The story behind Slow Food: The Case for Taste begins in Italy. The idea for Slow Food was born in the mid-1980s in a small provincial town in the northwestern part of the country, on the edge of the renowned Langhe wine-growing district, in a social context that may be hard to grasp for those without a more detailed knowledge of life there at that particular moment in time. It was, in fact, in the local wine world that the movement started to grow, seeking to defend the “right to pleasure,” which was increasingly being left by the wayside as the pace of life grew faster and foodstuffs more standardized.
The fact is, however, that it has always been possible to share the “case for taste” in every part of the world. Pleasure is a universal right, and the sensitivity and awareness toward food and drink that we have fostered over the years are valid everywhere. They are a world necessity.
As the number of Slow Food members has grown in different countries, so our story has been shared in all corners of our planet. At the moment, the United States is the country where Slow Food is developing fastest. This is significant, since it also happens to be the place where the industrialization of agriculture and production methods first spawned fast food. According to the cliché (and clichés invariably contain a grain of truth), America is a land where many people eat irregularly and mindlessly, simply loading up their bodies with fuel, often to the detriment of their health. No other country in the world has comparable problems of obesity.
I don’t know if all this explains why Slow Food is now the second largest gastronomic association in the country. I don’t know either if the trend toward uniformity of sensory perception, mass standardization, loss of identity, and unhealthy eating habits has been offset by a return to naturalness and the ability to appreciate flavors and smells—not to mention the pleasure of taking time to buy and eat healthy food. What I do know, though, is that the success the Slow Food philosophy is currently enjoying in the United States is symptomatic of new attitudes toward eating, living, and interacting socially.
We have entered an era dominated by globalization, hence by complexity. It has been said that globalization is an aggregate phenomenon with many facets, not all of them negative. The challenge now is to interpret these different facets and try to ensure that they make our lives richer in taste and also in satisfaction.
Taste, too, is a complex phenomenon, precisely because it is bound up with the most diverse aspects of our existence and our future. In this sense, Slow Food is also a way of coming to terms with the future of each one of us and of the entire planet. It’s a challenge that we need to address with enthusiasm.