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The Slow Food StoryPolitics and Pleasure |
The first book detailing the rise of Slow Food - one of the most significant political movements of modern times.
The Slow Food movement was established in Italy as a response to the dominance of fast food chains, supermarkets, and large-scale agribusiness. Defending "the universal right to pleasure," it promotes food production and consumption based on "good, clean, and fair" local products.
In twenty years Slow Food has grown into an international organisation with more than 80,000 members in over 100 countries. With roots in the 1960s and 1970s counter-culture, Slow Food's distinctive politics link gastronomic pleasure and environmental responsibility. The movement crosses the left-right divide to embrace both the conservative desire to preserve traditional rural communities and an alternative "virtuous" idea of globalisation.
In the first in-depth study of the fascinating politics of Slow Food, Geoff Andrews shows that the alternative future it offers can be extended to all aspects of modern life. The Slow Food Story is an extensive critique of the fast-moving, work-obsessed contemporary capitalist culture.
In twenty years Slow Food has grown into an international organisation with more than 80,000 members in over 100 countries. With roots in the 1960s and 1970s counter-culture, Slow Food's distinctive politics link gastronomic pleasure and environmental responsibility. The movement crosses the left-right divide to embrace both the conservative desire to preserve traditional rural communities and an alternative "virtuous" idea of globalisation.
In the first in-depth study of the fascinating politics of Slow Food, Geoff Andrews shows that the alternative future it offers can be extended to all aspects of modern life. The Slow Food Story is an extensive critique of the fast-moving, work-obsessed contemporary capitalist culture.
Details
216 Pages, 6 x 9
ISBN 9780773534773
July 2008
Formats: Cloth, Paperback
"The Slow Food Story is the best account so far of the history and animating ideas behind Slow Food. An indispensable introduction." Michael Pollan, author on In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
"The Slow Food Story is the essential one-stop critical guide to the history, ideas, structure, and membership of the Slow Food movement." Dr John Dickie, Italian Studies, University College London
"The Slow Food Story takes us all around the world, beginning in Italy. It is the story of a visceral, powerful effort, committed to cultural and biological diversity, to the value of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage, to eco-gastronomy and to a scale of living that is economically and spiritually more human." Susan Salter Reynolds, The LA Times
"Andrews is a critical journalist adept at demonstrating how Slow Food exists to link producers and consumers at the grassroots level. It has evolved as a complex response to the growing impositions of globalization, including the ubiquity of fast food retail powers and widespread standardization ... This is a book that will satisfy the seriously curious reader." alive: Canada's Natural Health and Wellness Magazine
"Andrews's work is valuable for its framing of the Slow Food movement within larger contemporary political debates and theoretical approaches. At the same time, the extensive interviews he conducted with relevant members of Slow Food in various parts of the world bring life to his analysis along with a truly international outlook, allowing the reader to understand the development of the movement in its global dimension." Gastronomica
"Never before has grocery shopping been so politicized..." The Globe and Mail
"The Slow Food Story is the essential one-stop critical guide to the history, ideas, structure, and membership of the Slow Food movement." Dr John Dickie, Italian Studies, University College London
"The Slow Food Story takes us all around the world, beginning in Italy. It is the story of a visceral, powerful effort, committed to cultural and biological diversity, to the value of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage, to eco-gastronomy and to a scale of living that is economically and spiritually more human." Susan Salter Reynolds, The LA Times
"Andrews is a critical journalist adept at demonstrating how Slow Food exists to link producers and consumers at the grassroots level. It has evolved as a complex response to the growing impositions of globalization, including the ubiquity of fast food retail powers and widespread standardization ... This is a book that will satisfy the seriously curious reader." alive: Canada's Natural Health and Wellness Magazine
"Andrews's work is valuable for its framing of the Slow Food movement within larger contemporary political debates and theoretical approaches. At the same time, the extensive interviews he conducted with relevant members of Slow Food in various parts of the world bring life to his analysis along with a truly international outlook, allowing the reader to understand the development of the movement in its global dimension." Gastronomica
"Never before has grocery shopping been so politicized..." The Globe and Mail
Geoff Andrews, the author of several books including Not a Normal Country: Italy After Berlusconi and Endgames and New Times: The Final Years of British Communism, writes for a range of newspapers and journals - including The Financial Times and Open Democracy - and is associate editor of Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture . He is currently staff tutor in politics, the Open University.
Preface vi
Acknowledgements x
PART ONE: IDEAS
1 Politics in Search of Pleasure 3
2 The Critique of 'Fast Life' 29
3 Terra Madre 48
PART TWO: PEOPLE
4 Gastronome! The Arrival of a New Political Subject 67
5 The Return of the Producer ...and the Death of the Consumer? 86
6 The Movement 103
PART THREE: PLACES
7 Rediscovering the Local 129
8 Virtuous Globalisation 148
9 Slow Food, Gastronomy and Cultural Politics 165
List of Osterias and Restaurants 183
Notes 184
Index 191
Acknowledgements x
PART ONE: IDEAS
1 Politics in Search of Pleasure 3
2 The Critique of 'Fast Life' 29
3 Terra Madre 48
PART TWO: PEOPLE
4 Gastronome! The Arrival of a New Political Subject 67
5 The Return of the Producer ...and the Death of the Consumer? 86
6 The Movement 103
PART THREE: PLACES
7 Rediscovering the Local 129
8 Virtuous Globalisation 148
9 Slow Food, Gastronomy and Cultural Politics 165
List of Osterias and Restaurants 183
Notes 184
Index 191
