SEATTLE, WA © 2007 Barbara Berst Adams www.BarbaraBerstAdams.com.
As my husband and I rumble towards our 7:00 p.m. appointment in our pickup truck, I slice cheese in my lap, and tell him how silky the cheese feels. What does that have to do with local farm promotion? A lot. This cheese was a one-of-a-kind locally produced artisan cheese we chose to purchase instead of stopping off for a cheeseburger. Thanks to a trend called the Slow Food Movement, many more customers of local sustainable farms may be giving their dollars to these farms, now that they've been inspired to slow down and savor sustainably produced food from their own local region as nature intended food and flavor to be. The Slow Food Movement is spreading globally, and the US office describes itself as: "an educational organization dedicated to promoting stewardship of the land and ecologically sound food production; reviving the kitchen and the table as the centers of pleasure, culture, and community; invigorating and proliferating regional, seasonal culinary traditions; creating a collaborative, ecologically-oriented, and virtuous globalization; and living a slower and more harmonious rhythm of life."

Started by a northern Italian food journalist in response to the arrival of McDonald's on the steps of Rome, Slow Food is now an international organization with close to 83,000 members in more than 100 countries. It's grown rapidly in the U.S. in the last four years. The journalist, Carlo Petrini, was apparently disgusted with the loss of food's original ability to keep people close to the earth, in touch with artistic inspiration, and bonded to each other. The movement embraces the restoration of a feeling when the mind was quiet enough for cuisine to be inspired by the local farmers and home gardeners, where the heavenly muse was allowed be downloaded and grounded solidly and unhurriedly on earth. All-at least for some moments in time--was right with the world. Relax. Savor.

Today's Slow Food revival reaches out to consumers and reminds them of the delights of eating locally, seasonally, and enjoying the process of the food's creation. Local sustainable farms and specialty value-added farm-produced product marketing can benefit greatly from the Slow Food Movement's promotion of locally grown sustainable products. Consumers are reached via taste-testings, publications, festivals, articles, and awards events. Farmers themselves can receive newsletters, magazines, and get directly involved in a number of ways.

For example, there are local Slow Food gatherings, called conviviums, and micro eco-farms can check to see if any are near them. If so, let the convivium leaders know about you and what you produce. Edith Walden, owner of Willowrose Bay Quince Orchard on Guemes Island in Washington State, was discovered by a local convivium near her, and arranged to have interested Slow Food members tour her farm. (Photo on this page: Slow Food members enjoying a tour of this quince farm.) Today, members who saw the farm light up whenever they see her produce in food co-ops, and are more aware of and likely to buy her produce.

"I have done apple varietal tastings and cider events with Slow Food groups in Virginia and New Hampshire previously," said Michael Phillips, author of The Apple Grower and owner of Heartsong Farm, an apple and herb micro eco-farm in New Hampshire along with his wife, Nancy, who is author of The Herbalist's Way (previously The Village Herbalist.) "My editor, Ben Watson at Chelsea Green, is quite involved with the whole movement," Michael said. "and the one responsible for the restaurant guide books to New York and San Francisco. I also gave my input into the listing of heritage apple varieties on the Ark." But Michael would soon receive a phone call to find out he was even more involved in the movement than he'd preciously thought, as we'll see below.

The "Ark" that Michael mentioned above is an international project of the Slow Food Movement to "rediscover, catalog, describe and publicize forgotten flavors. It is a metaphorical recipient of excellent gastronomic products that are threatened by industrial standardization, hygiene laws, the regulations of large-scale distribution and environmental damage. Ark products range from the Italian Valchiavenna goat to the American Navajo-Churro sheep, from the last indigenous Irish cattle breed, the Kerry, to a unique variety of Greek fava beans grown only on the island of Santorini. All are endangered products that have real economic viability and commercial potential."

Here at home, the USA Slow Food Movement has recently created the Betsy Lydon Slow Food Ark Award, which recognizes one farmer each year who works earnestly to supply wholesome food to his or her local community and inspires others to do the same. Michael was the first recipient of this award. "The Betsy award began with an entirely surprising phone call from the New York City group headed up by Jeffrey Lydon and Hilary Baum," Michael said. "They desired the first award to go to an apple grower because of Betsy Lydon's work with Core Values (a marketing program to give locally-grown fruit distinction). My name was recommended to the committee primarily because of my book and continual speaking outreach."

Yet another way Slow Food connects sustainably produced food to the general public is by reaching the next generation with school gardens that foster an appreciation for local produce and the work involved in the process. To fund the creation of school gardens, they hold an online and live auction. Chef's dinners, behind-the-scenes tours, vacation packages and favorite slow foods are up for auction, which simultaneously promote the farms involved in the products offered.

With more and more of the mainstream coming to recognize the idea of Slow Food, even restaurants are boasting Slow Food and making an issue of purchases from local sustainable farms, creating a win-win situation for themselves and their farm neighbors. At Mount Bakery, a popular Belgian bakery café in Bellingham, Washington, the owner credits local farms right on his menu, mentioning the local Fairhaven Flour Mill and K&M River Farm. And right on the bakery's window, below its name, the words "Slow Food" are painted.

Slow food promotion reminds people of heirloom vegetables like violet-fleshed potatoes, and free-range eggs from vintage chicken breeds like the Silver-Penciled Wyandotte. It celebrates farm processed jam from handpicked fall-bearing raspberries and baked goods filled with wild huckleberries gathered from nearby mountains. It embraces private label organic wine, raw local honey sold at roadside stands, and the silky cheese my husband, Kipp and I, enjoy tonight as we drive. The cheese, named "Mont Blanchard" after a local mountain, was turned daily, aged five months, and then purchased by us at the Saturday Anacortes Farmers' Market. It came from Samish Bay Cheese created on Rootabaga Country Farm in Bow, Washington.

The farm is owned by Roger & Suzanne Wechsler. "We've followed the Slow Food Movement for a long time," Suzanne said. Eco-farmers of this century are often like that: quietly well aware of positive trends before mainstream slickers know what happened. On Rootabaga Country Farm, the cows actually go into the sunshine, consume green grass, and the resulting artisan cheeses are sold directly to eager local customers and lucky tourists. With my article deadline looming, I didn't get a chance to interview the cows. But I had my questions ready: Did you immediately remember what to do with real grass, or were you put through a rehabilitation of sorts? For example, were you exposed little by little to live chlorophyll, fresh air, breeze, nature-given rhythms of lowering your heads to the green earth and then relaxing in the fields to properly digest and create milk as nature intended? How did you first handle the full-spectrum sunrays warming your bodies and the healing high frequencies of birdsong swirling around your auditory canals? How long did it take the farm therapist to re-teach you to chew your cuds?

I can only guess at their answers, but f it turns out the cows produce better, have less disease, and remember the good life without therapists, could we? Could the very thing we rush from, the slow life, be something we're innately created for, and actually make us more productive, and do humans remember this, even if the memory is temporarily forgotten amidst a lot of commercialized noise? Because, if all they need to do is be reminded, rather than manipulated and coerced by aggressive guilt-inducing commercials, that could mean that sustainable local farming is a great business to be into. It's as though Slow Food asks, would anyone like to remember the flavor described as: "All is right with the world. Relax. Savor?" And it's as though, a growing number of people are responding, "Yes!" Because that flavor seems to seep into the taste of foods grown naturally, created slowly, and consumed lovingly. Somehow, regardless of religion, political viewpoint, income, or race, humans remember that flavor when exposed. And they want more.

According to an article on Slow Food and local farms adapted from the book, Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket, by Brian Halwell that appeared in Ode Magazine, 80 - 90 percent of American citizens say they prefer to buy food from small local farms. Those involved in the local food revival, especially small farms, may do well to contact local Slow Food offices to see if there's anything they can participate in. The Slow Food Movement has international headquarters in Italy. From there it branches out. There are national offices in other countries including the USA, which are then broken down into regional and local sub-groups which, as mentioned about, are called "convivium" (or "condotte" in Italy), so that the Movement can be interpreted and supported locally. The Movement says that the leaders of these local/regional convivium organize food and wine events and initiatives, raise the profile of products and promote local food artisans and wine cellars. They also organize tasting courses and taste workshops and spread the word of new food and wine developments and knowledge of the products and cuisines of other areas.

Humankind is looking for something that hasn't been around for a long time, and many local farmers are providing it. This "something" is sometimes hard to describe, but it's recognized when people drive by u-pick blueberry patches, seeing customers sitting in the sun, placing each ripened gem gently into their pails or baskets. How can they do that?--Work towards pie or jam in such a slow manner instead of doing something more pressing-unless they know a secret… that all is well with the world. They can relax. They can savor. Sure, it's the berries. But it's also that "something" the customers are after. The Slow Food Movement seems to want to bring those days back in a manner that they thrive right in the midst of our advanced technology, and wants the world to know about sustainable local farms. My knife floats one last time through the silky cheese that is created only in my corner of the world. In other corners of the world, all across the globe, thanks to local farms and the Slow Food Movement, there can be abundance around every corner. I relax and savor the thought, "What a way to rush, all is right with the world."

PRODUCTS:

Slow Food Revolution: A New Culture for Eating and Living

In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed

The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition

Eat Here: Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket