Photo: Orin Zebest/Flickr
Susan McCrory
Public Radio Kitchen is pleased to feature below an original post from the folks at Slow Food Boston. Though we occasionally link to local Slow Food events and info, we felt PRK followers might want to learn ‘from scratch’ what Slow Food Boston is, what it’s currently doing and whom it’s made up of. Enter Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, an active member of the Slow Food Boston chapter and writer extraordinaire. After today you will hear directly from Anastacia each month. We hope her posts will whet your appetite and encourage you to spread the word however you will, and take part however you can and wish to, in the savoring of seasonal, local foods and the myriad traditional ways of bringing them to the table.
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Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, Guest Contributor
Slow Food Boston
Being part of the Slow Food movement has its challenges—such as choosing which delicious way to support the cause. Sunday brunch with johnnycakes, maple syrup, sausage and cider? A bike ‘n’ brew tour of Boston? Just-picked sweet corn, garden tomatoes and grilled bluefish, accompanied by a Massachusetts pinot noir (24 wineries and counting!)? Or maybe a three-course dinner at a restaurant featuring spring bounty from New England’s family farms?
The Slow Food idea is radically simply. A homecooked meal from locally and sustainably raised ingredients preserves culinary traditions, supports small-scale farmers and conserves the environment. In part founded as a response to the opening of a McDonald’s near Rome’s Spanish Steps in the 1980s, the movement has exploded in the past two decades—there are now over 100,000 members in 132 countries.
Programs include the Ark of Taste, a catalog of “endangered” produce, livestock and condiments; Terra Madre, an international conference attended by farmers, producers, activists, chefs and academics; and Slow Food in Schools, which introduces the next generation of eaters to the pleasures of real food. Slow Food has recently become more politically active, advocating at the local and national levels for food that is “good, clean and fair.”
Except for the talented staff of the international and national offices, located in Bra, Italy, and Brooklyn, NY, Slow Food is an all-volunteer organization, composed of over 800 chapters worldwide. Stateside, Slow Food Boston is one of the largest and most active, with an email list of over 2,000 and multiple happenings every month. There are also three local campus convivia. (Shout-outs to BU, Tufts and Harvard!)
Where do I sign up, you say? Funny you should ask. Join our free email list to get the lowdown on nose-to-tail tastings, farm tours, food preservation classes, indie food films, author talks and ethnic cuisine explorations. And if you’d like to do more—for example, become involved in our advocacy campaigns or organize the above-mentioned bike ‘n’ brew tour (hint! hint!) or another event, drop us a line!