Labor Day(s)

Labor Day is a few days gone now—please forgive the slowness of this post.

In honor of Labor Day, we’d like to call your attention to a panel that was held at Changemakers Day this past Friday.  Changemakers Day was just one part of Slow Food Nation, the programming of which focused on sustainable food systems, “featur[ing] the clash of ideas, critical thinking from incisive minds, and inspiring dialogue among potential collaborators,” with the goal of starting important conversations that will lead to effective collaboration. One panel, called “Accessing the Price of Good Food,” attempted to examine the problem of limited access to good food, diet-related chronic health conditions, growing dependency on government food programs, and food insecurity.  An interesting and ultimately essential contributor to the panel was Saru Jayaraman, from the Restaurant Opportunities Center. 

She began by “justifying” her presence on the panel, since the inclusion of restaurant workers’ rights wasn’t necessarily an obvious fit for a panel on access.  She made a firm, powerful and clear cry for the imperative inclusion of restaurant worker rights in any sustainable food movement (i.e. us, Slow Food) worth its salt.  We’ve covered farmworker issues before on this blog, but never the rights of the many, many underpaid, abused restaurant workers in this country, and Jayaraman’s rallying cry was certainly felt here.

As Eric Schlosser said in the closing Food for Thought panel, “workers need to have a place at the table,” and not just the ones who get the food from the earth to the market.  A meal is not sustainable if the tomato picker was abused, nor is it sustainable if the prep cook, busboy or waiter was either.

For more information on the Restaurant Opportunities Center, click here.
For more information on their recent victory reclaiming stolen tips for workers, click here.

UPDATE, 9/10/08: Check out his short video of Eric Schlosser, at Grist.org, discussing the importance of labor issues when it comes to sustainable agriculture.

Slow Food Nation re-cap

Thanks to all 60,000 of you who came to Slow Food Nation and listened, ate, discussed, networked, bought, and cheered.  To the rest of you: we missed you!  We had beautiful sunshine, terrific crowds, and many opportunities to meet each other and expand our growing circle of people supporting a good, clean and fair food system.

As we’ve mentioned before there’s been great day-by-day, minute-by-minute coverage on the Slow Food Nation blog--so do check that out.

Highlights:

• Pictures:  Check out the Slow Food Nation flickr page for hundreds and hundreds of photos taken by people who were there.  Add your photographic gems to the page!
• The Victory Garden: Great news! The Victory Garden, planted on the front lawn of San Francisco’s City Hall for the event, will be kept up through November.  The garden was the heart of the activities of the Civic Center, and was home to a soap box series, musicians, and leisurely strolls.
• New Vision for a 21st Century Food, Farm, and Agriculture Policy: On Thursday August 28th, Slow Food chapter leaders and staff gathered in front of the main steps at City Hall to show support for this new petition which seeks to lay out, in no uncertain terms, what is needed for our food system to move forward in a healthy, systemically sustainable way.  You can read more about the declaration and sign onto the petition Food Bill Declaration.  And we will definitely be writing more about this in the weeks to come.
• Take Back the Tap: Food and Water Watch partnered with the event to make sure that tap water (instead of bottled water) was available at all of the venues; in addition it was an opportunity for attendees to think about how much waste is created by the bottled water industry.  The “Take Back the Tap” stands at the Civic center were cleverly constructed out of old plastic bottles and were selling re-usable metal ones.

We’d love to hear your stories—of a favorite product bought at the market place, or a favorite conversation had on a hay bale, of an inspirational talk you attended, or a slow journey you took in the Bay area. We’ll be sharing more too, day by day, so keep checking back in.

For SFUSA Board Member Chef Kurt Michael Friese’s re-cap on Grist, click here.

For media coverage of the event. you don’t have to look far.  Check out the NY Times Dining section today, or sfgate.com’s ongoing coverage, or menupages.com’s interview with Michael Pollan, or seriouseats.com’s coverage, or…or…or….

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A Taste of the Taste Workshops at Slow Food Nation

Many of us think of wine and cheese as two great tastes that go great together (like pizza and beer, milk and cookies).  At Saturday night’s Taste Workshop celebrating American Raw Milk Cheeses, we were treated to something that was new for many of us—cheese with beer.  Cheese expert (and Slow Food USA Board Member) Jeff Roberts and cheese expert Laura Werlin led us through the tasting of 7 cheeses and 6 craft ales.

The cheeses and their makers hailed from Alabama, Indiana, Oregon, Wisconsin, Vermont, and California; several of the producers were in the room with us and shared their processes, working with their sheep, Guernsey cows, Nubian dwarf goats etc. and crafting and shepherding (as it were) that milk into beautiful artisan cheeses.  Ever seen a cheese that’s been rubbed with paprika?  Hillis Peak Cheese from Pholia Farm Creamery was a first for me and I fell in love with its spicy, rich and creamy flavor.  (n.b. it goes really well with Dogfish’s Midas Touch Golden Elixir).

Most surprising were the ways in which the cheeses changed in combination with the beer, and vice versa. 6 pieces of fantastic farmstead cheese + 7 diverse and delicious craft ales meant several interesting and surprising flavor combinations.

If you are interested in reading more about American Raw Milk cheeses, check out Jeff’s Book The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese, and Laura’s book Cheese Essentials.