Slow Food movement encourages green agriculture and to slow down and eat

BY KATIE JONES • This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it • PUBLISHED: APRIL 20. 2011 9:29AM

As Americans, we like all things instant and high speed. We read fast. We drive fast.

And perhaps more than anything, we eat fast. You can't drive down the street (quickly, no doubt) without passing a fast-food restaurant.

But there is a counterculture to the fast-food way of life.

Founded in Italy in 1989, the Slow Food movement is an international organization that counters fast food. Worldwide, there are more than 100,000 members and more than 1,300 chapters, including one in the Upstate.

Local farmers and restaurants make up the Upstate chapter. Slow Food Upstate lists High Cotton, Stella's Southern Bistro, American Grocery Restaurant and Ristorante Bergamo. Slow foodies say the organization focuses on good, clean and fair food.

“Good being the quality, fair being the way things are raised, the way animals are treated, and clean knowing that your animals are able to live their lives, they're able to roam around and not necessarily wallow in their filth,” said High Cotton Executive Chef Anthony Gray, 34.

In addition to humanely raised animals, the organization emphasizes local food, which keeps money in the local economy.

“Slow foods aren't sprayed with pesticides. Meat is grass-fed or fed what it is supposed to be fed, not something that will make it grow faster. So the animals are fed properly and maintained in a lot cleaner environment,” Stella's Southern Bistro owner Julia Sholz, 31, said. “Free-range chickens aren't holed up in a chicken coop. They can go outside and walk around in the grass. There are no growth hormones, which is something a lot of people don't want to be ingesting.”

For you as a diner, it not only means helping local farmers, but also slowing down and actually enjoying the food you're eating.

American Grocery Restaurant owner Darlene Mann-Clarke said the meals should be about savoring the food.

“What we offer here is not about sitting down with a big plate, a huge portion of food. It's really about the art of dining. Talking about slow food — well, eat it slowly,” said Mann-Clarke. “Enjoy and savor every bite. Try to pick out every little flavor or spice element that the chef has put together on this plate.”

Sustainability

Slow food is more sustainable. The land has time to recover and produce better crops. Plus, that spinach you ate came from Ware Shoals, not California.

The sustainability is a big plus for Stella's, Sholz said.

“We also believe in the footprint that it leaves. We don't have to fly tomatoes in from California when we can get them from two miles down the road.”

Less waste is one reason American Grocery Restaurant likes the Slow Food movement, owner Mann-Clarke said.

“We have very little waste here because we don't buy in bulk.” And the waste they do have is returned to one of the farms that provides them with material for compost.

Downsides

Community

Slow food has a lot of perks, but it's not without its downside.

You can only eat what is in season, menus must be changed constantly and it takes more time to plan and cook meals.

“Anything worth doing takes a little extra work. If it was easy, then anybody could do it,” Gray said. “I think there is a clear, conscious effort from both our diners and our chefs that are bringing this together.”

More time, more work and local food often means the food is more expensive. It takes almost a year before the pigs High Cotton uses are big enough to slaughter, while some commercial pork is slaughtered after a few months. That makes Slow Food pork more expensive — an 8-ounce pork chop at High Cotton costs $24.

“There's no comparison to a raised heirloom breed like a Berkshire hog or a Tamworth compared to just your everyday, white pork,” Gray said.

“I'd put money down that you could come here and eat our pork chop, which is raised in Gray Court, South Carolina, by Steve Ellis, and taste the difference between a commodity pork chop you might find somewhere else.”

While it is more expensive, being a Slow Food restaurant has been a selling point for Stella's.

“We let our guests know what we're doing and they appreciate it. They ask questions,” Sholz said. “It's a great word of mouth for the movement and the restaurant.”

Slow food is, well, slow. So after allowing nature to run its own course and then waiting for the meal to be prepared after you order, you're not supposed to shovel the food in your face in front of the TV. That's something Slow Food restaurants emphasize.

“When you sit down, eat with utensils that aren't plastic and paper, when you're drinking from a glass rather than a plastic cup, you can relax and focus on what you're eating and enjoy it, it makes all the difference in the world,” Sholz said.

Gray said that food should do more than fill your stomach.

“Food does that — it brings people together and we have to take advantage of that. It's more than just eating. It's about refueling yourself mind, body and spirit and getting to know the people you're around. That's what food is almost meant to be.”

 

SOURCE: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20110420/METROMIX/304200070/Taste-the-time