Slow Food might bring up images of long cooking times, escargot (you know - snails) or the ketchup that never leaves the bottle. But what I have learned is that we are talking about regional food traditions and a sustainable food system that is far away from the industrialization of food they we have come to know. It is a celebration of the local, quirky and rare vs. homogeneity of the grocery store. It is a holistic approach to eating locally grown foods.

Their web site states that "To truly be slow, products must be good-naturally delicious and created with care from healthy plants and animals, clean-sustainably grown and harvested with methods that have a positive impact on ecosystems and biodiversity, and fair-produced by people who are treated with dignity and justly compensated for thier labor.

What would be available for you to put on your table if you decided only to eat foods from a 100 mile radius of your home? Cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving would be available here on the East Coast but you would have to find an alternative in California. It would be a boon to our local farmer's because we would increase our need for the farms. Do we really need another subdivision? or would fresh milk & butter be better? As a Farmer's Market regular I will have to attest to the better taste of fruits and vegetables that have not traveled thousands of miles to get here or forced to grow out of season.

This is an international movement with more than 83,000 members. We have a chapter here called Slow Food Seacoast. They have several events coming up including a Potluck Meeting on June 2. In November they are planning on hosting a 100 mile Thanksgiving. Very interesting thought process goes into this. They are promoting the revival of the kitchen and the table as centered in our lives.