Slow food on the fast track

MANILA, Philippines - Slow food... what’s that? The easiest answer is whatever is NOT fast food is slow food. Whoa! not so fast...

Slow food really means food that is clean, fair and good. Clean for animals, the environment and our health. Fair to producers and consumers. Good in taste and good to the earth.

The Slow Food movement was started in the 1980s by Carlo Petrini in Italy. Today, it has over 100,000 members from 132 countries who each pay a minimal amount of 5 euros per year for membership and to be part of a convivium. Each convivium used to require only five members, so in Manila we would have a convivium, Negros has another one, the Cordillera yet another. So far, when I paid for my dues in Turin, my number was 104. Meaning there are at least 100 paying Slow Food advocates in the Philippines. The meetings are held bi-annually in Turin, in the Piemonte region where slow food started in Italy. It used to be that there was a meeting called Terra Madre for farmers and a show called Salone del Gusto, where Italian and international producers showed off their slow food products.

In 2004 thousands of farmers and producers from around the world gathered in the very first Terra Madre meeting in Turin. This meeting now happens every other year, at the same time as Salone del Gusto.

This year was special as the Slow Food organizers combined the two events – resulting in a five-day forum, show, conference and exhibition – all combined as the Salone del Gusto Internazionale Terra Madre 2012. And even more important was that it was already open to the public, unlike in the past when it was members-only.

We were lucky to have been invited as paying delegates (other farmers and producers are fully sponsored by Slow Food) but were delighted to have had all the arrangements done – from airport transfers to hotel, to the show and back to the hotel each day and all meals for five wonderful days. Thanks to Ipat Luna who was kind enough to recommend me and my ECHOstore partner Reena Francisco to the organizers, who then arranged for our delegate status.

The lechon, served with Tinawon rice, was a big hit with fair visitors. Rice farmers from Kalinga and Mt. Province show off their traditional finery.

I went to the show to  experience how a small producer like Rowena Gonnoy of Pasil, Kalinga and Raymunda  Mamaril of Barlig, Mountain Province would be at par with other heirloom rice producers from Bangladesh and India, or how Marietta Paragas of Shontoug Foundation of Baguio compares her tubers with those of India and Indonesia. The stand is called Biodiversity in Asia and showed millet, rice, spices and tubers. Even Jimmy Lingayao, president of the Rice Terraces Farmers Cooperative in Banawe, Ifugao was proud to showcase all the Unoy, Chong-ak and Tinawon rice samples of his 200 members from seven municipalities in Ifugao. This truly was a show-and-tell experience where you could run the grains through your hands and appreciate the remaining heirloom rice varieties which are healthier than new rice varieties. They tell the attendees of how these crops help preserve  the heritage of the Igorots and other mountain indigenous groups.

Over at the Philippine stand, Margarita Fores and her two chefs prepare the day’s lunch of adobo, and monggo and a sliver of lechon brought all the way from Rome by Aling Nena Ty-Gunda, an entrepreneur of eight years out of her 28 years as an OFW in Rome. Since Gunda’s son, a former seafarer, joined her in Rome five years ago, they now accept orders for lechon for special Filipino parties or occasions such as the Salone del Gusto.

Orchestrated by the passionate Italian-speaking Fores of CIBO fame, the lechon meal with Tinawon rice was a hit among the foreign diners, some of whom were Swiss cheese experts and others just curious visitors who might compare lechon to Italian porchetta.

The Philippine pavilion was enlivened by music and dancing courtesy of Django, a Cayagan de Oro resident with Manobo roots. He played the ukulele, while singing and dancing. The music was enriched by the gong played by Manny Onayan of Kalinga, who followed Django with the percussive beats of the brass instrument.

All of these happened at the International Pavilion where you could taste slow food from as far as Africa, Poland, Norway and as near as Indonesia, Malaysia and Ceylon. The top ten list included the following treats: reindeer meat from Sweden; green coffee from Guatemala; black salt from Russia; cheese from Armenia; smoked herring from Norway; coco jam from Thailand; jamon serrano from Spain; Grandma Smith honey wine from Poland; nougat from France; dates from Libya.

Don’t get me wrong. Slow food is not about unusual or exotic or rare food. It is about food that is grown sustainably, prepared in a clean and artisanal manner and which considers the environment’s preservation in its preparation.

SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE: Nougats from the producer himself.

And to further the advocacy around the world, there are best practices in Slow Food Education for children, for the teens and for culinary professionals. Even the exhibition materials used were biodegradable – cartons, wood pallets and other fixtures will be used after the show by sponsors like Lavazza coffee who have committed to use all the pallets for their shipping requirements.

After tasting food from international exhibitors, one can visit the Enoteca to taste over 300 wines from different regions of Italy. There also is a Street Food piazza where Italy’s favorite snacks and treats were featured – rolled pork barbecue or bombetto, mixed fried seafood called fritto misti, farinata pizza, risotto and pasta.

The Italian pavilions, all three of them, featured specialities from each region ranging from salami to liqueurs, olive oil to balsamic vinegar.

All throughout the five days, fora and discussions on issues revolving around sustainable agriculture, animal welfare, the future without pesticides, were held with multi-lingual facilities.

Over 200,000 people, an increase from the 2010 figures, visited the event this year, which bodes well for this international movement to bring back real food to our tables.

So what is Slow Food? It is a continuous movement towards bringing back real good clean food, naturally-grown, made by hand with a lot of care, to our tables. It is an effort to make eating a pleasure, to bring back a sense of community when we partake of food. It is the promotion of the use of renewable sources of energy when preparing food.

The next Salone del Gusto is in 2014 and soon after, the World Expo will be held in Milan, just an hour away by car from Turin in 2015. The Milan World Expo will have as its theme, predictably, Sustainable Food.

So, is it not about time you also got into slowing your food? That is the future we all want – for ourselves, our children and the generations to come.