Savoring Slow Food at Terra Madre 2006

B y Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht, Garden of Eve Organic Farm

We met a rubber tapper from Thailand, a heritage-turkey farmer from Spain, some yak-cheese makers from Tibet, a community gardener from New Orleans and a couple running a diverse organic farm very much like ours in California. Where were we? At Terra Madre in Turin Italy, a conference organized by “Slow Food International” held from October 26-30, 2006.

My husband Chris and I had been nominated to be “delegates” to Terra Madre by Just Food, a non-profit organization based in New York City that had connected our certified organic farm, called Garden of Eve, with urban community groups to set up Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs. With toddler in tow, we had made the trip to join the 7,000 other delegates coming from more than 150 countries, nearly all of whom were either food producers or chefs.

“Slow Food,” a non-profit, member-supported organization founded in 1989 in Italy (where else?), had organized the conference as one of their initiatives to counteract fast food, the fast life, and the disappearance of traditional food customs. Immediately as we walked into the conference hall, we began meeting people from all over the world. Africans, East Asians, Central Asians, South Asians, South Americans, and Central Americans were at least as numerous as North Americans and Europeans. Next door to Terra Madre was the “Salone del Gusto,” an international food fair open to the public that featured five huge conference halls filled with foods from every region of Italy, Europe, and around the world. Nearly every booth offered free samples of their wares (!!) and many had their products for sale. We tasted innumerable varieties of pastas, beans, mushrooms, coffees, chocolates, wines, meats, and cheeses.

Terra Madre and the Salone del Gusto were over after 5 days, but we stayed in Italy for another week to travel. In every small Italian town we stayed in, there were three grocery stores within 100 yards of our hotel selling the freshest local produce. The diversity was incredible. Every region of Italy has its own unique types of vegetables and tomatoes and breeds of dairy and beef cow, goats, pigs, sheep, nearly all of them consumed by residents nearby.

Driving home from the airport upon our return to the US, I saw the “Applebee’s” chain restaurant, its parking lot jammed full of cars. I thought to myself, “What is wrong with us? Americans want to eat the exact same plate of food whether they’re in New York or Texas or California. In Italy every town has its own flavors and cuisine, lovingly prepared with locally grown, fresh ingredients.” We all know that the result of our love affair with predictability is that most of the food we find in stores and restaurants is mass-produced, mass-prepared, and trucked in from far away at a huge cost to our taste buds, our bodies, and our environment.

Fortunately the Slow Food movement is gaining momentum in the US as well as Italy. I know first-hand that all of you who consume quality local farm products and celebrate diversity of flavors are making a huge difference. Our farm wouldn’t exist otherwise. Terra Madre renamed “consumers” as “co-producers,” because consumer dollars are the driving force behind producers’ decisions to grow quality, diverse, local foods. Together, our movement is gaining momentum to save what’s left and bring back some of what was lost. And we can do it by eating more good food!