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Slow Food
Fast food has swept the globe, but it's not for everyone. In Italy, some
towns are trying to reverse the trend, with a movement they call 'Slow Food.'
The fertile hills between Florence and Siena, home to some of the world's
best-known vineyards. This is Chianti, one of Italy's renowned wine regions.
Greva, population 4,000, is the center for the wine trade and other local
products like mushrooms and cheese. This is a place that appreciates tradition.
Greva is a place where time is never rushed.
Our challenge and our duty is to try to maintain the soul, the essence, the
specialness of Greva in Chianti and all the other slow cities.
Greva's mayor, and mayors from three other Italian cities, created the Slow
Cities League. Their mission: to keep their hometowns from moving into the fast
lane. Out of that sprang the slow-food movement. It's simple: preserve the
pleasures of good living, good food, family and friends.
Now the movement has gone international, more than 66,000 members worldwide.
"It's very nice to live here because we have a nice atmosphere, we have a nice
landscapes, and so when you have nice things to see, a nice place to live in,
it's very easy."
Salvatore Toscana left the fast life behind. He ran an American-style restaurant
in Florence, where he spent his days serving up burgers. Five years ago, he
dumped his French fryer and moved to Greva where he opened a new restaurant.
It means taking the time, finding the rhythm that lets you live more calmly in a
lot of ways starting, of course, with what you eat.
In the mountains of Pistoria in Northern Tuscany, generations of farmers have
produced a Pecorino cheese, they say, is one of a kind. Made from the raw
milk of black sheep, the cheese is hand molded twice a day. But this tradition
had been dying out until slow food stepped in. With the campaign to organize the
farmers and promote the cheese, both are making a comeback.
"It's brought us a kind of notoriety. Not everyone knew about our
product. The project is getting us noticed."
"From Singapore to Macao, in New York and Rome, you always find the same Pizza,
the same hamburgers. Slow food doesn't want this. Slow food wants the
specialness of every product to be respected."
Greva is not trying to escape the modern world. It's a city that is simply
enjoying itself, doing its best to take it slow. |
( Oct 27 )
