Slow Food Comes to San Francisco

I walk through San Francisco’s Civic Center area to get to work. En route I usually pass a small legion of homeless people and a group of elderly people doing slow tai chi in orderly lines (before 9am) or coordinated fast dance moves to pop music (after 10am -- a highly recommended spectacle). The area is popular for community events and there have been stages built for successive events over the last few weeks.

However, I recently noticed that the gated off, central area of the Civic center was filled with people shoveling dirt into raised beds this time. Initially I thought I was witnessing the work of depaving advocates, but I learned that the workers are volunteers for Slow Food Nation, which is a subsidiary of Slow Food USA, a group promoting sustainable food 50,000-attendee Slow-Food event in San Francisco for Labor Day Weekend. The Civic Center and Fort Mason will house events ranging from concerts to lectures and educational workshops, forums, chef demonstrations, talks on agricultural philosophy, films and of course, tastings.

Slow Food is a movement associated with organic farming, consuming locally grown produce, urban farms and foodies. They want the opposite of fast food; they want what is local, healthy, seasonal, organic, green. The slow food movement essentially advocates a triple-bottom-line food principle, with agricultural interests that extend beyond profits to include community, worker and consumer health.

Slow Food movements also speak to food access and equity issues regarding the lack of healthful options in inner city areas. "In the Bayview, the only produce being sold is at a liquor store, and it's three days past its due date," Mayor Gavin Newsom told the SF Chronicle. "Instead, I see a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Taco Bell. Our fast-food culture is the primary contributor to the health care costs in this country." It is well established that people in ethnic and urban communities consume fast food at a rate much higher than that of wealthier communities, and suffer from health problems accordingly.

Slow Food Nation’s City Hall Victory Garden will be the center of the massive Labor Day Weekend event. They persuaded the City of San Francisco to tear up prime scenic city property in front of City Hall to build a Victory Garden. The garden itself will provide food that is donated to local food and meal programs. The idea behind Victory Gardens is familiar only to our grandparents now; the WWII effort was so intense that most agriculture needed to be diverted to the war effort. In its place, small gardens in private and public spaces provide 40% (!) of the US vegetable supply.

Modern Day Victory Garden advocates like those at Victory Gardens 2008+ are also concerned about food security, which is terribly valid considering the direct relationship between oil and food prices due to long-distance shipping. Without advocating cultural isolation, but like energy independence, food independence would be good for the US in terms of quality, nutrition, economics and price management. "Unless we squeeze the fossil fuel out of our dinner," foods expert Michael Pollan told reporters, “we won't be able to maintain a viable food supply. "We no longer can catch salmon in Alaska, fillet it in China and serve it in New York."