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by Slow Food USA staffer and blog editor, Jerusha Klemperer

Check out this thoughtful article from The American Conservative magazine. Its embrace of Slow Food may be surprising to some, but it’s a welcome addition to the conversation.

It reminds me of a lunchtime visitor we had a few weeks ago, a farmer from South Carolina who noted that when it comes to Slow Food, conservatives and liberals may be on common ground. Everyone from homeschooling homesteaders to harvesting hippies can get behind good, clean food and the virtuous revival of sitting down together over a meal and appreciating its bounty.

Now some may flinch, like I did, when the author says that “life’s inevitabilities don’t warrant our shame,” (when referring to Michael Pollan’s shame that not everyone in this country has access to delicious food), and some may take issue, like I did, with his assertion that industrialized ag is just more productive than organic ag.* But it is interesting to see how true, traditional “conservatives” don’t like the darn Farm Bill and its subsidies any more than the liberal democrats, and that they too would like to see a return to more mid-scale and regionally based food systems and economies.

Most delightful? The realization by an East Coaster like myself that in San Francisco, even the traditional conservatives have CSA shares, cook from The Art of Simple Food and quote Wendell Berry.

* Some may even want to share with him, say, Paul Roberts’ The End of Food which explains quite clearly how those large yields end up producing diminishing returns after a few years.

PS: Also check out this interview from the same issue of American Conservative –Michael Pollan and Rod Dreher, the author of Crunchy Cons.