Shepherd
08-04-2008, 10:28 AM
SLOW FOOD NATION BUILDS MOMENTUM LOCALLY
By Shepherd Bliss
Slow Food Nation leader Alice Waters--founder of Berkeley’s famous Chez Panisse Restaurant and author of eight food books--spoke at the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market August 3. She was interviewed about the August 29-31 SFN celebration to happen around San Francisco by KRCB public radio host Michelle Anna Jordan for her “Mouthful” program to run that evening.
“We want to lift a loud voice to change our food system,” Waters responded when asked about SFN, where over 50,000 people are expected. “We need to change the ways we grow, distribute, and eat food, which needs to be good, clean, and fair.”
Waters revealed that the lawn in front of San Francisco’s Civic Center has been replaced with a victory garden. “We have been talking about a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. This would be a way to talk about stewardship and nourishment. Thomas Jefferson had such a garden.”
Waters helped kick-off Gravenstein Apple Month, which has been declared by the Sebastopol City Council and the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. Gravensteins are at risk of becoming an endangered species. “Save the Gravensteins!” bumper stickers made by Slow Food and Community Alliance with Family Famers (CAFF) have been popping up around the county.
Slow Food was started by the Italian Carlo Petrini in l986 to protest fast food culture. It advocates traditional agriculture and food preparation and consumption.
SFN’s main events are a Food for Thought speaker series, taste pavilions, a marketplace showcasing 60 local farmers and artisans, and the victory garden. Some of the events are free, whereas others require tickets, many of which have already sold out.
The speaker series includes some of the leading voices in the growing global sustainable agriculture and food movement, such as Petrini, physicist Vandana Shiva of India, Kentucky author and farmer Wendell Berry, University of California at Berkeley professor and author Michael Pollan, author Raj Patel, Native American leader Winona LaDuke, “Fast Food Nation” author Eric Schlosser, and the Land Institute’s Wes Jackson of Kansas.
A Youth Food Movement program seeks “to empower networks of students and young farmers, cooks, artisans, activists and eaters.” Among those attending will be members of Sonoma State University’s Slow Food Club, including its president, Robin Temple, a psychology student. “We intend to raise awareness about the profound effects of our food choices on the environment, on our health and on issues of social justice,” Temple says.
By-invitation-only events include a Changemakers Day “designed for our nation’s food system leaders.” Twenty-six panels will be offered to around 600 people “to inspire leaders to knit new and diverse networks” and “lay the groundwork for more concrete, inclusive and effective collaboration,” according to SFN’s website www.slowfoodnation.org.
“I’ll be a panelist on Changemakers Day,” explained Steve Schwartz, while selling mushrooms from his New Carpati Farm at the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market. “More people are thinking about what they eat these days.” Watching Schwartz and other farmers at the market talk about their crops, one can see that they are creating food-based relationships.
Food, after all, is much more than something you just eat. It has traditionally drawn families, friends, and communities together. Agri-culture is at the base of culture. The preparation and sharing of food and drink creates and sustains culture.
“I went to Slow Food Nation’s parent, Terra Madre in Italy,” explained the manager of the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market, Paula Downing. “It was life-changing. I love the apple farmers here in Sonoma County. They are courageous. There is a history here that we need to remember.”
“Slow Food is an opportunity to re-connect with our food and local growers and to understand the plight our planet is in,” explained Ana Stayton of Golden Nectar Farm of Windsor. “It helps create a sense of real nourishment. It brings farmers, children, and the community back into the food system. Slow Food encourages people to grow and cook their own food and remember the pleasure in that.”
(Shepherd Bliss, [email protected], has farmed in Sebastopol since l992 and currently teaches at Sonoma State University.)
By Shepherd Bliss
Slow Food Nation leader Alice Waters--founder of Berkeley’s famous Chez Panisse Restaurant and author of eight food books--spoke at the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market August 3. She was interviewed about the August 29-31 SFN celebration to happen around San Francisco by KRCB public radio host Michelle Anna Jordan for her “Mouthful” program to run that evening.
“We want to lift a loud voice to change our food system,” Waters responded when asked about SFN, where over 50,000 people are expected. “We need to change the ways we grow, distribute, and eat food, which needs to be good, clean, and fair.”
Waters revealed that the lawn in front of San Francisco’s Civic Center has been replaced with a victory garden. “We have been talking about a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. This would be a way to talk about stewardship and nourishment. Thomas Jefferson had such a garden.”
Waters helped kick-off Gravenstein Apple Month, which has been declared by the Sebastopol City Council and the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. Gravensteins are at risk of becoming an endangered species. “Save the Gravensteins!” bumper stickers made by Slow Food and Community Alliance with Family Famers (CAFF) have been popping up around the county.
Slow Food was started by the Italian Carlo Petrini in l986 to protest fast food culture. It advocates traditional agriculture and food preparation and consumption.
SFN’s main events are a Food for Thought speaker series, taste pavilions, a marketplace showcasing 60 local farmers and artisans, and the victory garden. Some of the events are free, whereas others require tickets, many of which have already sold out.
The speaker series includes some of the leading voices in the growing global sustainable agriculture and food movement, such as Petrini, physicist Vandana Shiva of India, Kentucky author and farmer Wendell Berry, University of California at Berkeley professor and author Michael Pollan, author Raj Patel, Native American leader Winona LaDuke, “Fast Food Nation” author Eric Schlosser, and the Land Institute’s Wes Jackson of Kansas.
A Youth Food Movement program seeks “to empower networks of students and young farmers, cooks, artisans, activists and eaters.” Among those attending will be members of Sonoma State University’s Slow Food Club, including its president, Robin Temple, a psychology student. “We intend to raise awareness about the profound effects of our food choices on the environment, on our health and on issues of social justice,” Temple says.
By-invitation-only events include a Changemakers Day “designed for our nation’s food system leaders.” Twenty-six panels will be offered to around 600 people “to inspire leaders to knit new and diverse networks” and “lay the groundwork for more concrete, inclusive and effective collaboration,” according to SFN’s website www.slowfoodnation.org.
“I’ll be a panelist on Changemakers Day,” explained Steve Schwartz, while selling mushrooms from his New Carpati Farm at the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market. “More people are thinking about what they eat these days.” Watching Schwartz and other farmers at the market talk about their crops, one can see that they are creating food-based relationships.
Food, after all, is much more than something you just eat. It has traditionally drawn families, friends, and communities together. Agri-culture is at the base of culture. The preparation and sharing of food and drink creates and sustains culture.
“I went to Slow Food Nation’s parent, Terra Madre in Italy,” explained the manager of the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market, Paula Downing. “It was life-changing. I love the apple farmers here in Sonoma County. They are courageous. There is a history here that we need to remember.”
“Slow Food is an opportunity to re-connect with our food and local growers and to understand the plight our planet is in,” explained Ana Stayton of Golden Nectar Farm of Windsor. “It helps create a sense of real nourishment. It brings farmers, children, and the community back into the food system. Slow Food encourages people to grow and cook their own food and remember the pleasure in that.”
(Shepherd Bliss, [email protected], has farmed in Sebastopol since l992 and currently teaches at Sonoma State University.)