An introduction of Terra Madre, Salone del Gusto and International Congress for 2012. We will be documenting our trip as we progress.
Food justice and food security starts with a home-cooked meal. Everyday meals with family makes a local food economy much stronger.
Here is where we will document our trip to Turin, Italy to attend Slow Food Terra Madre 2012, so watch this Topic/Category for updates. We are International Congress delegates, which is a separate conference at the end of Terra Madre for Slow Food leaders worldwide to discuss the direction of Slow Food globally. It is held every 5 years. This is the first year the International Congress is being held concurrently with Terra Madre.
We are honored to have been selected, especially as International Congress delegates. We will be meeting with local, sustainable food leaders from across the world to exchange ideas, challenges and successes and plan a way forward for a sustainable food economy based on the Slow Food precepts of “good, clean and fair”. This is some truly ground-breaking, leading edge work and we are excited to be a part of it. We will be attending the full Terra Madre event before the Congress starts.
There are a couple of distinctions for this event:
Terra Madre is the place where workshops, meetings, demonstrations and panel discussions take place. There are over 100 Taste Workshops and Meet the Maker events where people are guided through regional tastings by international experts. There is also many different Theatres of Taste where chefs prepare their signature dishes in front of the audience, demonstrating their unique approaches and discussing influences. Internationally acclaimed chefs from around the world put on special Dinner Dates where they prepare their specialties for a very small group of people. You can watch a short YouTube clip of the 2009 Terra Madre.
Salone del Gusto is an international market and showcase for food communities from around the world. Three pavilions of the Lingotto Exhibition Center will be dedicated to Italy, while the adjacent Oval Olympic Arena will host producers from all five continents. Special areas will be serving Italian regional dishes, while Terra Madre cooks will be preparing ethnic specialties and street food that will highlight the diversity of gastronomic heritages from around the world. The area will host around 1,000 exhibitors from 100 countries. Arriving from Africa, North America, South America, Europe and Asia, local food producers will once again be the stars of the event, offering cheeses, cured meats, fish, breads, sweets, grains, honeys, fruits and vegetables from 50 different countries.
2012 marks the first time that Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto have been hosted in the same place and are also the first time the events are open to the public. In previous years, only Slow Food members were invited. This is also the first time that the International Congress is occurring at the same time, as it meets once every 5 years. This year will truly be a special event! There are estimates of around 200,000 people will attend one of the events, so we will be busy.
Food is at the forefront of many people’s minds today, with daily news channels reporting on foods to avoid for health reasons, food safety recalls almost daily, foods that a new study has shown will fight this or that disease, the growth of farmer’s markets and endless debates on local, sustainable food. Some articles and organizations trumpet the dire need to “feed the world”, while others are talking about feeding ourselves. There is ample evidence that food waste is a serious problem and that distribution systems are the culprit. Food has become noticeably more expensive over the past couple of years, with higher prices expected due to this year’s hard drought across much of the Midwestern US.
What’s a person to do today about sourcing and eating real, good and healthy food? One excellent example is that of Hnin W. Hnin, or more specifically, her mom. That’s right, her mom – a local, sustainable, cultural food hero to her family and an example of what is possible for everyone. Hnin’s family immigrated to New York over 25 years ago, but her mom has faithfully kept their cultural food traditions alive by cooking daily. She shops at the local farmer’s markets when she can, and the supermarket or discount stores when she can’t. She doesn’t cook every day to be hip, trendy or because some article in some magazine said it was the thing to do. She does it because that’s how she has been able to keep her family fed all these years on a shoestring budget. They have cooked their traditional, cultural foods that have helped them keep their identities intact in a world that wants to assimilate and homogenize everyone and everything. We could learn some serious lessons from them. Americans have the blessings and simultaneous curse of having a melting pot culture. Many of us have no strong cultural identity to ground us today, and so are swayed by corporate advertising that promises us a better life or to make us feel better about ourselves if we eat this or drink that. We are lead to believe that healthy food is more expensive, when the exact opposite is more often the case.
Eating real, good and healthy food everyday is not just the realm of the wealthy or famous, as is sometimes thought when we see the prices of organic produce in a Whole Foods market. It is possible to eat well and not spend a fortune doing so. That is where food justice and local and sustainable agriculture comes in. Everyone is more engaged with a local agricultural community, from the producers to the consumers. There is much more transparency, so everyone has a higher stake in the process, with resulting higher overall quality. The Slow Food organization mission statement is for food that is “good, clean and fair”. There are no modifiers in that statement, so it applies to everyone, everywhere. By bringing together a focus on good food – healthy, tasty, chemical free with clean food such as organic, local and sustainable along with fair food that brings sovereignty, food access and fair wage and labor into the mix there is a community of diversity that has not been seen yet on the world stage that is food. There is some real potential here, a nationwide community that is as diverse as it is engaged, committed and passionate about “good, clean and fair” food for everyone. It is surprising to some to see the growth in decentralized, independent food communities and pathways that have appeared across the nation. It is of no surprise to others who have worked to make it happen, a little at a time.
Sustainable food is how we will eventually feed ourselves on this planet, either by choice or by force. The current system is patently unsustainable and will continue to create more damages than benefits as it grows and continues, until it collapses. By definition, we will arrive at a sustainable food system or we won’t arrive at all. Exactly how this sustainable system functions is very much a work and dialogue in progress, with everyone having a say in it. Good, clean and fair are excellent starting points to found this new paradigm, and continue the work of building a network of diverse local food communities that nourish all of us.
Terra Madre, Salone del Gusto and International Congress
An introduction of Terra Madre, Salone del Gusto and International Congress for 2012. We will be documenting our trip as we progress.
Food Justice and Security Starts at Home
Food justice and food security starts with a home-cooked meal. Everyday meals with family makes a local food economy much stronger.