December: The Rules

As of January 1^st, 2014, these are the new rules.

All sugar-laden breakfast cereals with cute child-friendly cartoons on the box shall be banned.  The manufacturers of the three worst, Golden Crisp, Fruit Loops, and Honey Smacks, each of which contains more sugar than a Twinkie in every bowl, shall pay the equivalent of three new diabetes wards in fines.

Anyone who regularly crosses the border to shop for food at American super markets shall have all OHIP privileges revoked.  Since they prefer to pay their taxes to America and prefer to support American farmers and grocers, they can get their health insurance over the border, too.  Good luck.

Cooking classes shall be mandatory in all high schools.  The curriculum shall include nutritional information, meal preparation, shopping procedures, and include field trips to farms and local markets.  Exemptions will be granted to any student who can prepare and present a reasonably nutritious meal from scratch and who demonstrates rudimentary knowledge of healthy eating practices.

Anyone using a hand-held electronic device during meal times shall forfeit the device permanently.  This includes texting, video gaming, phoning, tweeting, and wearing ear buds or headphones.  In addition, all televisions will be turned off during meals.  To assist with compliance, television networks will be required to program only infomercials for hair removal products between the hours of 5:30 and 9:00 pm.

Sweet soft drinks such as Coke, Pepsi, and their many cousins which contain more than ten teaspoons of sugar in each can, will be more heavily regulated than alcohol.  Sale will be strictly limited to a six-pack per week and anyone caught supplying minors with this poison will be put on a restricted diet consisting of kale, spinach, sunchokes, and arugula (blended for breakfast, salad for lunch, stir-fry for dinner) for a period of not less than one week.

It shall be required that parents sit down for a minimum of one hour with all children living at home to consume a meal at least twice per week.  Said meal must be prepared from scratch with the assistance of said children and may count as homework for the afore-mentioned mandatory cooking classes.  Conversation is optional, but encouraged.

Supermarkets shall be required to carry local produce when it is available.  Any store selling strawberries from California, or asparagus from Chile, or tomatoes from Mexico, or garlic from China when such produce is being grown at Ontario farms shall have its entire parking lot turned over to a farmers’ market every weekend for one year.

Advertisements for fast food restaurants shall be required to include warnings about health risks and feature really, really gross pictures of people suffering from the results of a steady diet of their products.  Such advertisements shall also be strictly regulated to have no child appeal.  If parents want to take their kids to such unhealthy environments, they will do so without the encouragement of brainwashed children.

 

There.  I got that off my chest.  Amazing how a little venting makes you feel better.

November: Community Gardens

Congratulations to the Pelham Horticultural Society and Pelham Communities in Bloom Committee for putting forward an initiative to create a community garden in Pelham.  The Town, moving with its accustomed caution, is collecting information about whether such a radical project will meet with voters’ favour before committing to it.  If there was ever a no-brainer, this is it. 

Community gardens are public spaces where people in the community can borrow or rent a small plot of land to grow their own vegetables and flowers.  Often, they are developed in conjunction with community housing projects or low income support projects and plots are given free to those in need.  But many are open to rental by anyone with a hankering to do some gardening and no appropriate place to do it.  What is there not to like?

Other Niagara Region communities have been enjoying community gardens for years.  St. Catharines, Grimsby, Niagara Falls, and Welland all have received Regional money to develop and sustain their gardens and according to media reports, they are an enormous success, both with people who might need some help with putting veggies on the table, and those who volunteer some time to show them the gardening ropes.  Climate Action Niagara lists eleven community gardens on their website, including gardens in Fort Erie, St. Catharines, Welland, and Chippewa. There’s one at Brock University, another at Niagara College’s Welland Campus, another at the Vineland Research Centre, and on.  As welcome as the Pelham initiative is, one can’t help but wonder what took so long!

The benefits of a community garden are many, besides the obvious one of supplying wholesome, home grown food, especially to those in need, a concept that is a the heart of Slow Food Movement.  There is the beautification of our town, along with community pride in undertaking a worthwhile project, combined with an increased sense of community as experienced gardeners share their secrets with novices.  And the environment will thank us for an intelligent use of vacant land, and the fostering of awareness about our food supply and food growing practices.

Is there a down side?  I certainly don’t see one.  If a community garden costs taxpayers a few dollars, it is money well spent for benefits that can make an important immediate impact, and potentially some really significant, long term, sustainable improvements to our community.

However, the Town wants our feedback on a survey before they take the next step of actually discussing the issue and maybe, eventually sending it to committee, getting staff to provide input and recommendations, debating it at Council, and one day, maybe in our lifetimes, approving a community garden project for Pelham.  Oh well, we have to start somewhere, so go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/PelhamCommunityGarden  and fill out the survey.  This is a bandwagon we can all jump on with pride and pleasure.

October: Stale Bread

Ours is a throw-away society, perfectly comfortable with disposable everything, from diapers to razors to all manner of packaging.  As I have noted in this column, our food waste is enormous, actually exceeding our consumption. 

It wasn’t always so.  Diapers used to be cloth and washable and razors were at one time steel, able to be sharpened with a strop, and made to last a lifetime.  Even the safety razor was built to last forever, though it used disposable blades.  Today’s multi-bladed throw-away is a small-scale environmental disaster.

And food packaging!  Don’t get me started.  I am especially sensitive to this issue, having just returned from a holiday in Italy and France where we shopped at markets and took home our produce not in shrink-wrapped plastic, but in a reusable bag, our meat in a slip of wax paper folded at both ends, and our bread in a twist of paper.  And that brings me to the actual subject of this column: stale bread.  French and especially Italian bread is good for about three hours before it dries out.  In those three hours it is delicious.  But the Italians (among others, including the French and British) have developed recipes to make use of bread that is beyond its best instead of throwing it away.  This allows for guilt-free eating of bread bought at the local boulangerie or panificio twice or even three times a day.

I have written about my favorite recipe for garlic soup before… a concoction that uses stale bread as a thickener, and knocks out colds and flu bugs like a heavyweight prize fighter.  Another wonderful use of stale bread is in an Italian salad called Panzanella.  As unappetizing as “stale bread salad” might sound, this makes use of fresh flavourful ingredients to produce a deliciously different summer treat… and recycles bread that is beyond its best.

Panzanella

1 ½ to 2 Cups diced fresh tomatoes
½ Cup diced green onion
3 Tbsp chopped fresh basil (or more to taste)
½ Tbsp chopped fresh oregano or Herbs de Provence
1 clove crushed garlic
2 Tbsp Olive oil
1 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar

3 Cups diced stale French or Italian bread 

Mix together all the ingredients except the bread and let sit for half an hour for the flavours to blend.  When ready to serve, stir in the bread chunks so they are well coated and season with salt and pepper.

Note:  Don’t even try to use ordinary plastic wrapped sliced bread for this salad.  First, it doesn’t seem to go stale and dry out, and I do not want to know what’s in it that accomplished this.  Second, when it is mixed with any liquid it turns to wallpaper paste, and “wallpaper paste and tomato salad” sounds even worse than “stale bread salad”.

September: Waste Not, Want Not?

In a land of abundance, there is no region more abundant than ours at this time of year.  We are among the most fortunate people in the world when it comes to the availability of good, fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables.  The many Farmers’ Markets in Niagara are bursting with produce, and shoppers are thronging to them in record numbers.  Increasingly, the big chain supermarkets are paying attention to consumer demand and we’re seeing local produce and products on their shelves… a most welcome change from days past when it was rare to see anything local in our supermarkets.  In addition, we have been seeing a significant increase in organic, heritage, and sustainable food being grown in our region.

That’s all good news.  The bad news is that so much of that food goes to waste.  In Canada, we waste about $27 billion worth of food every year, according to a report from theValue Chain Management Centre (VCMC).  What is worse, it is not food production, food packaging, food transportation, food service, or food storage that is to blame for the bulk of that wastage;  household waste… food thrown in the garbage by consumers like you and me… accounts for more than half.  In a land of abundance, we have become so used to buying more than we can eat that we don’t even think about how much we throw away.

To look at the issue another way, we throw away almost 40 per cent of the food we buy, or around 172 kg per person per year… in a nation where 9 per cent of the population is called “food insecure” and about 870,000 people rely on food banks month by month. 

This is a complex issue, and the simple answer (“Stop wasting food, and everyone will have enough”) is simply not true.  Even if we suddenly stopped wasting so much food, that wouldn’t put the surplus food on the tables of those who need it.  In fact, I suspect the problem is insoluble.  The only thing we can do, if we care enough, is become conscious of the issue and each of us in his or her own way, resolve to do better.

One way of doing better is to take surplus fresh food to organizations that exist to redistribute donated foods to those who need it.  Pelham Cares is such an organization and they welcome fresh food for their program of providing for those in need.  Is your garden overrun with tomatoes or cucumbers or zucchini?  Were you too ambitious when you bought three bushels of peaches to preserve?  Take the excess to Pelham Cares and let them give it to people who need it.

Another way to reduce the waste is to recognize what “best before dates” really mean.  These dates are not about safety, but about peak quality.  Canned and packaged goods can be safely eaten long after their best before dates have expired, and even dairy products, if properly stored, will last well after their best before dates.  For a complete list of what you can keep and how long, refer to an article in the Globe and Mail, published Nov. 19, 2012 and available on line.  And if eating “expired” foods turns you off, consider taking them (so long as the packaging is in good shape) to Pelham Cares.

August: Packing Light

A wilderness canoe trip is one of the most relaxing activities available to us.  Oh, it’s not relaxing in the “put your feet up and do nothing” way, but it’s one of the only ways to escape the stresses that are part of everyday life and decompress in the quiet and beauty of natural surroundings.  This is especially true for people who are surgically attached to their Blackberries and other devices that allow them to take their work and other stressors with them wherever they go.  Smart phones don’t work in the bush; there are no radios, televisions, video games, or computers.  

               Valerie and I just got back from a magical ten days in the interior of Algonquin Park, where we saw an average of about three people a day  (and those usually at a distance across a lake), and were completely out of touch with anything electronic.  The weather cooperated magnificently for the entire trip, and we paddled across calm lakes, set up camp on isolated islands, swam whenever we got warm, saw moose and loons with their new offspring, and even fished a bit.

               Whenever we talk about our canoe trips with friends who don’t venture into the wilderness, we are asked about food.  Ten days or two weeks without a refrigerator can present a challenge to people who love their food, but over the years we have developed a few tricks and techniques that enable us to enjoy good camp meals… maybe not strictly according to Slow Food principles, but nonetheless, good compromises.  Remember, we are carrying our food with us, so not only does it have to be able to go without refrigeration, but it ought to be light, compact, and easy to prepare since we use either a campfire or single burner camp stove as our only heat source.

               The first couple of days into the trip, we enjoy pre-prepared and frozen meals, kept cool in a collapsible, soft sided cooler bag that can be compressed and stowed when it’s empty.  Chili, stew, curry, smoked chicken, ribs all are available to us during this period and we’ll typically take corn on the cob for the first evening meal.

               Once the cooler is empty, we rely on packaged or dried foods for the most part.  Pasta is an important staple, and we will use our home-made pesto or a packaged sauce with it.  Gourmet Mac and Cheese is easy to carry, light, nourishing, and tasty for dinner.  Oriental and Indian cuisine figures largely in our menu, since the ingredients are often dried or packaged in such a way that makes for easy rehydration and light cooking.  The only down side of these packaged meals is the amount of sodium they contain, so we try to alternate packaged with non-packaged meals.

               One treat we always look forward to is Valerie’s Mexican Fiesta.  We take dried refried beans, salsa, nacho cheese sauce in a pouch, tortillas (we have even experimented with making our own from corn flour), and taco seasonings which we combine to produce a very tasty and filling taco feast.  Instead of salad greens to top the tacos (since salad would long ago have rotted) we sprout our own seeds in a plastic tube.  Soaking the seeds a couple of times a day causes them to germinate and grow into fresh and delicious sprouts… our camp salad content.

               By the end of a long trip, we resort to freeze-dried meals.  These are specially prepared for campers, canoeists, cyclists, and hikers and typically are compactly packaged meals in a pouch that can be prepared very simply by rehydrating and cooking for a few minutes… or in some cases, just by adding boiling water.  As unappetizing as these sound, some of them are actually really good, especially near the end of an extended trip in the bush.  How about chicken and dumplings, or Hawaiian pineapple chicken, or Cuban coconut black beans and rice, followed with freeze dried crème brulé or mint chocolate chip ice cream? (Really!) 

Camp meals are certainly not the same as you might expect at home or in a restaurant, but if they allow us to experience a glorious couple of weeks in the lakes and rivers of Algonquin or Quetico or Killarney, then, Slow Food or not, they are gourmet fare.

July: Food in the news

 

Two very closely related but very different food related items caught my attention last month.  The first is a study of preschoolers that clearly shows eating in front of a TV or computer has serious health consequences.  The second was an interview by Jian Gomeshi on the CBC radio programme Q with food writer Michael Polen, who stressed the importance (and the decline) of home cooking.

The study of preschoolers by St. Michael’s Hospital doctor Navrinda Persaud and his team set out to determine if the levels of bad cholesterol (HDL) were affected not by what you eat, but how you eat it.  Elevated levels of HDL in preschoolers is a key indicator of health issues like cardiovascular problems in later life.  The study determined that kids who eat in front of the TV or computer monitor have higher levels of this dangerous cholesterol.  In fact, Dr. Persaud actually made the point that there was a stronger correlation between eating behaviour and high cholesterol than between what was eaten and high cholesterol. 

While this may be counter-intuitive on the surface, the study team points out that kids who eat while watching TV are not paying attention to what they eat, and tend to ignore the cues that tell them they’ve had enough.  “They’re just kind of shoveling it in,” says Dr. Persaud.  The study concludes that “evidence suggests promoting responsive feeding, where adults provide appropriate access to healthy foods and children use internal cues (not parent directed cues or cues from the television) to determine the timing, pace, and amount they consume.”  In other words, sit down and eat a family meal without the distractions of TV, smart phone, computer, or iPod and set an example of healthy, convivial mealtimes. 

Michael Polen is the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a call to eat locally produced foods wherever possible that was a bestseller when it came out in 2006.  His new book is called Cooked: a Natural History of Transformation and he is on the book circuit to promote it.  His conversation with Gomeshi touched on many aspects of our food culture, but centred on the question of “who’s doing the cooking?”  When we eat food produced by corporations, whether it’s prepackaged pizza or canned soup or frozen dinners, we are eating food made from cheap, industrially produced ingredients that include large amounts of salt (to make the crappy ingredients taste better), sugar, fat, and chemicals that make it last a long, long time so it can be shipped from afar and sit on a shelf until purchased.  When you eat industrial food, Polen pointed out, you are supporting industrial agriculture.

When Gomeshi mentioned our current fascination with star chefs and televised cooking programmes, Polen explained what he calls the cooking paradox: “We're spending more time watching other people cook food on television than we are cooking ourselves.  I think on some level we understand how important cooking is and we miss it in our lives.”

The Slow Food Movement is all about good, healthy, local ingredients prepared at home by people who care about what they eat, and consumed in a convivial, social setting.  Dr. Persaud and Michael Polen seem to be on exactly the same page. 

June: "Local" Food

Our government has now revised the official definition of local food to include any food produced in Ontario.  This change was driven by restaurateurs and others who found the 50 km definition too restrictive.  A Toronto cheese store could not list Upper Canada Cheese (made here in Jordan Station) as local, nor could a butcher in London say that organic chicken from Fenwood Farm near Ancaster was a local product.  The problem was especially difficult for farmers’ markets where farmers from further than 50 km. could not participate as a “local” producer.   In an age of quick and easy transportation, these restrictions may seem excessive and the media certainly featured many examples of food producers who were negatively affected.

We here in Niagara are perhaps less affected by such a restriction than other less fortunate spots.  Our market gardens produce a seasonal abundance, which can be found at any of the many farmers’ markets in our towns.  Fruit?  Of course.  Niagara is famous for the quality of our peaches and apples, pears, apricots, cherries, and grapes.  As one of the few locations in Canada that has a climate where tender fruit production is possible, we benefit not only from the delicious fruit that is available for our tables, but from the spectacular orchards and vineyards that are the backdrop of our region. 

As for drink, no one in Niagara has to travel 50 km. to get local wine, and the wine on offer is as good as anywhere in the world.  We even have two distilleries that most Niagara residents can get to in less than 50 km. for those who favour whisky, and my tippling contacts tell me that the quality of the rye whisky produced at both Forty Creek in Grimsby and Dillan’s in Beamsville, is world class.  Even local craft beer is available to us at Niagara College’s teaching brewery.  If you have not tried their small batch specialty beers, available only at the college and only in tiny quantities, you are missing a treat.  And two craft breweries have sprung up nearby along Niagara Stone Road:  Silversmith and Oast House… both producing delicious beer that makes them delightful additions to the wine tour.

Our artisans make excellent cheese, outstanding charcuterie, unique breads, and much, much more.  We are a region where “local” is hardly a restriction at all.  Of course, olive oil and citrus fruit are still out of reach (until global warming really gets rolling) so we will always have to go beyond our provincial borders for some of the things that make our meals enjoyable, but for those of us in Niagara, the semantics of local food are not awfully relevant. 

May: Kitchen renovations

We are in the throes of kitchen renovations.  The living room is full of cardboard boxes that contain our kitchen “stuff,” piled high and covered with dusty plastic.  All the other rooms have refugee plants and furniture crowded in, and no matter how careful we or the workmen are, everything is coated with fine white plaster dust.  The dog is a nervous wreck.  Among all this chaos, we have almost completely lost sight of the gorgeous kitchen that we envisaged when we were in the planning stages about five months ago… and we have at least a month to go before we move into the result.

However, we have to cling to the promise of a wonderful new space for our cooking and entertaining or we’ll lose our minds.  It will be a wonderful new space… it will be a wonderful new space… it will….  Among the things we look forward to in our wonderful new space is a new cook top. 

I have always wanted a gas cook top for its instant heat and easy adjustment; it just seems like a more pleasing and efficient cook surface than electric elements for someone who is serious about good cooking.  Then, I was having a coffee with Michael and Anna Olson in their spectacular kitchen at their home in Welland and noticed the cook top was not gas; in fact, it looked like that electrical element under a glass ceramic surface that I find both difficult and inefficient.  I was shocked.  However, Michael reassured me that the stove top was induction, and his enthusiasm for the thing was infectious.

Induction works by producing a magnetic field that “induces” an electric current in the pot, creating heat from the pot’s resistance.  This means that only steel pots can be used on an induction stove top, but the effect is impressive.  We watched a demonstration where a large pot was filled with ice cubes and put on the induction “burner”; within seconds the ice cubes had liquefied and the water was boiling.  Further, the pot was removed from the “burner” and a paper towel put down on the cooking surface and the pot returned, on top of the towel.  The water continued to boil, and the paper towel wasn’t so much as singed.  As neat as this trick is, the real value of induction heat is that it is infinitely regulate-able, just like gas, but has none of gas’s odours or residue… and it is much faster and more fuel efficient. 

I haven’t entirely given up on gas cooking; I think the flame up the sides of a wok makes for a better heat in that application, and we have a small collection of ceramic cookware that wouldn’t work on the induction surface, so we are getting two induction burners and two gas burners side by side.  That’s certainly something to look forward to.

Then there’s the soapstone counter top, a smooth, warm-feeling stone without the glossy shine of granite or quartz.  And the combination microwave-toaster oven called a “speed oven” that I look forward to experimenting with… though I must admit, with some trepidation.

By mid-summer we’ll have mostly forgotten the trauma and disruption of the renovations, the meals in the basement, the dust and noise, the invasion of workmen in and out every day, and the ongoing detail decisions that keep cropping up.  Maybe our dog will have forgotten and forgiven, too, as unlikely as that seems right now.  Anyway, by then we’ll be able to comfort ourselves by cooking some lovely slow food meals in our wonderful new surroundings.

April: Our March Meeting

Slow Food Pelham is a small Convivium that has attracted a widely diverse group of food lovers from across the Niagara Region.  We are teachers and civil servants, retailers and marketers, independent business people and artists, retired and employed.  What draws us together is a love of good food and a concern about the increasing pressure to consume bad food… whether from fast food chains, agri-business conglomerates, or manufacturers that push over-processed junk food at us.  But mostly, we just enjoy each other’s company and sharing the food that we make.

Our “meetings” are pretty informal affairs.  We gather at someone’s home, each bringing our contribution to the evening’s main event: a pot-luck tasting menu around a theme.  The food is spread on a table or kept warm in the oven and we gather for a brief meeting before tucking in. 

At our most recent meeting, our food theme was “favorite comfort food,” which was appropriate for a cool evening right at the beginning of March.  We had coq au vin, chili (two varieties), pork hocks, tapenade, pulled pork , tourtiére, date squares, pie, sinfully rich chocolate cupcakes, and much more.  As usual, we shared the cost of a local wine to wash it all down.  One of our members, Dennis, had recently been to the South of France where he discovered a gourmet olive oil producer, and brought back three bottles of this special oil for us to taste.  Each bottle was from a different olive, and the difference between them was remarkable.  We were given the opportunity to take advantage of Dennis’s contact in Nice to order bottles for ourselves.
As for the “meeting” part of the meeting, we discussed events that we’d like to plan for the year.  Our late summer lamb roast at Featherstone Winery is our signature event and has a permanent place on our calendar.  We enjoy special dinners at restaurants throughout the region that are “Slow Food friendly” and discussed where our next such event might take place.  The Good Earth Bistro received unanimous approval, and they have by now been approached for a special dinner for our members and guests scheduled for May 15.

An issue that generated a great deal of concern was the desire by Slow Food that we turn over a portion of any fundraising money to the central office.  They suggested $16 per person in the Convivium as a target.  Pelham Slow Food has never been in the fundraising game; our lamb roast and special dinners cover costs and little more, and that’s the way we like it.  Members’ reactions ranged from annoyance to outrage at this suggestion, as the membership fee for Slow Food is already high.  This discussion will be ongoing.

Having calmed down and eased our blood pressure with a sip of red wine, we returned to more pleasant topics, and feted Renée Girard, our founding president and the force behind our group for five years.  New president, Valerie Grabove acknowledged that she had large shoes to fill. 

And then it was over to the food and the real reason we assemble from time to time… delicious home-cooked meals made with local ingredients where possible, served in the most convivial surroundings with interesting conversation and good cheer.

March: Longevity

There’s a very old joke that if you eat right, drink in moderation, exercise daily, avoid stress, and quit smoking, you will either live to be a hundred, or feel like you have.  A recent program on CBC’s Ideas series alerted me to research that, for good or ill, suggests that all the factors in this joke are, indeed, supportive of longevity.  Not really a surprise, but what is interesting is the extent to which research is providing concrete, achievable guidelines to a long, productive life.  Also interesting is the fact that virtually all of the guidelines are already long-held principles of the Slow Food Movement.

Most of the research on this subject seems to come from Dan Buettner, a National Geographic writer who has just released the second edition of his book Blue Zones: Lessons for living longer from people who’ve lived the longest.  Buettner and other researchers have discovered five “Blue Zones,” each culturally, genetically, and socially different from the others, but sharing the characteristic of amazingly long-lived residents.  Sardinias’ Nuoro province, for example, has the highest concentration of male centenarians anywhere… and they live active, productive lives.  Ikaria, Greece has the greatest population of people who live to be over 90 of anywhere else on earth; their rate of heart disease is less than 50 per cent that of the rest of the planet, and they suffer from almost no dementia.  Other “Blue Zones” are Okinawa, Japan (highest average age of a population), the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, and Loma Linda, California, a centre for Seventh Day Adventists.

               Of course, genetics play a part, but studies by some scientists that tried to isolate the influence of heredity on long life, found that it played a much less important role than previously thought.  The common factors among all these diverse cultures were mostly predictable: daily exercise; a low-stress environment, almost always rural; meat as a condiment, not a feature of the meal; a glass or two of red wine daily; a close and engaged family and community.

               While this bare-bones summary does not do justice to Buettner’s work, and I highly recommend his book for its fascinating examination of these happily long-lived folks as much as for its conclusions, we can clearly see in broad strokes what it takes to live healthy and maybe even long lives.  The Slow Food Movement has always advocated good, clean, well prepared food, eaten in a convivial setting with friends and family.  While the movement has never claimed to be a path to longevity, it does claim that healthy eating produces healthy lives; that longevity is a by-product should be no surprise.

               There’s one other notable observation in the research into Blue Zones:  the rural areas where most of these long-lived people reside are coming increasingly urbanized.  The good news is that access to nearby modern medical facilities has actually had a positive influence on their longevity.  The bad news is that even with the availability of health care, the length of life these people can expect has begun to decline.  The culprits, of course, are the availability of supermarket foods and the encroachment of fast food outlets, along with increased stress of traffic and a general erosion of the rural, family-oriented social framework.

To learn more about Pelham Slow Food (your path to a longer life?) contact Valerie Grabove at vgrabove@sympatico.ca

February: Pulled Pork

Winter calls for comfort food.  The cold weather and snow on the ground make cocooning in a warm house seem like a terribly good idea, and a warm house full of delicious smells makes the good idea even better.  Comfort food has as many definitions and interpretations as there are comfort food eaters, but generally, it’s a dish that is savoury, heavy, filling, and warming.  Usually, it’s a dish that evokes nostalgia for dinners past, and usually it’s a dish that is easy to prepare and cooked slowly, filling the house with mouth-watering aromas as it cooks.  While many dishes fill that bill for me, a pot roast is probably first on the list, with rich stews, home-made pork and beans, and roast chicken high on the charts.  In a column back in February 2009, I wrote about another great comfort food that has become a special favorite:  the bean, pork, and duck dish from the south of France, cassoulet. 

But another relatively recent discovery certainly fills the comfort food bill in every way:  pulled pork.  There are many versions of this delicious concoction, most coming from the Southern US, where pork shoulder is cooked using a smoker until it falls off the bone.  Variations show up in Mexican cooking, and even the Italian dish, porcetta is similar.

 My friend Albert Cipryk introduced me to pulled pork a few years ago.  He described it as a way to empty the fridge of old, partly used jars of condiments and sauces which were all thrown together into a slow cooker along with a large pork shoulder roast and left to cook until the meat falls apart.  Of course, each version of the dish was different, depending on what he found in his fridge, but a favorite discovery was the flavour added to the resulting dish when he added a partly used jar of molé, a chocolate based sauce used in Mexican cooking.

I’m not as daring as Albert and I tend to plan my pulled pork a little more carefully, relying on more traditional ingredients for the liquid base of the dish.  Once the meat has been slow-cooked until it falls apart, the pork is “pulled” by using two forks to shred it into a savoury mush.  This gooey mess is served over fresh buns, much like a sloppy joe, and eaten with the use of lots of napkins.  There is no standard recipe, and just about any favorite BBQ sauce can be used.  My favorite is the Maple Ancho Sauce from White Meadow Farms, which imparts a sweet, smoky flavour to the pulled pork.  But, as Albert proved, just about any combination can make a delicious sauce for the meat.

Pulled Pork

4 lb. pork shoulder or butt roast

2 onions chopped

2 garlic cloves chopped

1 ½ Cups of BBQ sauce (White Meadows Maple Ancho)

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp chili powder

½ Cup of cider vinegar

Brown sugar to taste

Put everything into a slow cooker and cook on low for around 10 hours, or until the pork falls apart easily when pulled with a fork.  Shred the meat into the sauce and stir until it is a consistent mess.  Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper, and serve over fresh hamburger buns.  Cole slaw makes a good side dish.

 

 

 

January: A Short History of Pelham Slow Food

It has been five years now since the inaugural meeting of Pelham Slow Food.  The Convivium was formed under the enthusiastic and determined leadership of Renée Girard when the initial group of five fans of fair, clean, good food met at de la terre bakery and café on South Pelham St. in Fonthill.  I first met Renée shortly after that initial meeting, at a tasting of Spanish ham and cheese at Niagara College when she was introduced by one of the chef professors as the president of the Pelham Slow Food group.  Like most people who first encounter Slow Food, I thought it was devoted to taking your time while cooking… a concept I was entirely in favour of, so I introduced myself.

Since then, I have learned that Slow Food is not about cooking slowly, but rather a reaction against everything that “fast food” stands for: food that is cleanly produced, fairly paid for, wholesome, and served in pleasant, convivial surroundings… and, yes, you probably should take your time when cooking it.  Organized into “Convivia,” the movement is now represented in more than 150 countries and has the support of more than 100,000 members.

Renée’s idea for the Pelham Convivium was to bring together a few people who support the principles of the movement for events that nourished their ideas about food, and, not incidentally, provided delicious nourishment as well in the form of potluck suppers.  In addition, we supported the principles of the movement by buying suitable books for the Pelham library, helping a Cuban Convivium with a cash donation, and working with a group home to teach disadvantaged young people the joys of gardening.  Wherever possible, we promoted the ideals of Slow Food in the community and beyond… an effort that resulted in the first “Snail’s Space” column in the Voice of Pelham, a string of columns that in December reached 60.

The potluck dinners in members’ homes, arranged thematically to celebrate the cuisine of a different nation each meeting, have become much anticipated quarterly events.  At least once a year, we also venture out to a Niagara restaurant for a specially prepared Slow Food dinner and enjoy the personal commentary and enthusiasm of the chef in each instance.  Ryan Shapiro at About Thyme in Vineland let us in on his “sous-vide” method of making delicious duck confit; Michael Olson of Benchmark at Niagara College set out a magnificent homestyle feast; David Watt of Zest provided his trademark mouthwatering creations , and most recently, John Cercone put on a feast at Da Vinci of Fenwick that celebrated the cuisine of his ancestral region of Abruzzi in eastern Italy.  We have enjoyed learning to make cassoulet (and stuffing ourselves with it), sampling the wines of Southbrook, le Clos Jordanne, Alvento, Stratus, and Lailey Vineyards at special tastings, and welcoming friends from across the region to our annual Featherstone lamb roast with our good friends David and Louise at Featherstone Winery.

Through the last five years, Renée has guided the group with enthusiasm and creativity.  A former restaurateur and food stylist, she is now a fulltime student at Brock, having returned to university to pursue her lifelong love of learning… especially about other cultures and, of course, food. Renée is stepping aside as President of our Convivium but remaining an active member, while Valerie Grabove takes over the reins.  She deserves enormous credit for having the vision to found a Slow Food group in Pelham, the determination to see it grow and expand, and the creativity to organize events that stimulated, educated, and satisfied on many levels.

For more information about Pelham Slow Food, contact Valerie at vgrabove@sympatico.ca

December: Preaching to the Converted

            As the son of an Anglican minister, I am very aware of a nagging discomfort that afflicts all priests, pastors, and ministers:  the people in front of them on Sunday are not the people who need to hear their message.  The congregation is there, for the most part, because they already agree with what is being delivered, while those who are not in the congregation are beyond the reach of the message.

To some extent, we in the Pelham Slow Food Convivium are beginning to feel the same way.  There is evidence all around us that the message of Slow Food is getting through, that consumers, purveyors, and producers are all paying attention (or at least lip service) to the notion that good, healthy, locally produced food, served in pleasant, convivial surroundings is vastly better for our physical and mental health than fast food.  Surveys of those who eat fast food reveal that even they know it’s bad for them, but they can’t resist a hit of salt and fat as a guilty pleasure… and that their guilty pleasure is, in part, responsible for the “obesity epidemic” and the consequent rise in diabetes, heart disease, and other maladies (including the return of gout) that afflict our population and our overburdened medical system.

Upscale restaurants are including on their menus the farm or producer where the dish originates.  This trend, pioneered in Niagara by Michael Olson when he was the chef at On the Twenty in Jordan, is a welcome acknowledgement that good food comes from good farmers and good producers, a Slow Food mantra.  Local farmers’ markets are thriving and even expanding.  Supermarkets are advertising local produce when it is available on their shelves, recognizing that there is consumer demand for fresh, locally produced food.  (Although, in July… prime growing time… Sobeys was offering green onions from Mexico, so I drove down the street to Gallagher’s to get the Ontario version!)  The Ontario wine industry is further evidence that the quality and value of local products has reached the consciousness of consumers.  It wasn’t that long ago that only the most daring would present a bottle of Ontario wine as a hostess gift or serve it at a special meal; now, only those who don’t know much about wine would be scared off by an Ontario label.  Fonthill’s new butcher, Churchill Meats, makes a point of advertising that their products are drug free and eagerly tells customers which farm produced each cut of their meat.  Even pet food producers are boasting that they source their ingredients from within 100 km of their production facility.

When even manufacturers of dog food recognize that good, local food is a desirable (and marketable) commodity, we have to acknowledge that there has been a shift in the consciousness of consumers.  As a society, we have become more aware of the principles that gave rise to the Slow Food Movement, even if we aren’t even aware of the existence of the movement.  And yet… at the same time, fast food outlets continue to thrive; we are getting fatter as a population; we are getting less exercise; our incidence of heart disease and diabetes continues to rise.  What’s going on?

It seems that those who are willing to receive the message have received it, while those who continue to poison themselves with unhealthy food just didn’t get the memo.  And that has members of Slow Food Pelham uncertain about our purpose.  As a group, we get together to enjoy good food and share ideas about a better environment, healthier eating, local products… but it seems that much of society, at least those who are aware and care about their food, are as much Slow Foodies as we are!  And the rest will never get the message.  For more information about Slow Food Pelham, contact Renée at reneegirardb@hotmail.com

November: Recognizing Our Farmers

Now that the farm year in Ontario has wound down, farm markets are going for their winter hiatus, and we face a winter of largely imported fruits and vegetables, it’s not a bad time to reflect on the enormous contribution to our enjoyment of life provided by our farmers.  Whether they raise poultry or potatoes, soybeans or sour cherries, beef cattle or beets, grapes or garlic, we are in their debt.  This past season had trials for some with an unprecedented early spring and killer frost and drought conditions in many parts, but for others it produced some of the best crops in memory, thanks to hot weather and timely rain.  The farmer lives at the mercy of the weather and has to have the nerves of a gambler and the resiliency of a rubber ball.

Mark Bittman observes in one of his recent NY Times columns that preparing food, even at the most sophisticated restaurants, is dead easy when compared to raising that food: a process that takes weeks if not months of expertise, investment, and hard work.

It is worth remembering when we shop for our food, that for every dollar we spend on farm-produced items, the farmer gets, on average, 14 cents.  For some products the discrepancy is greater than others.  For example, on a box of corn flakes costing $3.54, the farmer’s share is about 11 cents.  There are many factors that affect the price of food, including processing, transporting, advertising, packaging, and financing the products… but you can’t eat financing, packaging, or advertising.  This is what makes it so satisfying to go to our local markets or farm gates and buy directly from the farmers who produce the food.

Canadians enjoy some of the lowest food prices in the world.  It is estimated that we spend less than 10 per cent of our annual disposable income on food.  Compare that to 20 per cent in South Africa or 25 per cent in Brazil, 35 per cent in India or 45 per cent in Indonesia.  (Of course there are some serious consequences of that cheap food, an issue that we will look at in another column.)  Every year, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture observes Food Freedom Day.  This is the day on which the average Canadian family has earned enough to pay for their food for the entire year.  This year, it came on February 12^th. 

While we congratulate ourselves on the low cost of our food, let us recognize the contribution that our farmers make to provide that food, and hope that farming remains a viable and profitable venture so that the agriculture sector continues to retain and attract young, energetic, innovative, and dedicated farmers.

 

October: Slow Food and Slow Fishing

      

As readers of this column might have perceived, one of my passions (along with food and wine) is fly fishing.  I find this the most beautiful and calming of sports; if the word “Zen” ever applied to a leisure activity, this would be it.  This is “slow fishing” when compared to the manic, frantic type of angling we see on most televised fishing shows.  While I have fished for bonefish and tarpon, steelhead and salmon, pike and muskie, and have met anglers who prefer one of those prey to all others, I’m a trout fisher.  I would rather trick a 10 inch trout to take a floating insect imitation in a small stream than haul in an 80 pound tarpon somewhere off Cuba or Florida.  So I value small rivers and creeks for the fish they can hold when they are healthy, as well as for their importance to our environmental wellbeing.  The health of our small streams is the most important indicator of the health of our environment.  And, the best indicator of the health of small steams is the presence of Brook Trout.

     Brook Trout and Lake Trout are the only trout native to Ontario, and Brookies are an extremely fragile species, dependant on clear, clean, cold water for survival.  Any degradation of their environment is a threat to their survival; they are the “canary in the coal mine,” the first warning sign of trouble in a watershed.

     Twelve Mile Creek, which has one of its sources right in Fonthill, is the only cold water stream system in Niagara capable of holding Brook Trout.  There is anecdotal evidence from anglers, Conservation Officers, and landowners that a small population of Brook Trout still survives in the headwaters of the system, maybe downstream as far as Short Hills Provincial Park.  Old-timers tell tales of plentiful Brookies in the Twelve back in the 40’s and 50’s, but sightings now are rare.

     Enter Trout Unlimited Canada (TUC).  This is a conservation organization, made up mostly, it must be admitted, of anglers.  Like Ducks Unlimited (whose members are mostly hunters), which seeks to preserve wetlands as habitat for waterfowl, TUC seeks to maintain its sport by conserving and enhancing the environment that makes the sport possible.  (The difference between the two is that, by and large, the ducks do not survive their encounters with members of the organization, while the trout do, since most fly fishers practice catch and release.)  Regardless of the underlying motivation of these groups, the work they do to preserve, protect, and enhance Canada’s natural environment is beyond reproach.

      The Niagara Chapter of Trout Unlimited Canada is recently formed, but has already begun making plans for the enhancement of the Twelve Mile Creek watershed.  Working closely with the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, Short Hills Provincial Park, Niagara College’s Ecosystem Restoration Program, Niagara Conservancy, and other interested organizations, Trout Unlimited is in the process of putting in place a plan to study one stretch of the stream to determine scientifically if Brook Trout inhabit it, what the barriers are to their survival and success, and how to improve the stream.  Working one stretch at a time, their goal is to make a significant contribution to the health of this unique watershed.

     What’s all this got to do with Slow Food?  One of the most important mandates of the Slow Food Movement is the preservation and enhancement of our environment.  This can be achieved through the protection of agricultural land, through sustainable farming practices, and through efforts such as those now being undertaken by the Niagara Chapter of Trout Unlimited Canada. 

September: Slow Food’s Most Important Idea

As I have noted previously, the Slow Food Movement started out as a reaction against fast food, and advocates everything healthy, good, sustainable, and fair that fast food is not.  While this column is written in support of the Slow Food Movement, specifically as it applies to the Pelham Convivium (our fancy but appropriate name for Chapter or Branch), its content sometimes wanders pretty widely from the stated doctrine and aims of the International Movement.  But any organization that is as big (more than 100,000 members) and broad (more than 150 countries) as Slow Food has to admit a great deal of variation within its stated principles, so I don’t feel too bad if I sometimes stray from orthodoxy.

However, I have written twice previously on a subject that hits right at the heart of what Slow Food is all about, and I’m about to make that three times.  Back in 2008 I first wrote about the importance of family meal times.  I felt the subject was so important I repeated it the following year.  It’s now time to revisit this most important of all of Slow Food’s ideas.

Here are the facts:  eating together as a family will increase a child’s grades, reduce the likelihood of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, decrease the incidence of teen obesity, and reduce the rate of adolescent depression.  The more often a family sits down to a meal together, the greater the beneficial effects.

Many studies have been conducted to arrive at these results.  The University of Minnesota’s is typical.  They conducted a huge study on the subject, and statistically eliminated from their results all other factors like income, family dynamics, and location.  Their conclusion was unambiguous: “Sitting down as a family at mealtimes was the primary cause of significant improvements in children’s health and wellbeing, especially among girls.”  The more often the study groups sat down as families at mealtimes, the greater the benefits.  And among the benefits noted were better academic performance, reduction in tobacco, substance, and alcohol use, and improved mental health.

Of course, it helps if the meal that the family sits down to is healthy, nutritious, tasty, and home-cooked.  The benefits also are more evident if the TV is turned off along with cell phones, video games, iPods, Blackberries, Wi units, computers, e-readers, and all other sundry electronics.  But even if the meal is takeout and the TV is on, the act of sitting down together as a family at mealtimes is a beginning point that can lead to a more satisfying and “convivial” family dinnertime with all the potential benefits noted above.

 

August: Fish and Chips

Many Niagara Region old timers will agree that the best fish and chips ever were produced in Welland by Ideal Fish and Chips on East Main Street.  Louie dispensed his perfectly battered fish and deliciously golden chips from behind the counter of the tiny restaurant that was tastefully decorated with grease spattered green walls and Formica tables.  Regulars would squeeze past the counter and go to the back of the place where two more small rooms accommodated tables crowded every lunchtime with a broad cross-section of Welland businesspeople, from lawyers practicing at the nearby courthouse, to Niagara College professors, to workers at the Atlas Steels plant, to local retailers.  When Ideal burned to the ground (there could not have been a more combustible building anywhere, saturated as it was with cooking fat) Louie’s customers were scattered to the four winds to try to find a lunchtime replacement for their fish and chips addiction.

As one of those thoroughly addicted, I searched far and wide for a new favorite.  Friends and fellow Ideal devotees migrated to other spots: Bonnie landed on Sue’s Seafood in Welland, while Gordon switched his devotion to Hutch’s on the lakeshore in Hamilton.  While I agree that both of these make a worthy F & C lunch, my choice for Louie’s crown is Newfoundland’s Own at the corner of Prince Charles and Lincoln in Welland, where the fish and chips are pretty darned close to the gold standard set by Ideal.   It’s takeout only, so lacks the unique atmosphere of Louie’s place, but the food is outstanding.

There are other worthy contenders for fish and chip excellence.  I stop at Jill’s in Fonthill on my way through town when I’m in the mood for a lunchtime F & C fix.  If I plan ahead, I trek out to Centennial Park in Fenwick on Friday evening for the Lions Club fish fry there, and am always really impressed.  These guys might be amateurs, but someone knows a thing or two about making fish and chips, because their product is excellent.

While fish and chips are traditionally haddock or halibut (pollock is a poor substitute), sometimes someone tries a successful variation on the traditional favorites.  Stone Road Grill in Niagara on the Lake did an upscale version, using tempura battered salmon as the fish.  Their frites have always been exemplary, so the combination was outstanding, while deviating widely from tradition.  But Niagara residents in the know venture out to Port Colborne to get a really special treat.  Minor Fisheries have boats that ply the waters of Lake Erie for yellow perch, walleye (pickerel), and smelt which they process and sell commercially.  Lake Erie, by the way, supports the world’s largest fresh water fishing fleet and has an enormous recreational fishing industry that supplies fishing families all over Niagara with delicious perch.  Minor Fisheries has a small outlet on West St., right beside the canal, that sells their fish right off the boat and does a good lunchtime business with short order meals.  Their fish and chips (for $5.00!) are prepared with their freshly caught and lightly breaded perch.  Here’s a delicious way for locovores and hundred-mile-diet types to satisfy their craving for F & C.

July: The Cherry Harvest

               If we ever needed reminding about the risks of farming in Ontario, this summer has provided it.  While strawberries were gorgeous and the grape farmers are licking their lips over this year’s fall harvest, Niagara’s tender fruit farmers took a licking.  And it was so promising early on with hot weather in March providing the potential for an early and beautiful crop.  But, while farmers are often seen as pessimists, in this case, those who professed their fear that the early budding would lead to disaster had their fears confirmed.  April frost destroyed the sour cherry crop in one or two nights.

                The July harvest saw farmers in our region harvesting crops of 10 to 20 per cent of normal volumes… those who harvested the crop at all.  For some, it was more expensive to harvest the few cherries on the trees than to just let them fall.

                This is the second year in a row that the cherry farmers have been smacked by Mother Nature.  Last year, a good looking crop was devastated by two weeks of cold, rainy weather just as pollination was beginning.  The bees, who do much of the pollination, never left their hives, and the wet weather put a damper on the natural wind pollination.

                The only bright spot for farmers is that these last two years have proven the effectiveness of some recent farm technology.  While wind machines have been around since the 1920’s in California, they have made inroads into the Niagara area only relatively recently, and grape growers were the first to experiment with their benefits.  Now, they are springing up in tender fruit orchards at an increasing rate.  The theory is that a properly tuned wind machine can drive warm air down onto the fruit trees or grape vines, keeping them warm enough to prevent frost damage to the developing fruit.  The air at 20 meters can be 5 to 10 degrees warmer than the air at crop level.  The machines are also used on frigidly cold nights to prevent damage to the trees and vines themselves.

 Installing a wind machine at between 30 and 50 thousand dollars a pop (plus $30 to $40 an hour to run) is a gamble.  But, one machine can protect up to 15 acres of crop (more for low-lying fruit like grapes), depending on the terrain and local conditions.  This year, where wind machines were installed, growers harvested an almost full crop of cherries, and with prices very high thanks to the small crop, the machines virtually paid for themselves in one harvest.

Yes, it’s true that wind machines are noisy creatures.  They sound something like a helicopter hovering over the orchard.  (In fact, helicopters have been used to blow warm air down on at-risk crops in many areas, including Niagara.)  But for the few nights per year when they are employed, it’s almost comforting to hear them, knowing that they are protecting a precious crop and keeping our farmers in business and our delicious tender fruit available.  Give me a cherry orchard, even with the wind machines, over a sub division any day!

June: Salt: the good and the bad

Salt is the new olive oil… which was the new wine.  All of the tasting skills and language that once applied only to wine have been brought to bear on olive oil in recent decades, and our consciousness of different types of oil, different grades, different tastes has increased so much that some restaurants are offering olive oil tastings.  More recently, salt has received the same scrutiny.  For those of us who thought that salt was… well, salt… it’s time to catch up with the gourmet world.

 Most of our salt is mined from deposits left by ancient seas.  Goderich, Ontario is famous for its salt mines which tunnel out under Lake Huron and produce Sifto brand salt.  However, gourmet salt is not mined; it is produced from seawater that is fed into shallow lagoons, where the water is left to evaporate and leave behind the salt.  Different regions produce different salts, and gourmets have ascribed various tastes and qualities to the salts harvested around the world. 

Fleur de sel is the first salt harvested from the salt lagoons, and is painstakingly collected by skimming the surface of the lagoon by hand, using only traditional methods and wooden implements.  In some cases, the best of the best is put into a small canister which is autographed by the “saunier” who was in charge of the harvest.

While Fleur de sel comes exclusively from the Mediterranean Sea and is harvested only in the South of France, many regions of the world produce gourmet salt, and each has its claim to fame.  The Atlantic coast of France, the south of England, New Zealand, Australia, California, Cyprus:  all produce salts that are advertised as unique in taste, texture, and colour.  Even Vancouver Island has a small sea salt industry which specializes in flavouring the sea salt they harvest with everything from wood smoke to roasted garlic, balsamic, mustard, and even banana peppers.

 A pinch of salt on your food helps to bring out flavour, and we all need a certain amount of salt in our diets.  But we are getting waaaay too much!  The culprit is not the salt we put on our food, it’s the salt that is put into processed and pre-packaged foods in the process of manufacture.  The average adult needs about 2300 milligrams of salt daily (1500 for people over 50 and 1200 for children aged 4 to 8), but the average Canadian eats between 3400 and 4000mg a day!  High sodium consumption is a leading cause of high blood pressure and some two million Canadians have high blood pressure because they eat too much salt.  According to a recent Toronto Star article, health experts say that in Canada, between 10,000 and 16,000 deaths each year are linked to over-consumption of sodium.  And we thought mad cow disease was serious!

Slow Food has always advocated avoiding fast food and packaged food in favour of home-cooked meals, prepared from good, local, fresh ingredients.  If you ever needed a reason to consider the benefits of such a diet, consider these numbers from the same Toronto Star article.  Swiss Chalet Chicken Stir Fry with Rice has 2260 mg of salt; Boston Pizza Buffalo Chicken Sandwich has 3960 mg; The Pickle Barrel Vegetable Chow Mein has a whopping 6460 mg; Casey’s Grill Pad Thai Shrimp has 2810 mg; and Pizza Hut’s Children’s Boneless Bites with Honey BBQ Sauce has 1620mg.  And these are not the worst of the offerings from fast food and chain food outlets!  We are killing ourselves by eating this stuff.

May: the Slow Life

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then it must be observed that the Slow Food Movement has lots of fans, not all of them foodies.  The Slow Food Movement originated as a reaction against everything that is meant by “fast food:” anonymous ingredients from who knows where, mass produced, assembly-line prepared, and served in a plastic, uncomfortable environment that is designed to make you leave as quickly as possible.  Add unhealthy, over-processed, over salted, and over-hyped for good measure.  Slow Food champions good, local foods, well prepared according to recipes both new and traditional, and served in a happy, friendly, “convivial” setting. 

            The Slow Food movement began in 1986 in Italy as a protest over the building of a Macdonald’s near the historic landmark Spanish Steps in Rome.  The idea of an anti-fast food movement must have touched a nerve, because there are now over 100,000 members in 150 countries who espouse its principles.  Other nerves were touched as well.  The idea of a rebellion against mass production, against our plastic environment, against unhealthy and thoughtless conformity, against environmental degradation seemed to spring from the same root as the Slow Food movement.

 Now there is the Slow Money Movement, dedicated to change the way we use our capital to invest.  Instead of investing in huge corporations with destructive practices like the oil industry, tobacco industry or other such enterprises where our mutual funds or pension plans may put our money, the Slow Money movement aims to invest in small food producers, organic farms, and local food systems.  Investors are not looking for less return on their money, but hoping to use their capital in more productive, responsible, and ethical ways.  Founded in 2008, the movement’s original inspiration was a book by Woody Tasch, chair of Investors’ Circle, called Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money– Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered. 

And there is something called simply The Slow Movement, which describes itself as promoting “connectivity.”  It’s an appealing concept.  The movement wants to make connections between people and their environment, their culture, their food, their community, etc.  They promote such ideas as Slow Travel, which gets away from packaged tours that zoom frenetically from place to place (the 14 countries in 7 days concept) and concentrates on slowing down and enjoying, maybe even getting to understand something of the destination, rather than leaping from a bus to photograph it before moving on.  They also suggest Slow Schooling, a type of education that gets away from one-size-fits-all standardized testing and seeks instead to connect students to their learning… and connect that learning to the environment, the culture, the history, and the community in which the students live.  Not incidentally, they also advocate “edible schoolyards” where the students are intimately involved in the production, preparation, and serving of the food they eat.

Then there is the Slow City Movement.  It is another Italian initiative and a little different from others in that it has a formal certification body that assesses cities based on strict criteria to determine if they may advertise themselves as Slow Cities.  The criteria include environmental policy, infrastructure, quality of urban fabric, encouragement of local produce and products, hospitality, and community.  The idea is to make cities more livable, less crowded, less dependent on cars, and more sustainable.  And cities over 50,000 need not apply.

So the Slow Food movement appears to be part of a growing trend in reaction to many of the ills of 21^st Century life.  Maybe instead of joining a movement, we should all just make efforts to live “the Slow Life,” whatever that may mean to each of us.