Slow Food Sunday

I can safely say that there have been times when I have literally cringed at the thought of having to order from a fast food restaurant. Now, it's not that I haven't dined at each of these fine chain establishments over the course of my lifetime, and it's not that I find myself "above" them at all, I just truly dislike the experience (not to mention the taste). There is something about the plastic sterile atmosphere, the grease seeping through the paper bag as you steal fries out of it on the drive home, and formulaic way the food is prepared that just doesn't appeal to me. This extends to the "made to order" fast food chains as well, not just the chains with cute cartoony mascots and heat lamps on 18 hours of the day. I actively avoid Subway, won't set foot inside of FatBurger, and can count on one hand the times I've sat at an In N' Out drive thru.

This of course, can be a point of contention in our apartment. I live with someone who 1. has purchased every item on the Wendy's $1 menu at once and attempted to eat it all in one sitting, 2. has performed the McDonalds' menu song live on stage and continues to know it by heart, and 3. i'm pretty sure still carries Subway club stamps around in his wallet (the program ended years ago). So from time to time this means that we end up in situations like last week, where one of us ran out to Chipotle for a take-out burrito while the other ran to the store to get ingredients to make homemade vegetable soup.

Luckily, despite these few instances where our taste buds butt heads, I think I've slowly been able to triumph over the fast food giants by proving that "anything they can do I can do better." This of course might seem like a ridiculous challenge to some, but I see it as a win-win situation: you don't have to eat carelessly slapped together hamburgers whose origins are so questionable you don't even ask; and you get to eat deliciously tasty stuff. I've made buffalo wings from scratch for the superbowl, deep fried homemade falafel just to see if I could do it, slow cooked a pork butt for highly-touted pulled pork sandwiches, grilled a whole chicken over a beer can (because why not?), made imitation Gus Burgers with veggie patties (a Charlottesville institution, which consists of a cheeseburger topped with a fried egg, featured in the annual Gus Burger eating contest) and whipped up countless dips, munchies and hors d'ouvres. I'd like to claim I am winning without contention.

So, liking to think that I am fearless in the kitchen and having a partner who is willing to try anything I concoct (to a point--Zucchini and Heirloom Tomatoes apparently are crossing the line), I decided to initiate the "Slow Food Sunday." What, you may ask, is a Slow Food Sunday? It's simple-you spend a Sunday afternoon preparing a meal entirely from scratch, using minimally-processed ingredients and local and seasonal food when possible, spend your time cooking consciously, aware of where your food was grown and how it is being prepared, and sit down with some friends (and maybe a good bottle of wine) for a quality meal. The term "Slow Food" comes from the slow food movement, which was started in Italy by Carlo Petrini in 1980's in protest to a McDonalds opening up. The principles of the slow food movement are those that I wholeheartedly embrace, and which without even realizing it, I have been supporting all along with my aversion to fast food.


The Slow Food concept "opposes the standardization of taste [ahem, fast food chains], defends the need for consumer information [knowing where your food comes from], protects cultural identities tied to food and gastronomic traditions [e.g. the importance of the family meal], safeguards foods and cultivation and processing techniques inherited from tradition [which does not include deep-frying large batches of potatoes] and defend domestic and wild animal and vegetable species [those delicious heirloom tomatoes, for example]." In essence the slow food movement encourages us to take the time to think about our food, where it came from, what it's value is, how it was traditionally used throughout history, and to savor its delectable taste.

So how is the Slow Food movement related to the environment? Quite simply actually, because if you reduce food to the most basic level, our vegetables, fruits, and grains are all grown from the earth, and the meats we eat all come from animals who feed off these grains. That we need to grow or raise (or I guess hunt) what we want to eat is a fact, yet often a conveniently forgotten one. Food, over the past century, has become slowly detached from the environment in which its grown, to the extent that we routinely come home from the grocery store with bags of chips, loaves of bread, or boxes of cereal containing grains that, despite the fact that we are going to easily devour these foods, we have no idea where they were grown or perhaps more importantly, how. While some of us might prefer the simplicity of picking up a convenient snack and not caring about its origins, the truth of the matter is, without adequate growing conditions, there would be no food for us to eat. It benefits us all to realize that if the planet's environment starts to degrade, the quality (and safety) of our food will begin to degrade as well.

The Slow Food Movement, according to its mission, "links pleasure and food with awareness and responsibility." It seeks to connect eating and tasting with the food itself-its history, it's cultures and traditions, the environment that it was grown in, the path that it took to arrive on your plate. When you think of food in terms of all of these elements, not all foods are equal. Some foods are grown more humanely than others, some are grown with a lighter footprint on the environment or with less pesticides, and some are bred for superior taste, texture, or color. What the slow food movement strives to point out is that those foods that are grown by local farmers on smaller farms not only have a reduced impact on the environment, they taste better too.

Just as with any other product you buy, as a consumer you have choices. When it comes to food, we shouldn't ignore the toll on the environment that the production of food takes. Food grown in a local garden takes only the nutrients of the soil, a water supply, and the sun's rays to be grown, ripen, and be eaten. Food that travels farther than garden to mouth needs an increasing amount of resources the farther it has to travel. Add in processing, packaging, and international transport and those resources start to add up. Some great statistics in support of eating local food can be found here. The slow food website reminds us that:

"Possibly, many are unaware of the concept of incorporated energy or, in other words, the baggage of 'hidden' energy that each and every product brings with it, derived from the use of fossil fuels required for its production, transportation, preservation, packaging and waste disposal."

By choosing foods that are local, organically grown, and minimally processed,
proponents of the slow food movement are naturally part of the environmental movement
as well.

So with this in mind, I propose to you the concept of the Slow Food Sunday. Spend just one day a week actually thinking about your food, where it came from, and how amazingly delicious it tastes when you prepare it yourself. This past Sunday was my first Slow Food Sunday, and I'd like to say it went off without a hitch. It did take a day of advance planning, as my local farmer's market comes through on Saturday mornings and I had to be sure to buy all I needed (although I admit there were a few purchases at a local grocery for some last minute ingredients).



After some consideration and some perusing at the market, here's what I came up with for a menu:

Homemade Rustic White Bread with Roasted Garlic
Heirloom Tomato and Grilled Corn salsa
Slow Cooked Tuscan-Style Pinto Beans with Sage
Sauteed Baby Zucchini
Baked Carrots and Baby Onions
Lemon Roasted Free-Range Chicken

A little hint of decadence, a little more time required than usual, but all in all an exercise in consciousness I wholeheartedly recommend, that in the end is an absolute delight to the senses.

Want to get started?
Sustainable Table has great resources to find out what foods are available locally in your area. So does the eat well guide, and FoodRoutes.org has a pretty comprehensive listing of local farms, farmer's markets, and farm stands throughout the US. So what are you waiting for? Next Sunday is only 3 days away!