What Is Slow Food To You? Flickr Finds

While searching through Flickr last week I came across these fun post-it notes containing the ideas of slow food. They were from an event back in 2010, but they serve as great inspiration today. What does slow food mean to you?

Slow Food is a concept that's come around in recent years as many of us have taken the time to take a step back and evaluate what we're consuming and where it comes from. It means many different things, to some it's merely a favorite dish, to others it's a means of acquiring and producing food.

What does slow food mean to you? Do you have a favorite dish that comes to mind first thing? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

• See more Slow Food photos from this Flickr set by member foreverbetter

(Image: Flickr member foreverbetter licensed for use by Creative Commons)

Comments (15)

I've never heard of the term slow food until today- on a couple different blogs I've read (a little ironic!) I think anything I put time into and things I make ingredients for is slow food. I don't get to make things often because I'm pretty busy (and not a very good cook) but when I do I'm pretty proud of myself.

that first post-it ("anything my grandma recognized as food") is exactly the answer i'd put!

Can I just express my exasperation and irritation at the whole "stuff my grandma ate" trope when it comes to talking about "real" food? My grandma was too busy doing things like going to college and running her town's economics board to bother with anything but Kentucky Fried Chicken (not to mention the fact she's a lousy cook and burns the hell out of everything anyway). She's an amazing, wonderful and inspiring woman (and one of my biggest role models), but hers is the last standard by which I'd judge food.

To me, slow food is the food I grew up eating. I grew up on a farm and relatively poor, so we raised almost all of our food. So, "the stuff my grandma (and I) ate" is a perfect expression of the slow food movement to me, but having the wealth now to afford other foodstuffs and dabble in backyard gardening, I enjoy both and try to not over-romanticize the past.

Stuff my grandmother recognized as food? My goodness no, have you ever seen 1950's cookbooks?

And my other grandma's idea of a healthy dinner was white wonderbread, potatoes, and ground meat (the more fat, the better).

food prepared with love to nourish the body and soul.

Good, Clean, and Fair

Sometimes the terms are used generically, but more often they refer to the organization. I've been volunteering with my local chapter for 10+ years. http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/about_us/

Everyone has a right good, clean, fair food pretty and that pretty much sums it up. A lot of our members are interested in organic and sustainable agriculture, supporting local farmers and farm workers, consuming ethically raised meat, avoiding genetically engineered food, protecting bio-diversity and rare breeds both for taste and food security, reforming school food programs, and finally, perhaps most important, enjoying food and family.

I had never heard of the term "slow food" until I went to Korea where slow food is "juk," Korean porridge.

Ditto to sudenveri and kaete- there's this image of a pioneer grandma wearing a shawl and milling oats. My grandmas were cooking for their families in the 60s and 70s. Spam, wonderbread, instant potatoes and jello molds.

Food that is not just slapped together or gotten at a drive-thru window. It does not have to take an excruciating amount of time to make, but it's food that I value, that I take care of and make some effort so it does not spoil. Now that I've dabbled in container growing, I realize how hard it would actually be to feed myself if I had to grow my own.

And I agree about Grandma's time - my Grandma grew up in the depression (1920s) and lived in an area with lots of farmland. She had to walk a long ways to a well for water and certainly did each fresh farm food whenever she could.