren the world
over to join in. Last year, Slow Food in Ireland celebrated
with a range of events including traditional recipe demonstrations,
a “cooking with granny” art competition, a
competition to find favorite recipes that grandparents
love to cook with their grandchildren, and publishing
traditional family recipes in a local paper, among others.
For more information:
www.slowfoodireland.com
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Real
Food and Fair Chocolate
Slow Food USA
builds support across the country for national campaigns… |
USA - Slow Food USA is continuing the
Time for Lunch campaign, launched last fall, rallying
the public to tell Congress to get serious about the issues
that underlie child obesity and health problems when legislators
update the Child Nutrition Act this year. “Obesity
and diabetes cost our nation $263 billion per year, about
half of which is paid for by taxpayers. And yet school
lunch is so under-funded that most schools can only afford
to serve the cheap processed foods that fuel obesity and
diabetes. Investing in healthier food is the right thing
to do for our kids and for our economy,” said Josh
Veirtel, Slow Food USA president.
Slow Food USA is urging citizens to join their Time for
Lunch campaign and ask legislators to add at least $1
billion to the Child Nutrition Act, as well as to strengthen
nutrition standards and help schools start farm-to-school
programs. With a goal for the public to send 100,000 letters
to Congress, 40,000 people have already written or signed
a petition in support of the campaign.
Visit
the campaign web site to find out more or to send an email
to legislators
Meanwhile, the American Slow Food on Campus network partnered
with United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) this month
to encourage the 33 campus convivia across the country
to organize Fair Trade events in honor of Valentine's
Day.
More
on Slow Food on Campus here
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Voices
from Terra Madre
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Dharti
Ma No Diwas
India
- The role of women in rooting communities
to their traditions and nature was celebrated
on Terra Madre Day, as 250 women united together
in Manipur village, India for a celebration to
thank mother earth and recognize the valuable
work of women. The celebration opened with participants
praying together, followed by songs and performances
and documenting of traditional recipes. The women,
mostly farmers and food producers from rural areas,
spoke of their experiences, then cooked and shared
traditional dishes before dancing and singing
together. Organizer Namrata Bali
explains... |
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“We
wanted to do this project because we feel
strongly that women are closely linked
to nature, agriculture and tradition.
Women are the mothers of our children
but their work and contribution to society
is not realized. Mothers are keepers of
traditions, which are passed on to their
daughters, who then pass them on to their
daughters, and so on. Women are connected
to nature. Here, it is the women that
work from dawn till dusk collecting water,
looking after farms and feeding our communities.
So, we wanted their contribution to be
recognized.
It was very important for us to use this
day to document some of our food traditions
and recipes, which risk being forgotten
by our children. There is more and more
influence of junk food nowadays, even
reaching rural areas and we don’t
want this. It was the women who said they
wanted to do this - that they don’t
want to lose this.
Most of the women who came to our Terra
Madre Day gathering were farmers, and
some were urban and working class women,
but we were all linked by our traditional
customs of cooking. We were a mixed group
who are otherwise divided by caste or
religion, but on this day we were all
the same...." |
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Namrata Bali
The SEWA Academy
sewaacdy@youtele.com
Click
here to view a photo gallery of the
event.
Click
here to browse the 200 stories sent
to us following Terra Madre Day - held on
December 10 by the international Slow Food
network to celebrate eating locally. Stories
have been published in eight languages,
and are accompanied by many wonderful photographs.
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Food
Traditions
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On
the Roof of the World
More than 60
mulberry varieties thrive in the valleys of Tajikistan’s
Pamir Mountains
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Tajikistan –
In the pristine valleys of the Pamir Mountains, in the
Gorno-Badakhshan province, the mulberry plays such an
important role in the local diet that more than 60 varieties
of the fruit can be found across the region. Introduced
from China via the Silk Route, the berry quickly adapted
to the difficult mountain environment, where the few
villages are situated in steep valleys and cultivable
land is scarce.
The 60 varieties of mulberry in the Pamir region are
the result of centuries of selection and adaptation.
They are commonly eaten fresh or used to make jams,
syrups and pikht, a flour made from ground mulberry,
which is usually mixed with other seeds and cereals.
Due to the remoteness of the valleys, various Pamir
languages are still widely spoke across the area and
many different names exist for products made from the
fruit.
In the local culture, the mulberry tree and fruit are
associated with beauty: The berries are traditionally
given to a couple to make their life sweeter, and a
mulberry tree would always be planted before starting
to build a house. During crisis periods, such as the
Second World War or the civil war that afflicted the
country until 1997, the mulberry played a crucial role
as a main source of nutrition.
The Khorog Mulberry Growers food community has been
part of the Terra Madre network since 2004 and currently
includes 23 producers who recently formed a Presidium.
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Slow
Food in the Canteen
Connecting
children with traditional foods in Portugal
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Portugal –
Tiborna, a traditional dish of bread soaked with olive
oil or sprinkled with sugar or honey, is making a comeback
in the city of Evora thanks to local Slow Food efforts
to rediscover traditional foods - including the local
Slow Food in the Canteen project "Education of
Taste.”
In addition to focusing on increasing the use of locally
produced, healthy produce, the project aims to reintroduce
lost or forgotten traditional foods into school canteens,
with tiborna the first to be featured. The initiative,
which is based in the rural district of Canaviais, is
bringing together children and older generations, introducing
students to chefs, and will include workshops on production
of local foods such as olive oil and bread. "The
best way to change home diets is through the kids,"
said Victor Lamberto, Slow Food Alentejo's Convivium
leader. “Being innovative can also be a process
of restoring the past. [We] want the kids to eat what
their ancestors ate and be proud."
Slow Food in the Canteen is a European school project
launched in 2009 as part of Slow Food’s campaign
to bring good, clean and fair food to public canteens.
Victor S. Lamberto
vlamberto@gmail.com
Slow Food Alentejo
For more information on Slow Food in the Canteen:
Sarah Fleming
s.fleming@slowfood.com
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Food
for Thought
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Slow
Tuna
Europe edges
towards bluefin ban |
Spain – In early February, Slow
Food in Spain joined with several other concerned organizations
to plead the Spanish government to take urgent action
to protect bluefin tuna, which is teetering on the brink
of extinction. Last year the species was proposed to
be added to CITES (Convention on the International Trade
in Endangered Species), which would prohibit its trade
as of late 2011 – too late according to many.
France announced its support of the ban this month and
many countries in the 27-nation European Union are showing
signs of agreement. However, Spain, which currently
holds the European Union’s presidency and will
present the union’s position at the CITES meeting
in March, has not yet shown support.
Slow Food in Spain also defended the work continued
by artisanal fishing communities such as the almadrabas
(small, traditional tuna fisheries), where fishing has
been undertaken in a sustainable way for centuries,
and highlighted that these fishers are the first in
the industry to feel the affects of the dramatic impacts
of overfishing.
Click
here to read the full article
France - A growing number of chefs
and restaurateurs are taking the initiative to ban bluefin
tuna now, rather than waiting for regulatory controls
to take hold. The latest of these include restaurant
group Relais & Chateaux which has banned the threatened
species from the menus of its 475 establishments. “There
is a terrifying urgency regarding the issue of the ocean’s
supplies, and we must increase awareness of this as
soon as possible” said Olivier Roellinger, chef
and vice president of the global luxury hotel and restaurant
group. “The idea is that if all the chefs in the
world join forces, we can help make a difference.”
Click
here to read the full article
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Introducing
the Junk Food Tax
Romania considers
a tax to curb obesity |
Romania may be the first country to
introduce a tax on junk food as early as March of this
year, in an effort to fight obesity and increase the
level of funding for its crisis-hit health system. One
in four Romanians suffers from obesity and the country’s
public health system is suffering from chronic lack
of funding. If approved, the levy would apply to producers
of fast-food products, certain snacks and crisps, confectionery
and soft drinks, and is estimated to bring around one
billion euros (1.45 billion dollars) to the ministry's
budget. Such taxes have been considered in other countries,
including France and Australia, but were not followed
through due to concerns about the additional cost to
consumers and the difficulty in coming up with a suitable
scheme.
Click
here to read the full article
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In
Print, On Screen
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Terra
Madre
English edition
launched |
In Terra Madre,
Slow Food president Carlo Petrini tells us that on a
global scale, we aren’t eating food. Food is eating
us. Inspired by the Terra Madre network of food communities,
Petrini’s solution to the problems of large-scale
industrial agriculture lie in the thousands of newly
formed local alliances between food producers and food
consumers. And he proposes expanding these alliances
- connecting regional food communities around the world
to promote good, clean, and fair food. The end goal
is a world in which communities are entitled to choose
not only what they want to grow and eat, but also how
they produce and distribute it.
The English edition of Petrini’s latest book was
released in mid-February:
Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network
of Sustainable Food Communities, Carlo
Petrini, Chelsea Green, 2009
Click
here for more information.
The Italian edition was released late last year:
Terra Madre: Come non farci mangiare dal cibo,
Carlo Petrini, Giunti, 2009
Click
here for more information.
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The
Food Wars
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Walden Bello, leading writer and
activist on the global South, provides a critical analysis
of the various causes of the global food crisis in this
book. Providing a way forward through the principle
of food sovereignty, Bello argues that the developing
world must be allowed to protect and sustain a diverse
range of crops.
The Food Wars, Walden Bello,
Verso, 2009.
For further information or to purchase, click
here.
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Botany
of Desire
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On February 15, the Culinary Cinema
program at the Berlinale film festival screened Botany
of Desire - a documentary adapted from the bestseller
of the same name by Michael Pollan (Food, Inc.) - to
mark the 20th anniversary of the Slow Food movement,
which passed in December 2009. The documentary reveals
the clever strategies used by plants to reproduce themselves
with the assistance of human passions.
For more information, click
here.
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Green
Porno by Isabella Rossellini
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In an eccentric approach to a serious
campaign, Isabella Rossellini's critically acclaimed
series of very short films about the fishing crisis
and the reproductive habits of marine animals is scientifically
accurate yet extremely entertaining.
Click
here to watch
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In early February newspapers reported that Boa
Sr had died at the age of 85 years old. She was
the last person to speak Bo, one of the ten known
languages spoken on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
in the Bay of Bengal, 850 miles off India's east
coast. With her death, another language has disappeared
forever.
This “cultural extinction” is sadly
not a rare phenomenon: linguists estimate there
are about 7,000 languages in the world and of
these, 5,900 are spoken by only 3% of the population.
These languages at risk of extinction can teach
us many things about our culture and evolution,
and our relationship with the environment.
We are witnessing
a loss of diversity that may be comparable to
the situation facing biodiversity, which Slow
Food and Terra Madre have been working to protect
for some time. In addition, these endangered languages
are intimately associated with the rural, tribal
and farming societies representing the heart and
soul of Terra Madre.
Terra Madre is about diversity and is an affirmation
of identity. It is a network based upon openness,
around the core theme of good, clean and fair
agriculture and gastronomy. It cannot remain indifferent
to the erosion of the world's linguistic heritage
and it is in fact an ideal forum to bring attention
to the problem and to seek solutions.
I am pleased to tell you in advance that the issue
of languages will be one of the important new
topics at the next global Terra Madre meeting,
to be held from October 21 to 25, 2010.
At the moment of writing, plans are at a very
early stage for this great event, but the opening
ceremony will almost certainly be in the hands
of indigenous peoples this year – farmers
and other representatives from peoples speaking
languages less common on the international stage.
It will be our way of focusing the world's attention
on the fact that there are many little known languages
still spoken today, which are expressions of a
precious diversity that is connected to biodiversity,
cultural knowledge and more sustainable ways of
living on this planet.
Carlo Petrini
President of Slow Food International
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Slow Food is working
to help communities around the world to rebuild
their local food systems in order to eat better,
protect the environment and maintain cultural diversity.
Help us further these concrete solutions for change.
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| Join
a worldwide |
community
that defends sustainable agriculture, fishing
and breeding. Celebrate the pleasure of food traditions
and quality foods around the world.
servicecentre
@slowfood.com
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CALENDAR
Terra
Madre Brazil
Brasilia, Brazil
March 19 – 22, 2010
Markt
Des Guten Geschmacks
Stuttgart, Germany
April 15 – 18, 2010
Grandmothers’
Day
International
April 25, 2010
Burren
Slow Food Festival
Ireland
May 21 – 23, 2010
Terra Madre Argentina
Buenos Airies, Argentina
July 8-11, 2010
Terra Madre Balkans
Sofia, Bulgaria
July 8-10, 2010
Janecka Vecer
Mavrovo National Park, Macedonia
July 26 - 27 2010
Salone del Gusto
Turin, Italy
October 21 -25, 2010
Terra Madre
Turin, Italy
October 21 -25, 2010
Terra
Madre Day
International
December 10, 2010
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Slow Food and
Terra Madre
in figures
Members: 100,000
Convivia: 1,300
Countries: 150
Presidia: 314
Ark of Taste products: 903
Earth Markets: 10
School gardens: 300
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