Slow Food Movement World Wide Started in Italy

Slow Food check it out www.slowfood.com

Today we set off heading to a meeting with Elena Anière Program Director of Asia & Oceania an hour south to see the head office and the birth place of the slow food movement here in Italy.

Our aim over the past couple of months being in Italy has been food focused and for sustainability so we can start to bring this concept more back to our lives in Tamworth and at The Retreat.

Sure we are already working in a small way toward that aim as a general thing but after this trip it has informed and enforced the need to be careful with our own little bit of environment and hope to spread the slow food philosophy with in our own community, our friends, families, local, food producers and farmers.

I am in a small way already involved with the Tamworth Organic Group which has been trying over the past 2 years to get up and going so hoping now that with this bit of information we may help to strengthen its hold on our community.

After our meeting with Elena, a Aussie lady in her mid 40's that came to Italy 10 year ago speaking no Italian but wanted a change in her life and wanted to check out what this origination was all about, here she has stayed and lived ever since. She started talking and explain the concept for 5 hours over an amazing lunch at the Osteria where the concept was hatched 24 years ago to save the chain stores from entering this small village and bring in fast food and destroying the already fragile italian food traditions.

So a brief run down from our very excited and informative Elena.

So Slow Food was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast lives, the disappearance of local food and food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the world around us today. 

Today the Slow Food association has 100,000 members from 150 country with only 900 member in Australia. These are all grouped into local chapters called convivia who are working together to defend their local culinary culture.

Slow Food approach to agriculture, food production and gastronomy is based on a concept of food quality defined by three interconnecting principals.

GOOD a fresh and flavoursome " seasonal " diet that satisfies the senses and is part of our local culture.

CLEAN produced in harmony with the environment and human health.

FAIR accessible prices for consumers and fair conditions and pay for small-scaled producers.

As well as our veggie garden and orchard one small example back at the Retreat we over the past years we have changed from Coles or Woolworth milk and will now only have Peel Valley Milk, a small local producer. Sure it may be a bit dearer but if we don't get behind some of our own local small producers they will have no option but to sell out to the likes of the big companies and sure it is cheep on the shelves now but once the big guy own all the small guys the price will rise and we won't have any quality chooses on our supermarket shelves. 

We all have small local suppliers, so go on, go out and change your spending habits where you can, as every little bit helps and you WILL be surprised with the taste difference.

Go out and try to find your local food markets which is not alway possible but again let's see what we can all start to find.

Try to buy seasonal to cut down on food miles.

The food in an average Australian BBQ can travel many thousand of miles when we do have options to buy locally.

Yep we as little individual people can't change everything but we can start to make a small difference. You don't need and I'm not asking you to join or to become a member of such an organisation, be just aware that 100,00 people are and are trying to make it better for us all, so see what you in your every day life can do.

So start to grow if possible something, even a pot of herbs and cook at home a bit more or eat and buy food from local producers or be aware to know where it has come from, how many mile it has travel to be on your table.

I know that some of our friends and family are already doing this and more, 

but we also need to communicate this to our children and grandchildren and make it a general topic of conversation.

Simple concept that our grandparents lived by......

So Pete its now time to get off your soap box you have ear bashed enough for one day 

Love to you all Caio Ciao