While hugely readable and thought provoking, many books about the Slow Food movement concern themselves what’s wrong with food, not what’s right with it.
Enter the foodie book, Slow: Life In A Tuscan Town. Already an unlikely publishing success Stateside, this magical photography book of a tiny Italian town is beautiful tribute to the pleasures of growing, producing, preparing and eating food.
Full of gorgeous sepia-toned photographs covered with scribbled notes, anecdotes, recipes and quotes, this book will give sweet dreams to anyone who loves to read cookbooks at bedtime. (Surely everyone does this?)
Douglas Gayeton, a multimedia artist, documentary filmmaker and food producer from California was commissioned to visit Pistoia, about 18 miles northwest of Florence to document the lives of the people – bakers, butchers, chocolate makers, farmers, fishermen, mushroom gatherers and winemakers.
While most of these people embodied Italy’s Slow Food movement, many of them didn’t even know it existed. To remember who he met and the advice they gave him, Gayeton took to scribbling on each photo he took. The result is charming and often funny. The photo of sheep includes the recipe for making pecorino cheese: “Step 1, milk your sheep”.
There’s also an introduction by American restauranteur and Slow Food activist Alice Waters. My favourite quote however, is from the butcher, Dario, who gives a list of four things an animal must have: “a good life, a good death, a good butcher and a good cook”. Bon appetit.
Slow: Life In A Tuscan Town is published by Welcome Books, £35.
