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The 2008 Slow Food Almanac arrived in my mailbox today. There were some interesting articles, but I'll leave it to others to review the content. Suffice it to say that if you're not a member, you should sign up regardless of whether the articles are your cup of tea. What made the strongest impression on me, though, were the ads.
Most of the ads are for wine. This is probably not surprising; the slow food movement, with its emphasis on appreciating what you eat, is probably a good well for wine marketers to tap. I'd be willing to bet that more Italian wine is drunk with local, sustainable food than with fast food. And since more than a third of Slow Food's 72,000 members are in Italy, food miles probably aren't as much of a concern as they would be in an American publication. It's worth noting that while I received the English-language edition of the Almanac, the copy in several of the winery ads was still in Italian. The movement's Italian roots also explain the ad for a Fiat SUV, one not even available in the United States as far as I can tell. But cars, while sometimes seen as the enemy by environmentalists, are at least a practical necessity for many people. The ad that really surprised me was for water. This is a movement that prides itself on supporting the environment and supporting local economies and ecosystems. Is there a single product less local, less ecologically sensible, than bottled water? Everyone in Europe and the United States has, or should have, a uniquely local source of fresh drinking water. If there isn't good water coming out of your tap, good, healthy, home-cooked, local food seems to be out of the question. And the solution is to create a sound, sustainable water infrastructure -- not to manufacture a hundred glass bottles, ship them on a truck to a mountain a thousand miles away, bottle them in a factory, shrink-wrap them in plastic, stack them on a pallet, and then ship them by truck or container ship for another thousand miles. The idea of converting water, which should be the ultimate local staple, into a polluting, non-local prestige brand, is counter to every ideal of eating locally and sustainably. I'm not surprised that Slow Food accepted the ad. But I am a bit worried that the water manufacturer thinks that Slow Food's membership is its target market, because it suggests that even people committed to thoughtfulness about their food may not be thinking hard enough about what they're drinking.
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