Eating In America

Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini was in Fort Mason near San Francisco last Thursday for the official launch of next year’s Slow Food Nation event. The day included a press conference and three-course vegetarian lunch and was attended by the likes of Alice Waters, international vice president of Slow Food and the brains behind Slow Food Nation, writer and journalist Corby Kummer and the mayor of San Francisco.

Slow Food Nation will last for four days from May 1 to 4 2008, and will be in Alice Waters’ words ‘A world’s fair of food’. Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean and Fair has been published in the USA by Rizzoli to coincide with the announcement of the event, which is expected to draw 50,000 locals as well as tourists to Fort Mason.

Speaking at the launch, Petrini described food choices as a political act: ‘This is the only politics that can ensure our future. It speaks of a different relationship we must have with food’.

‘I don’t think there’s any time in my memory where food as a source of joy, hope and politics has been in the minds of so many Americans,’ added Alice Waters said. ‘There’s a marvelous urgency to what we will be doing here. We’re coming together as eaters from all around the world, using our common language of food as a great way to take care of the earth.’

Slow Food Nation will include a Slow Food marketplace, coffeehouse and tea courts, world food stands, taste workshops, a Slow Fish boat, cooking demonstrations and affordable food, an American sustainable wine bar, San Francisco block parties, an Internet cafe, a Slow Food World Forum, an international food film festival, a living museum focusing on salmon, honey and corn, an ‘edible schoolyard’, poetry and music, design by green architects and artists, and green books and products.

Sources:
Slow Food USA
www.slowfoodnation.org

Marin Independent Journal
www.marinij.com