Slow Food

YES!!!

They make good wine, too...

I'm a long time sometime member (the years I've the money to keep up the membership),

Some Italian towns have started a new way of life. It seems more beautiful than the glitzy touristy picture we remember.
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Italy's Slow Cities
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Twenty-three small towns have vowed to protect their way of life against a fast-lane, homogenized world: Local foods instead of global brands. Less traffic, less noise, fewer crowds. Everything, as Matthew Yeomans discovers, that will attract hordes of tourists.
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Positano and 22 like-minded municipalities in Italy have taken the philosophy a step further, applying it to all aspects of urban living. Member cities must have a population under 50,000 and adhere to a raft of policies aimed at two principal goals. The first is to maintain a pleasing pace and tone for city life by reducing motorized traffic, banning car alarms, and restoring old buildings before constructing new ones. The second is to promote the traditional foods, wines, and crafts of participating towns. By creating a united front, Slow Cities believes it can guarantee the survival of its members' artisanal endeavors--cheese making, ham curing, embroidery--even as they struggle against the Krafts and Starbucks of the world.
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The places that i planned to visit--Positano, Orvieto, and Chiavenna--represent the different strengths of the Slow Cities model. Positano is trying to maintain a serene way of life while upholding its reputation as one of Europe's premier resorts. Orvieto, in Umbria, is working to protect its traditional foods and wines from the global marketplace--and its medieval walled center from the effects of mass tourism. And Chiavenna, in the Italian Alps, has saved a unique local product, a cured goat's-leg ham, from obsolescence, even turning it into a financial success. Like all Slow Cities, the three hew closely to a consummate image of Italian life. Their piazzas have pretty little cafés, the espresso comes with the perfect schiuma, handmade pasta is exactly al dente.
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http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/italys-slow-cities

Ridiculous.

There is a reason why "fast food" joints are spreading around the world, and it is not because of the CIA, brain-washing cyber waves, or American hegemony.

People (whether or not they are American) like fast food.

In those lands where "slow food" is appreciated more than "fast food," God Bless them --- in many ways they have the edge, but these countries don't exist.

Politics and ideology drive "slow food" movements, not consumer behavior.

The irony in this matter is nearly overwhelming.

Who supports "slow food?" Liberals of course. Supporting "slow food" cannot be a more conservative position.

Far be it from me to argue against rhetorical attempts to return a wayward populace from their love affair with "fast food" to the healthier and more ascetically pleasing cuisine of "slow food."

If you guys can do it without the help of statutes and governmental intervention -- congrats!

What about "Slow Sex"

Some of this is silly, as fast food could be healthy. (I had that idea once, long ago, am missing the entrepreneurial genes, past the idea stage).

Most people of tight money means cannot afford multicourse meals in restaurants, at least in major urban centers in the heart of food review towns.

Still, that isn't what the slow food movement really zeroes in on. I'm not a proselytizer or lecturer. Look it up, get involved in it or not.

Sglass, I think you grasp the basic concept.. flavor and savor.

Finn, so you are saying it is a conservative movement? Perhaps, at least in conserving savoring of food and heritage veggies (et al.) before they become one variety of cardboard.

It was started in, I assume, anger/rage about McDonalds' coming to piazza d'spagna. Me, I was funked about dunkin donuts by the Trevi fountain. Well, McD does a good job with its toilet availability, I gather, re guide book info. In the meantime, there are more troubles afoot on reining in the hordes.

Statutes and intervention? All I see is support for the opposite, cloned corporate farms.

Italy is known for its wonderful food, be it simple or sophisticated. Why on earth would anyone introduce junk food there? It is the same as importing invasive plants or animals. It can only do harm.
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Of course there are those who don't think about food, they see only profit.