Slow is Beautiful (and delicious)
(Page 2 of 4)
November/December 2000
Tenaya Darlington Isthmus (www.isthmus.com)
In Madison, Slow Food has caught on faster than hot potatoes. The 60 members--everyone from college students to surgeons to farmers--dedicate themselves to promoting fresh and local food, including the products of Wisconsin's famous small breweries and artisanal cheese makers. Lax, who grew up on a farm near Green Bay, spent many childhood days foraging for wild edibles and exploring the contents of her grandmother's well-stocked root cellar. She is an expert on local Midwestern food. Looking for black kale? Hen of the woods mushrooms? She knows where to find them. As a food scout for Madison's L'Etoile restaurant, she made a name for herself by connecting local growers to area chefs. When she first heard about Slow Food last year, starting a chapter seemed like a natural step. 'People are living too fast to realize what's happening,' says Lax. 'Regional food traditions are disappearing as our palates become homogenized.'
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When was the last time you ate a biricaccolo, she asks? It's an ancient plum/apple. Ever reached into the crisper and pulled out a bunch of alegria? Probably not. This sturdy green, similar to kale, was a staple food of the Aztecs. Today these two foods are practically extinct.
According to Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney in Shattering: Food, Politics and the Loss of Genetic Diversity (Arizona 1990), fewer than 30 species of plants supply 95 percent of the world's food. Grocery stores want durable produce--fruit that won't bruise, greens that won't wilt. Consumers have fewer choices than in the past.
Heirloom crops and traditional methods of small-scale food production are collapsing as a result of industrialized farming and food production, along with biotechnology. 'People read in the paper about genetically engineered food, and it scares them, but they don't know what to do,' says Lax. 'Slow Food provides an outlet.'
The Madison convivia's first Slow Food event, an apple tasting, took place at Weston's Antique Apple Orchard, a third-generation orchard outside New Berlin, Wisconsin. 'Most people are only familiar with Red Delicious and Granny Smith apples,' says Lax. 'At the apple tasting, we tried 50 different varieties, some of which aren't grown anywhere else in the world.' Lax hopes that events like this will encourage people to buy from Weston's and other local growers, thus promoting different apple varieties--and assuring the orchard's and the rare species' survival.
Just as the environmental movement works to save animals in danger of extinction, the Slow Food movement is bent on saving endangered fruits and vegetables. You might even call them the Greenpeace of gastronomy.
Slow Food recently launched a project called the Ark of Taste, which, la Noah's Ark, shelters endangered species--foods and beverages--from encroaching extinction. 'The Ark project distinguishes certain products worthy of protection,' explains Patrick Martins, head of Slow Food's New York office. Across the country, rare and threatened varieties like the Blenheim apricot and the Gilfeather turnip are being reintroduced to consumers through the movement's presence in the media and at food fairs. California's extraordinary Sun-Crest peach was featured in a Time magazine story last May. Four Wisconsin products were inducted into the Ark this year: New Glarus Brewery's Wisconsin Belgian Red Ale (made with Door County cherries), Fantome Farm's Fresh Goat's Milk Cheese, Mossholder's Brick Style Semi-Soft Cheese, and LoveTree Farm's Trade Lake Cedar Cheese.