Slow Food USA Hits the Road

This past weekend, Slow Food USA Executive Director Erika Lesser traveled to Bozeman Montana to give a keynote address at the Northern Rockies Satellite Bioneers conference.

The cornerstone of the main Bioneers conference which is held in San Rafael, CA, is an impressive lineup of plenary speakers who address issues of environmental sustainability and offer "practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring the Earth and communities." These speakers are leaders and visionaries (MacArthur genius fellows, you know the type: very inspiring people!) and they are beamed via satellite to locations around the country, where local sustainability conferences are organized around them.

One of the largest of these satellite conferences is hosted by BORN in Bozeman, and their theme this year was food. In and around their conversations about the local food system (and other sustainability issues), were a few live keynote speakers, including Erika. The other keynote speaker of the weekend was Dan Imhoff, whom you may know as the author of the excellent "Food Fight," his comprehensive tome on the Farm Bill.

Satellite plenary highlights included Paul Anastas, the "Father of Green Chemistry," New York City's own Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx, and Winona LaDuke of White Earth Land Recovery Project discussing the Slow Food Presidia product Manoomin Wild rice.

Bozeman is beautiful, and the community there is full of conservationists and local food enthusiasts, including our small but lovely Slow Food Montana convivium (who know how to throw a mean potluck). Erika's talk was a wonderful chance to reach a new, extremely receptive audience, and to meet slow friends out in big sky country.

Indiana Big-Ag Advocate Says King Corn is “Slander”

The documentary film King Corn is now playing at a theatre near you, mostly to raucous approval, but one fellah in Indiana isn't as enthusiastic:

In 2003, the two men moved to Iowa and grew an acre of corn. They then followed that corn as it made its way through the food supply. What follows is a 90 minute diatribe against US farm policy, modern agriculture, food processing, and more. At every turn they put a negative spin on every aspect of corn. Not surprisingly, slow-food movement advocate Michael Pollan was an advisor to the project, according to a New York Times article on the movie. Much of the movie replays Pollan's worn out mantra that corn is the cause of obesity.

"Worn out mantra?" Calling it that doesn't make it so, and just to be clear, Mr. Pollan does not claim that corn causes obesity. He states quite clearly (and backs up his claim with reams of data) that the overconsumption of corn - especially in the form of high fructose corn syrup - causes obesity, and that federally subsidized overproduction of corn makes it artificially cheap, resulting in said overconsumption

Gary Truitt, the Indiana-based publisher of an online newsletter called Hoosier Ag Today, is an adamant supporter of the so-called "Center for Consumer Freedom," which he links on his site. The CCF is a lobbying and advocacy group for industrial agriculture, restaurant, alcohol and tobacco interests. It runs media campaigns which oppose the efforts of scientists, doctors, health advocates, environmentalists and groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, calling them "the Nanny Culture — the growing fraternity of food cops, health care enforcers, anti-meat activists, and meddling bureaucrats who 'know what's best for you.' " CCF began as a group wholly owned and operated by Philip Morris, Inc., and its purpose was to advocate against, and rally restaurant owners to fight, ordinances that would ban smoking from restaurants. It continues to lose that fight on most fronts, but has widened its scope considerably.

Mr. Truitt continues his critique of King Corn…

Just like Fahrenheit 911 and Sicko, King Corn is big on one-sided criticism but absent on any solutions. We do have problems with our farm policy, corn production, and nutrition. But politically motivated slander films like King Corn do nothing to help find answers that will work for producers and consumers.

I'm sorry Mr. Truitt couldn't see the solutions offered by films & books such as King Corn - I'd include among them films like SuperSize Me (see clip here), which single-handedly stopped the practice of "super-sizing" in fast food joints and Eat at Bill's, which conveys the beauty and benefits of fresh, local food; as well as book's like Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. I'm pretty sure it was Upton Sinclair who said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." Such is the case with the blinders Mr. Truitt wears. He is so buried in a lifetime of industrial agriculture he cannot see beyond its limits or appreciate the negative impact of many of its practices.

He is able to say that "We do have problems with our farm policy, corn production, and nutrition," but his view is that the solution lies somewhere in the same system that created the problems - at best an extremely unlikely hypothesis.

Grassfed Standards Update

Earlier this week, the USDA announced a Grassfed Marketing Claim Standard, one which they hoped would make things less confusing for consumers and hold producers to a more truthful, higher standard. They hope to eliminate the present issue of producers calling their meat "grassfed" when, in fact, it's finished with grain–an extremely common practice.

Sounds great, right? We looooove standards!

Well, according to our friends at the American Grassfed Association, this standard doesn't go far enough, not by a long shot. They issued a position statement in response which enumerates these shortcomings, including the fact that it's a voluntary standard (no enforcement, no requirements), that it takes no hard line on confinement (many producers allow their animals "access to pasture," which might amount only to an open door), and that it takes no stand on the use of antibiotics and synthetic hormones.

Basically, you can buy grassfed beef and think it means you are eating something very pure and delicious, when in fact, it's still a cow standing flank to flank with its neighbour, and being pumped full of chemicals. Blech! What's a consumer to do?

And to add another odd layer to this all, the Washington Post reports that due to the nationwide drought we're experiencing (officially "exceptional" in the Southeast), there ain't much grass this year for the cows chew on.

The Year of the Corn

Grist magazine, if you haven't checked it out already, is a constant source of excellent writing, especially when it comes to food and agriculture. In the past week, they've produced a great piece by our own Slow Food leader and blog contributor Chef Kurt Friese, as well as an interview of Slow Food advisory board member Michael Pollan, by Grist man-in-the-field (literally) Tom Philpott.

Philpott has been doing a wonderful series on Iowa, examining the locus of all of our corn production (has this been the Year of the Corn? I think it has, thanks to Pollan, Philpott, and "King Corn"), and Kurt's article is a great contribution from the chef's perspective–what is it like to create a sustainable food community in big industrial corn country?

Harvest Time in Harlem

Getting farm fresh fruits and vegetables to families in urban food deserts is no easy feat. It requires creative thinking, and usually a whole lot of gumption and perseverance from a few dedicated people. Last fall, on book tour with Carlo Petrini, a few of us saw first hand the farmers' markets that the Kaiser Center for Health Research has set up at their clinics, near Portland OR. Innovative, creative solution and great messaging: these foods= good health, so why not buy them while you're at a HEALTH clinic?

Yesterday marked the official launch of another creative solution many, many miles away from Portland, right here in NYC. Harvest Time in Harlem is one of over 30 Slow Food in Schools programs around the country (and run by National Office staff member Yuri Asano, who is pictured below in the white chef's jacket). After several years of terrific educational programming, they have–with the sponsorship of Slow Food NYC and the support of Go Green East Harlem– added a once-weekly farmers' market run by students. The market operates from 2-5 pm, the hours that parents pick their children up from school. Once again: innovative and effective, and great learning opportunity. The students are learning about marketing and economics, while also making sure that fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables are making it into their own family kitchens.

For more about The Children's Storefront School where Harvest Time in Harlem takes place, click here.

Roasted quail with a side of autumn

by Slow Food USA intern Samantha Taylor

As the weather (at last!) turns cool and the isle Manhattan forms a thick layer of sepia crunch beneath the feet of foodies eager to shift their palates to hearty fall fare, we uncover a NYC gastro-visionary taking seasonality to drastic (if not garish) heights.

Park Avenue _______, a restaurant whose very name depends upon the season, is so serious about capturing the essence of each that it self-destructs four times a year to completely redesign—from wallpaper to server's outfits. By doing this the owners hope to embrace fully the seasonal climate of their star ingredients. Half way through its cycle, Park Avenue (Autumn) has recently transitioned from its canary yellow summer sheen to a majestic blend of brown leather and gold. Come white winter, the word wonderland (apparently) won't even be the half of it.

And while the effort speaks to a growing desire to keep your mind where your mouth is—I can't help but wonder about the ever-thinning line between culinary activism and trend capitalism. Is Park Avenue's chameleon eatery is just another fad to fade with the seasons (pun intended)? Would the funds be better spent sourcing that flawless autumn harvest from a local farm, than placing it against a lavish harvest background? Easier to play devil's advocate now before I've had the chance to-sample the pomegranate pumpkin-crusted venison which, for the record, sounds like it could be a deal breaker.

For an explanation of the restaurant, click here to see New York magazine's article.

King Corn

There's a new, worthy addition to the social action documentary genre, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis' "King Corn." This is no fist-waving, rage-filled exposé; it quietly investigates what Michael Pollan made famous in The Omnivore's Dilemma (and what Francis Moore Lappé also discussed years ago in Diet for a Small Planet): corn dominates our agricultural landscape in a very creepy way.

The open-faced and amiable Cheney and Ellis met in college, and later realized that both of their great-grandfathers were from the same small farming town, Greene, Iowa. The town they return to, in order to grow an acre of the local crop, is not the family farm friendly place it was in their ancestors' time. Instead of families toiling together in the fields, they find farmers who use tremendous machinery to do their work for them (like, tilling, planting, and chemical spraying), then sit around and wait for the growth of thousands of acres of a product that's only edible when it's processed. As Pollan explains in a cameo, these farmers are growing and growing, but can't feed themselves. The shots of mountains of surplus corn are chilling.

The film has been playing the festival circuit, and now is opening in theatres across the country:

NYC: Oct 12th
DC and Boston: Oct 19th
LA: Oct 26th
San Fran and Berkeley: Nov 2nd

If you've always wanted to watch two dudes make high fructose corn syrup in their kitchen, you've come to the right place. Read more about how the film came to be, in The New York Times.

Local Slow Food Blogs

As my attention is drawn to them, I'll make sure to post links to local convivium Slow Food blogs here. The latest I've come across is for Southeast Michigan (that's the Detroit/Ann Arbor area, for the geographically challenged folks out there).

Here's a glimpse of their most recent post.

I usually begin my Saturdays with a bike ride to meet friends for coffee, but sometimes I like to head first to the Royal Oak Farmers' Market, where the variety and quality of produce this time of year is just breathtaking.

See the whole blog here

Deconstructing Dinner

"Deconstructing Dinner" is a Canadian radio show that metaphorically roots through your trash and examines your meal scraps.

As they explain:

"[Our present] lifestyle of convenience leaves very little time to reflect on the history behind the food we purchase and the impact these purchases have on ourselves, communities, and the well-being of this planet."

With that mission in mind, they cover everything from the ethics of food marketing, to corporate vs. personal responsibility. The show is broadcast throughout Canada and available for us here in the US via their website.

Market Musings

Close your eyes a moment. Imagine the open road on a long drive before sunset, sleepy eyed, towing a back breaking, albeit glorious load of just-picked produce, only to find that a neighboring farm stand, traveling a mere hour, has brought to the table the same kabocha squash varietals that until now, made your weekly trip worthwhile. Not to mention, your office hours are now 6:00am to 6:00pm, if you're lucky. For many of you, this hits close to home.

As the peak season of farmer's market plenty rounds the corner, we reflect on the underbelly of the utopian model and a few of the complications that arise when scale walks the line between blessing and curse. Carol Ness, in the San Francisco Chronicle, explores the issue that some Bay Area farmers are having: the expansion and proliferation of markets has made a profit margin too narrow to justify the taxing 12-hour work days and growing detriment of duplicate offerings.