In 1986 Carlo Petrini and a few friends were a little upset about another McDonald’s “Restaurant” opening up in their little town in Italy. They decided to start Arcigola, which is now known as International Slow Food. The main idea behind Arcigola was to begin a new philosophy around food – to enjoy the taste of food by knowledge and pleasure. A few key principles were developed for the foundation; disseminate and stimulate knowledge of material culture (let’s not forget the origins of great food), preserve the agroindustrial heritage (keeping biodiversity of crops, and traditions of food growing), and protect the historical, artistic and environmental heritage of traditional places of gastronomic pleasure (such as cafés and cake shops).
From there the movement grew to international status starting in Paris in 1989 where the International Slow Food manifesto was adopted. In part this manifesto states, “Our aim is to rediscover the richness and aromas of local cuisine to fight the standardization of Fast Food. Slow Food is the avant-garde response to the Fast Life which has changed our lives and threatens the environment and the landscape in the name of productivity.” In Paris they also adopted their symbol, the snail. A very appropriate symbol to represent the fight against the ever quickening pace of society. The snail represents slow to the slowest degree.
A seedling has been planted in the United States and now this Slow Food Movement is growing. However un-American this movement may be, there are now around 4,000 members in about 50 chapters just in the US. Worldwide there are organizations in 35 countries and over 60,000 members.
Slow Food goes directly against the stream of today. Take for an example, the many traditional cultures that have long lunch times as a way of doing business. Today these countries are becoming more “Americanized” and are cutting back the long lunch hour to a short American lunch 30 minutes or so. France is one of those countries that traditionally had a two-hour lunch. This would allow a person to go home for the day-time meal and enjoy home cooking, during the day. Perhaps they could also take a small nap, and they would return to work refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the day’s duties. Nowadays the lunch hour is sometimes cut down to 30 minutes, or an hour, and there’s only time is for a quick bite of fast food or a take-to-work lunch. There is less time spent at home and with the family, and typically the food is of lessor quality.
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