The goals of Slow Food
Slow Food believes that everyone has a fundamental right to enjoy eating good healthy food. As a consequence of this, everyone is responsible for the protection of culinary heritage, tradition and culture, the elements that make all this possible. It believes in the concept of eco-gastronomy. Slow Food gives particular importance to the fact that the food is good, clean and served to everyone in the correct way. It deals with the following principles:
1. The food we eat has to taste good. The world’s preoccupation and obsession with industry and automation, standardisation and homogeneity, often leads us to eat food that does not taste as good as when we eat local products that have been cultivated with great care and love for the work done.
2. The food must be clean. This means that the food must be grown in a sustainable manner, without a negative impact on the environment and with minimal artificial intervention.
3. The food must be produced in the best manner. Food workers must not be exploited and must be properly paid for their work and effort.
The members of the Slow Food Movement consider themselves to be co-producers rather than consumers. This is because they show interest in how the food is produced, and take interest in the producers, consider themselves co-operators in the process of production.
However, all this does not mean that Slow Food is against technological development. It is in favour of scientific and technological development and believes that man should continue advancing in education, so that in this way culinary arts across the world will continue to be appreciated.
What is the mission of Slow Food?
Slow Food works to enlarge biodiversity in the production of food, spreading education about taste (taste education) and collaborating with producers of excellent quality food by organising activities and initiatives of a culinary nature.
Defending biodiversity
Slow Food believe that excellence in food production coincides with those who believe that grains, vegetables, fruit, different breeds of animals and other products are disappearing due to the prevalence of industrial food. Slow Food works in different ways to defend biodiversity. Ark of Taste and the project Presidia (helped by the Foundation of Slow Food for Biodiversity) are two projects related to this issue. It also works to protect culinary art in the programme Terra Madre.
The education of taste
The aim of Slow Food is for people to cultivate and appreciate food through better use of their senses so that in this way people may better appreciate and understand the importance of its true origin, what it is like and how it is made. The activities of the Convivium are precisely focused on the valorisation of local food production. During the ‘taste’ workshops, food experts help those present to appreciate food. It is a task of local Slow Food Convivia to help schools take the initiative to develop gardens so that children will learn to eat what they themselves produce at school.
Besides this, Slow Food organises fairs, markets and activities on a local and international scale, whereby producers can sell products of excellent gastronomic quality to consumers who have the opportunity of meeting the producers directly. Activities on an international scale include Salone del Gusto, Cheese, Slow Fish, Aux Origine du Gout and A Taste of Slow. The intension regarding the local scene is for different activities to be presented locally so that Maltese people may appreciate more genuine good local produce.
The local convivium, Slow Food Malta, was set-up on the 31st January 2009. The aim of the Maltese section is to organise different activities including dinners with a particular theme and tours to local food and beverage producers, as well as evening activities whereby participants are invited to appreciate different food flavours. Amongst the activities being held at the end of May is an evening organised by the Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS).
Participants will have the possibility of appreciating genuine traditional Maltese country food of the nineteenth century. There is also the possibility of organising activities for children attending public schools, as well as a course for participants to appreciate the cultural and scientific art of food. Another idea is the valorisation of vegetables and local products so these will be protected as well as appreciated by the Maltese public. After all the Slow Food Movement believes that conviviality and the pleasure of eating well are essential factors for one to appreciate Slow Food.