"slowfood" news and stories

I'm a Slow Food kinda guy and I abhor fast food. I'm not talking about food that you can cook up fast at home like a quick stir fry, but that slop masquerading as burgers and tacos that the mega-chains foster off as food. Just thinking about it has me up in arms and ready to charge to the attack. No, give me a nice slice of baked ham from a hand cured and aged hog that met his maker kindly and I'm happy and peaceful.

This week in Italy is the Salone del Gusto, the "Exhibition of Taste" put on by Slow Food, the organization formed 20 years ago to counter the fast food culture. The main theme for the tenth anniversary of this festival is peace. Food for peace, what a concept. One of the events will be Israeli and Palestinian chefs coming together to cook a meal using the best of their cooking traditions. The Chefs for Peace Association has organized this in the hope of creating a dialogue on common ground to focus on working together to prevent the agricultural and food based destruction of war. Let's hope it works because while I may get all riled up about food, it also tends to calm me down as well. Hopefully the same is true worldwide. After reading about the tasting areas at the festival I wish I could take the time to head to do my share for world peace and gustatory exploration.

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I guess I had better get started if this stew is going to be cooked by the time my guests arrive! (It has just gone 6 in the evening). 

As per normal - where there is inevitably some disaster or other - I can't locate the original recipe I was going to use. I have a chorizo, tins of chopped tomato, onion, garlic, smoked paprika powder, stewing steak, potatoes... but forgot to buy a pepper (bell pepper) or a bottle of red plonk to go in with the beef stock. Did get some parsley for the garnish though! Hopeless really, at shopping... even with a list.

The other day I popped into Panzers Deli near Lords Cricket Ground in London (I was there for a New Zealand Wine Tasting, not the cricket) and spotted uncooked chorizo (this is unusual as I have only seen the pre-cooked version in the UK) although it doesn't look that different from the ready-to-eat. No idea how long it takes to cook but it is going in the pot with softened onions,some garlic and the paprika, all after the steak has been browned. Then the wet stuff.

Today's slashfood mini theme is slow cooking with three hours the minimum. So I will let this lot simmer gently for a couple of hours before adding the potatoes which should give plenty of time for the wine to breathe - a gutsy red from La Mancha - one item I didn't forget to buy!

[Photo Andrew Barrow]

"I want a crock pot!" says the woman who's checking me out at the thrift store, eagerly. Later, I'm shopping for a slow cooking recipe book and am surprised to see five shelves in Powell's Books for Cooks devoted to the subject. "Do you have a slow cooker?" asks the clerk after I make my selection. I tell her I've just purchased one. "I need one, too!"

Today, it seems, everyone's into slow cooking. I head to my favorite gourmet market and there, next to the fabulously shiny stainless steel cookware and in front of the organic local produce is a sexy All-Clad slow cooker. I try to find a price tag, and when I can't, figure it's a sign from the heavens: stick with your thrift store purchase, sweetie. I have to go to the supermarket for a few things, and there's an end-of-aisle display of much lower-priced slow cookers.

When we set out to do a theme day around slow cooking, few of us even could define it. Now, we're all hooked, as Crock Pots bubble in our kitchens and beans bake for hours and hours at 300 degrees. For the record: slow cooking is any method of cookery that combines low heat and long periods of time, usually without requiring much attention. Often, slow-cooked meals are begun a day or two before they're meant to be eaten.

Why is slow cooking so popular, now, a good thirty-five years since it became vogue with the introduction of the Crock Pot? It's because it brings back the soul to cooking.

I thought I could do better than the Hillbilly Housewife, whose weekly menu of weiner stirfry and tuna-and-peas-over-rice didn't appeal much to my sense of budgetary gourmet. I'm not the only one, evidently. The good people at the Better Times Almanac have created what they call the "Slow Food for Poor People Challenge."

Taking the "Food Stamp Challenge," they ate on a food stamp budget for a week (about $61 for two people) and tried to make their example an even better one by employing "(1) frugal supermarket shopping, (2) preparing meals from basic ingredients, (3) buying local foods, (4) gardening, (5) food storage, and (6) home preservation of food."

Menus like "Buffalo meatloaf, oven fries, corn on the cob, green beans," biscuits and gravy, buffalo pot roast and a breakfast of "2 scrambled eggs, 1/3 lb sausage, hash brown, potatoes, rolls, apple cobbler" are a little more my speed. The drawback is that their menu is a bit repetitive (and, being from Oklahoma, relies heavily on buffalo meat). But you can hardly argue with a $60 weekly menu that employs organic eggs from free-ranging hens and meats from local cooperatives. It's a nice attempt and only fuels my desire to come up with more and better cheap-but-gourmet meals.

[photo Sarah Gilbert]

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The Telegraph reports that Prince Charles has urged British food producers to embrace slow food. He said Brits have a lot to learn from the French and Italians who he says use more locally produced food. His remarks came during the Taste of the West food and drink awards ceremony at his Highgrove estate. He told the crowd of 100 hoteliers, restaurateurs and food producers to preserve the region's food legacy and said that traditional methods often produce the best products and that slower food is often better food. Eager to join the slow food movement?  The  proponents of slow food embrace sustainability and cultural diversity. You can find out about events for Europe here, and the U.S. version is here.

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