>> Support materials: Chapter 23


Chapter 23: Urbanisation, community, and rurality

 

Case studies Video clips Weblinks Further reading Podcasts
Case studies Video clips Weblinks Further reading Podcasts

 

Case Study

The Slow Food Movement
The Slow Food Movement was founded in Italy in 1989 by food activist Carlo Petrini, and claims to have more than 100 000 members in over 132 countries. Originally, it was established as a protest against the opening of a McDonald's restaurant near the Spanish Steps in Rome, but its aims expanded to counter the rise of fast food in general. According to Petrini (2003), Slow Food aims to protect and promote traditional, regional, and national cuisines, including protecting endangered animal breeds and vegetable species, and reintroducing artisan cooking techniques. The movement has worked to protect historic sites (cafés and bistros) and agricultural heritage (biodiversity and sustainable agriculture), as well as to promote regional produce and cuisines. A number of Slow Food events have been held in Australia over the past few years and there is now an Australian arm of the movement, with its own newsletter Snail Pace.

Leitch (2003) notes that Slow Food's success has been due to its unusual mix of consumerism, environmentalism, and politics. The movement is not anti-globalisation or anti-capitalism, but rather practises what its founder terms 'virtuous globalisation' (Petrini 2003), by promoting regional foodstuffs and organic and sustainable agriculture to a global market of consumers. One way this has been done is through the creation of regional certification systems to guarantee regional origins and names, such as the Tuscan wine 'Chianti classico'. In this sense, 'consumers are envisaged as international political activists by virtue of market choice' (Leitch 2003, p. 457).

In Italy, one the main avenues by which the SFM advances its cause is through the food festival called Salone del Gusto (Hall of Tastes), which attracts specialty food and wine makers and restaurateurs, and a few hundred thousand tourists. Slow Food has been instrumental in the growth of 'culinary tourism': the promotion of gastronomic experiences and events as a key feature of tourism (see Rojek & Urry 1997), and thus offers the potential of making rural communities sustainable.

References
Leitch, A. 2003, 'Slow Food and the politics of pork fat: Italian food and European identity', Ethnos, vol. 68, no. 4, pp. 437–62.
Petrini, C. 2003, Slow Food: The Case for Taste, Columbia University Press, New York.
Rojek, C. & Urry, J. (eds) 1997, Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory, Routledge, London.

Discussion questions

  1. Why do you think people are attracted to the concept of 'slow food'?
  2. How successful is Slow Food likely to be in the face of fast food?
  3. What potential do the Slow Food and 'slow cities' movements have for ensuring the sustainability of rural communities?