Wise words

Satish Kumar, advocate for land reform, anti-nuclear activist and editor of Resurgence magazine, spoke to the delegates of the Slow Food International Congress via video feed. He shared the following South African proverb which pretty much sums up the virtues of slow-ness, the virtues of community, and their inextricable link.

'If you wish to go fast – go alone.
If you wish to far – go together.'

Rebuilding Tabasco’s Food Community

As the Slow Food delegates arrived in Puebla, news of the terrible flooding in the Tabasco region spread. With nearly a million people affected, Tabasco is in trouble. It was just two short years ago that Slow Food rallied around its friends in New Orleans, helping them to rebuild the food communities there. This new disaster, so much larger even than the floods after Hurricane Katrina, weighed heavily on the minds of the delegates to the Congress. Villahermosa, in Tabasco, is the home of a Slow Food convivium, a Slow Food community. A representative from Villahermosa–Dona Alma Rosa– came and spoke to the delegates, giving them a sense of the scope of the damage, and a sense of what exactly needs to be done to rebuild the food community there.

Within 24 hours, Slow Food Switzerland, Slow Food Italy, Slow Food San Francisco, and Citta Slow had all pledged thousands of dollars/Euros to help those rebuilding efforts. Tabasco produces 80% of the world's cocoa crops, and these will need to be revived, mills will need to be rebuilt, and new marketing channels will need to be carved.

This disaster is larger than any of us can comprehend–we will keep you posted on ways that you can contribute to the relief efforts in Villahermosa, and the larger Tabasco area.

Snapshots from Puebla

In the garden, overlooking the ruins of a home for aged Franciscan friars, under white umbrellas and the blazing Poblano sun, we ate tortillas, drank mezcal, and met our neighbors, from the UK, Japan, Italy, Germany, Chile, Brazil, Sweden, Mexico….and on and on. Suddenly, a 70 piece mariachi band, dressed all in white–violoins, guitars, horns–broke into jubilant and beautiful sound. Carlo Petrini, at the center, wearing a sombrero and leading the song.

This was the Slow Food 5th International Congress. From November 8th - November 11th, Slow Food convivium leaders from around the world gathered in Puebla, Mexico to discuss the future of the movement, to meet each other, to share knowledge and passion, ideas and fried grasshoppers.

For more news about the Congress, check out Slow Food International's site, and please use the comments section to share with us all the images that stuck with you most.

A Heritage Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving almost upon us, many of us are trying to avoid buying a flavorless supermarket turkey and are wondering: where in the world can I find a heritage turkey? Some of you might even be asking: what is a heritage turkey?

For more information on the definition of heritage turkeys and guidance on where to find them, check out our Take Action page.

Since 2002, the market for heritage turkeys has approximately doubled annually, based on reports from producers and distributors in the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy network. This is in large part thanks to Slow Food Members who have showed increased support of heritage turkeys as well as the farmers who raise them.

Food Films

The University Of California at Berkeley's online library has curated a rather amazing and comprehensive list of movies about food. Not the fluffy fiction stuff ("Babette's Feast," "Like Water for Chocolate," etc.), but the non-fiction, documentary pieces that look at the underbelly–often the dark underbelly– of food and the food industry. The list runs the gamut from well-known favorites like Morgan Spurlock's "Supersize Me," to the documentary, "Bullshit," about Vandana Shiva and her battles against Monsanto, to footage of Julia Child on Nova in 1988 making "fast food" from scratch.

There are many online video interviews, and several recordings of Michael Pollan's recent public talks on the Berkeley Campus. Several pieces can be viewed right there on the site, with Real Time Player. It's a list you won't find anywhere else and is sure to have movies on there you've never heard about but wish you had.