Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, And Fair
Product Description
By now most of us are aware of the threats looming in the food world. The best-selling Fast Food Nation and other recent books have alerted us to such dangers as genetically modified organisms, food-borne diseases, and industrial farming. Now it is time for answers, and Slow Food Nation steps up to the challenge. Here the charismatic leader of the Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini, outlines many different routes by which we may take back control of our food. The three central principles of the Slow Food plan are these: food must be sustainably produced in ways that are sensitive to the environment, those who produce the food must be fairly treated, and the food must be healthful and delicious. In his travels ar… More >>
Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, And Fair
Bob Recommends: Did you know that one of the best selling cameras is the Canon Powershot SD880IS? It takes amazing pictures.
Carlo Petrini gave a lecture at NCSU in Raleigh earlier this year. His talk was in Italian, but his ideas were universal: if we want happiness and peace, we’re going to have to change the way we eat.
The book is fantastic. It is beautifully written, powerful, and balances scientific data and understanding with cultural histories and sensible aestheics. His proposal of a new branch of science, gastronomy, is as revolutionary as Freud’s proposal to study the human psyche or David Kelley’s efforts to study design as a science.
This book is The Inconvenient Truth for those who eat. But it is also a far more optimistic book, for the solution to the problem of industrial agriculture is to seek out good food, to meet and learn about the farms and farmers who grow it, and the reward is pleasure.
The Introduction by Alice Waters is, like the food at Chez Panisse, a sensual as well as a sensible delight.
This is a great book to buy, read, and then share with others, all around the world.
Rating: 5 / 5
More than a reaction to Fast Food’s arrival in Italy, Slow Food
has evolved into a global movement encompassing many different actions to improve what we all taste and eat.
It’s not about eating well in the privileged, Michelin-starred table sense. It’s about recognizing everyone’s barriers to eating well and judging the quality of our food on three levels, asking whether it is good, clean and fair. (The book’s original title is just that: Buono, pulito e Giusto).
The movement’s founder wrote this book to set out a new definition of gastronomy, enumerating some of the issues facing our food supply and helping to turn a thinking eater to positive action.
Beautifully translated, Slow Food Nation is a cogent & readable introduction to what Slow Food is about. Highly recommended!
Rating: 5 / 5
Carlo Petrini has been attempting to preserve a more traditional view of food for a long time, this book lays out his current thinking in a clear and concise layering of understanding food in culture (gastronomy), understanding quality (good, clean, fair food), and the tools to put these ideas to work in the world going forward.
As we reconstitute a food culture based on transparency and quality in the USA and hopefully across the globe, this book provides key ideas related to respect for diversity of food products, respect for food in culture, and respect for the work associated with food that can serve to guide us. This book made me think and laugh, and I recommend it highly.
Rating: 5 / 5
I wonder how many guests have dined with Mr. Petrini and thought, “Does this guy ever shut up?” The author wastes too much ink waxing philosophical or arguing for a Utopian “return to the old ways” of agriculture. Never mind we couldn’t feed a few billion people.
In “Slow Food Nation”, Mr. Petrini lays out his argument for a sustainable world food system that is “good, clean, and fair.” Unfortunately, Mr. Petrini loves the sound of his own voice and how clever he is, and he ends up preaching to the choir. Since Mr. Petrini is trying to save the world by changing the way we all perceive our food, perhaps he should have written his book so that a noble peasant-of-the-soil could appreciate his world-view.
In Petrini’s narrative there were several somewhat amusing anecdotes and I gleamed some insight about how insidious Agribusiness truly is, but these gems were far and few between. Most of the book was insufferable verbal gymnastics of what he deems a gastronome should be. This guy has way too much time on his hands or has some kind of OCD.
I am actually 100% in agreement of what Mr. Petrini stands for. He just shouldn’t be the messenger. If you’re still interested in this important subject from a practical point of view–and not what reads like an elitist restaurant critic–I would recommend Michael Pollan’s informative and enjoyable tome “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”.
Rating: 2 / 5
The in-depth book provides a thorough examination of the quintessential modern diet that merely depletes and deprives the modern person. Petrini goes fully into slow food technicalities to exemplify his rather complex theology.
Certainly worth the meticulous read, so long as you’re up for such immense information.
Rating: 4 / 5