Slow is Beautiful (and delicious)

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While Slow Food has been lauded for its radical defense of great-tasting food, its 'sensual correctness' has also been criticized for breeding elitist appetites. In an article for Slow, University of Maryland sociologist George Ritzer points a greasy finger at Slow Food's upper-crust bastions: 'The upper classes already find themselves best able to avoid or resist McDonaldization. The Slow Food movement needs to find a way to attract middle- and lower-class supporters.'

Rink DaVee, a Slow Food member and Wisconsin organic farmer, admits, 'That's the side [of Slow Food] that turns me off.' Staying down to earth will be Slow Food's challenge, he says. It's easy for city folk to embrace Slow Food's philosophies with a kind of intellectual hedonism and forget that Slow Food, at heart, is about countering the idea that food is nothing more than a product. DaVee's philosophy is simple: 'Drinking some local beer, eating some fresh radishes. Nothing fancy.'

Slow Food's Patrick Martins contests the accusation: 'We're anti-elitist,' he says. 'We're not about supper clubs and wine-and-cheese parties.' Slow Food gives a voice to small farmers, whose products may be more expensive than supermarket products. Let's face it: It costs more to produce a cave-ripened cheese than to mass-produce Kraft Singles.

'We're trying to make good food accessible to everyone,' Lax says. 'That's why the first Slow Food event I planned was an apple tasting. It was casual, people brought kids, we had a potluck.' It's all part of imbuing pleasure, educating the palate, and spreading the message: Slow down, eat, enjoy.

From the Madison, Wisconsin, alternative weekly Isthmus (July 14, 2000). Subscriptions: $30/yr. (52 issues) from 101 King St., Madison, WI 53703.

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