The way we grow, purchase, cook and consumer our food provides insight into whether we truly endorse Slow Living.
Fast growing, on-the-go, fast food and food waste is the language assigned to attract our attention to food, be it for positive or negative motives.
Back in January, I posted about my New Year’s Resolution to grow my own vegetables. In limited garden space, the past few months have seen seedlings pleasantly clutter the kitchen window sill and pots sporadically building momentum on our patch of turf. It’s only when you realise how much effort it takes to grow that one red lettuce and those two strawberries against time and the forces of nature (cats, foxes, slugs, cold spells, dry spells) do you truly appreciate not only the sheer fortune of food variety but also the quiet connection that food and the environment undergoes . The same is true for artisan producers who tenderly and determinedly continue to produce the rare and often disappearing crafts of making unique, local specialties of cheese, bread, wine and other foodstuff.
Stuffed: Positive Action to prevent a global food crisis, edited by former editor of The Ecologist Pat Thomas and published in partnership with the Soil Association is an excellent new book presenting the global perspective on food production and agriculture. The book allows us to see the current political aspects of food and how our choices are currently influenced through heavily promoted just-in-time culture.
With essays from experts including Eric Schlossser (author of Fast Food Nation and recent film documentary Food Inc), Indian activist Vandana Shiva, and Britain’s applauded gardener Monty Don, the book provides inspiring steps for how we can personally be involved in taking back control of our food systems. It provides statistics on everything from bees to orchards to allotments to chickens to the UK’s National Health Service, showing how interrelated food, health and being part of a community can be.
Growing your own in an urban environment is suggested, as is advice from Geeti Singh, founder of London’s number one organic gastropub, on how to cook a feast with leftovers. It also considers the state of our children with insider knowledge from Jamie Oliver’s favourite school dinner lady Jeanette Orey. It’s a bright and colourful publication to be dipped in and out of as you slowly digest all the information.
Meanwhile, if you are keen to diversify your plate, consider 1001 Foods You Must Try Before You Die: A global guide to the best ingredients, by general editor Frances Case. With an in-depth look into each ingredient, it’s a hefty book that will teach you much about the history and local traditions of food and how they are clinging on within the current post-industrial mass-produced model. Beautifully presented, there are chapters on cheeses, meats, fish, fruits, dairy, aromatics, sweetmeats and even grains, which detail the taste, the variety and the cooking methods from across the world.
