[Presented at the US regional meeting]

Sit down at the table with your countrymen & friends
And ask your lips, tongues, minds & bellies some questions,
Questions that remind us that our bodies & spirits
Are either nurtured by place
Or swallowed up by tasteless placelessness…

Ask aloud: Just what exactly is it
That we want to have cross our lips,
To roll off our tongues & down our throats
To be transformed & conjured into something
Altogether new by thousands of gut microbes
To surge into our bloodstreams
To be carried along with insulin for one last wild ride
& to be lodged within the very cells of our bodies?

Just what do we want to be made of?
What do we claim as our tastes?
& what do we want to taste like
When we, in our own turn, are eaten
by wolf, vulture, raven, condor, coyote or bear?

I, for one, & perhaps you as well,
Wish to taste like the very country in which I reside:

Like great plains bison wallowing amidst the prairie turnips,
Like salmon running up a cold and clear mountain stream,
Like gators crawling into a swamp stewing with sassafras leaves,
Like wild rice hand-harvested from the azure waters of a northern lake,
Like maple syrup gleaned from woods where Robert Frost once walked,
Like cactus fruit falling off a tall saguaro into a handmade basket below.

These plants & animals are asking us
to pledge allegiance to what is local, what is loved,
to what is seasonal, what is unique to each American place .

If old Walt Whitman were sitting at our table,
Supping with us today, he’d be celebrating
That wild old slumgullion stew that all of us together make,
Singing a song that goes like this:
“Taste America’s uniqueness, taste this earth,
Taste our terroir, savor its worth,
And by tasting, you will see!â€? 

Gary Paul Nabhan
Renewing America’s Food Tradition

Many of you will remember Michael Pollan’s stirring words at the opening ceremony of Terra Madre, not to mention at the US regional meeting and other sessions both at TM and Salone del Gusto. He is the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals”, a much-lauded book that is landing on a number of top-books-of-the-year lists, including the NYTimes’ 10 Best Books of the Year. He is also a Terra Madre delegate from Berkeley, California.

For anyone who ever wondered “What’s for dinner?”, this is the book to read.

Read more about Michael Pollan on his website.

Early last Tuesday morning Glencolton Farm near Durham, in Grey County, southwestern Ontario, Canada, was raided by the officials from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Natural Resources who impounded milk operations equipment and forbade farmer Michael Schmidt from selling raw milk to his cow share program consisting of 150 raw milk consumers across the province.

At a press conference on his farm on Thursday, Schmidt announced that would go on a hunger strike until all of the equipment, documents and other items removed from this farm have been returned.

Read the full story here.

Find out how you (especially if you’re Canadian) can help Schmidt in his fight against the government for food sovereignty—go to www.glencoltonfarms.com and download the Freedom of Choice petition or write to the Ontario premier in support of consumers’ right to purchase raw milk. You can also read more about the raid and current developments at the site as well as find out how to send Schmidt a donation to support him while government actions keep him from producing his milk and selling it.

Yesterday, Terra Madre 2004 and 2006 delegate Jamie Kennedy, a chef-restaurateur in Toronto, hosted a press conference for Schmidt at his restaurant. Michael Schmidt raises the Canadienne cattle breed, which is on the Slow Food Ark of Taste.

Slides from the presentation.

More...

Traditional brewers / beers and styles - Europe

Hi,

One of the workshops this year showed how consumers / brewers and producers can work together to use the best local ingredients, with the best local brewing skills to provide execellent traditional beers for local use.

I (and my colleagues in European Beer Consumers Union) reperesent all the beer consumer organisations across Europe and we are always keen to hear from European countries where there is no consumer representation and from local brewers who want help to discuss and promote their products.

More...

Presentation for the ‘Native Is Better’ agro-ecology workshop, Oct 27, 2006

I am both a farmer and an ecologist. I farm with my family in the the South-east Scottish Lowlands

I want to explore why native is better and than to share with you what we do on our farm with British native breeds.

To say that ‘Native is better’ is controversial – What defines Native ?
I believe it is not helpful to think automatically because something is native it is better. It is better to consider the purposes for which animals were and are bred.

More...

Dear colleague participating at Terra Madre!

On the 29th of October, at the assembly “Cooks in food systems”, Claudio Bincoletto, an event chef working in London, and I presented my idea or proposal of having a Cooks of Terra Madre Day the 11th of November each year. 11th of November is a day representing peace (end of First World War) and new beginnings.

It would also be a way for us, 1000 invited cooks, to show gratitude and good will towards Terra Madre and also to promote the values and spread the knowledge of Slow Food to influential people, press and hopefully to the public. Slow Food in Practice. A way of us cooks to “get out of the golden cages” as Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food, put it in his final speech.

More...

At Terra Madre we talked about our experience – that of a small group of restaurants, suppliers and an environment- alist - at practical implementation of good clean and fair, and how we are now working towards expanding this, creating simple collaborative networks of restaurants and suppliers. It had a great response, and a lot of people asked for copies of the presentation. So I’ve put it up here on the blog. We are feeling out way here. Focusing on practical implementation brings up lots of issues, so – please, please! – respond with comments and questions.

More...

Moi c’est Yapi Manho Mathieu. Je viens d’Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

Je suis agronome et je travaille comme formateur des agriculteurs du Ong GDS - Grain de Seneva (plus de 200 personnes).
Les agriculteurs s’occupent de la production de papaye Solo n.8, Sunset et Sunrise pour l’exportation et Red Panama pour l’extraction de papaïne, substance voisine de la pepsine.
Comme formateur je vais dans les villages à la rencontre des agriculteurs pour leur enseigner la pratique agricole et l’importance de la biodiversité sur place.

Pour moi Slow Food est un rêve, une philosophie de la construction de producteurs nouveaux, avec de nouvelle mentalité. L’Afrique noire regorge toutes les diversités biologiques et doit consommer cette biodiversité et en propager dans le monde entier.
Dans ces jours-là j’ai été frappé par l’idée avancée par Madame Traorè du Mali au meeting des Africains. Elle a invité les Africains à prendre conscience de ce qu’ils disposent en terre africaine.
Dans le futur je crois que la communauté africaine doit s’autosuffir, se nourrir, et diffuser l’information et le rêve de Slow Food. L’Afrique doit apprendere à produire africain pour jouir des fruits de ses labeurs. Il faut consommer africain.

Nous remercions la président de Slow Food, que Dieu le garde en vie longtemps.
A l’édition prochaine.

You are owed an apology. This is mine. I am a University of Gastronomic Sciences Masters student and had volunteered to cover this workshop and provide a summary for the Terra Madre website. Due to the lack of translation facilities I was unable to gain anything that could be described as a suitable overview. Due to the technical drop outs I could not hear everything and due to speakers being added at every turn, everyone was reduced to three minutes presentation time. The fact that the room was at ‘standing-room only’ level shows just how much the issues this workshop was to cover matter.

More...