Slow Food: The Case for Taste (Arts and Traditions of the Table) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

It's rare to find a book that's informative, convivial, and inspiring. Carlo Petrini's Slow Food: The Case for Taste is such a book. True to his Italian character and culture, he describes the Slow Food movement with style and exuberance. He would make a convert of me if I had not already embraced his philosophy for the "good life". I share his passion for excellence in food and wine and the responsibilities that are attached to this pleasure. Petrini would make an excellent dinner guest, bringing gusto and reverence for the meal served and adding intelligent, sometimes jovial chatter throughout each course.

Back in the 70s, E.F. Schumacher wrote Small is Beautiful, creating a movement that eventually became a cliche. In smallness we find our human scale and through smallness it is possible to express our uniqueness. The Slow Food movement has taken this concept and added a few additional ingredients which make life pleasurable. I think Petrini's book can have as strong of an impact on the new millennium as Schumacher's book had in the 70s.

Much credit should be given to the translators for maintaining the integrity of Petrini's literary style.

Though the Slow Food is making appropriately Slow headway into U.S. consciousness, it has been an important and well-known influence on Italian culinary values for years. Slow Food: The Case for Taste is a good way to figure out what all the attention is about.

For anyone who doesn't know, Slow Food is the antithesis of "fast food," as it is represented by drive through burger restaurants, coffee in a to-go cup, and ready-to-eat microwave dinners. The 17-year-old organization was born from opposition to the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Rome's iconic Piazza di Spagna (the effort was unsuccessful: that particular location is still open and it serves more than 8,000 hamburgers a day). From that beginning, it evolved to promote eateries that use fresh ingredients and preserve historical cuisines, to fund educational programs, and to encourage the movement's members to stop and smell the roses (and then to have a nice plate of pasta and glass of wine afterwards).

I'm a fan of many aspects of the Slow Food movement: I don't think there's a better guide to Italian restaurants than the Osterie d'Italia guide (available only in Italian). And the organization's educational programs have certainly heightened the awareness of good food and wine in Italy, something I have clearly benefited from. Overall, the emphasis on good, well-made, and unpretentious food and wine is something almost everyone can enjoy.

My main criticism of the Slow Food movement is that it seems to look at things too simply, divorcing the desire to eat and drink in a certain way and experience life under a certain set of rules from reality, often advocating actions -- such as the lengths someone should go to get the right garlic, or to eat in a proper restaurant, or decide how to vote on political issues -- that make less sense when taken in context. This all-or-nothing approach ends up sounding naive, and probably only undermines the validity of the organization's values. The weakness (apparent in this slim volume) means the book gets docked one star.

The other star is removed for sloppy translation and editing. Phrases are in some cases so badly translated that they can sound stilted and are sometimes difficult to understand. More importantly, editors appear to have simply translated a book written for an Italian audience without understanding that the values and context -- that word again: can anyone at Slow Food understand that different contexts require different reactions? -- are very different in the U.S., where this book has been marketed. There are several examples of this weakness, but the best comes from a passage talking about an appreciation for wine, where the book reads: "when they are old enough, the kids will develop a taste for Barolo" -- not in most families, given underage drinking laws and the fact that in the U.S. Barolo starts at $50-60 a bottle!

I have not read the Italian edition of this book, but I'm going to seek it out. My best guess is that this edition was rushed to press in order to capitalize on the notoriety of the Slow Food movement in the U.S. a few years ago, and so certain corners were cut and certain liberties were taken. If a second edition is in the works, I'll make a suggestion I wouldn't have guessed I'd have to make in connection with this movement: slow down! There's no hurry. It's better to get it right later than it is to do a sloppy job sooner.

"May suitable doses of of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency." -Slow Food "Manifesto"

Far from what one of the "professional" reviewers here at Amazon called "didactic" (although I think he meant to say "pedantic"), Carlo Petrini sets out in brief (110 pages), a concise explanation of the need for Slow Food. While one may indeed need to be literate to understand what he has to say, it is nonetheless an approachable, comprehensible explanation of a maligned and misunderstood movement. Slow Food is NOT just a bunch of yuppie foodies stuffing their craws with foie gras. Recognizing that the enjoyment of wholesome food is essential to the pursuit of hapiness, Slow Food is an educational organization dedicated to stewardship of the land and ecologically sound food production; to the revival of the kitchen and the table as centers of pleasure, culture and community; to the invigoration and proliferation of regional, seasonal culinary traditions; and to living a slower and more harmonious rhythm of life.

How can you argue with that? We will take an enourmous leap forward when we as a country and a culture put as much thought and effort into our food as we do into our entertainment. Read the book and stop being enslaved by the industrial standardization of tastes.