What’s the Slow Food Movement?

What’s the slow food movement about?

Slow Food Nation began in Italy with the founding of its forerunner organization, Arcigola, in 1986 to resist the opening of a McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps in Rome. In 1989, the founding Manifesto of the international Slow Food movement was signed in Paris, France by delegates from 15 countries.

The Slow Food organization spawned by the movement has expanded to include over 100,000 members with chapters in over 132 countries. All totaled, 800 local convivia chapters exist. 360 convivia in Italy — to which the name condotta (singular) / condotte (plural) applies — are composed of 35,000 members, along with 450 other regional chapters around the world. The organizational structure is decentralized: each convivium has a leader who is responsible for promoting local artisans, local farmers, and local flavors through regional events such as Taste Workshops, wine tastings, and farmers’ markets.

Slow Movement Objectives are:
• Forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems
• Preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation
• Organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products)
• Organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada)
• Promoting “taste education”
• Educating consumers about the risks of fast food
• Educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
• Educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties
• Developing various political programs to preserve family farms
• Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy
• Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering
• Lobbying against the use of pesticides
• Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners
• Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces

If you would like to read more about the Slow Movement, read more on their main site.

Here are some national sites:
Slow Food USA
SlowFoodNation
Slow Food
Green People
Organic Pioneers the website is returning an error..will check back later.
Edible Magazines
Food Museum

It’s important to note that the Slow Movement is moving faster, simply because we really don’t know what ingredients are, the long names given for the ingredients don’t really mean anything to us and finally people are willing to pay more for a quality product.

At Sedona Pies, I do NOT add, added preservatives. The fruit pies don’t have added sweeteners – only the fruit & wine. Personally, I like to work with the farmers’ directly to use as much local fruit, nuts wine and beer as possible.

How about you?