Recently, the number of people who care about ingredients and recipes for their health is rising. When they go to restaurants, they order foods after they confirm where the meats came from and how the farm products were cultivated.
Meanwhile, on the 25th of last October in Italy, Namyangju city and Slow Food Korea informed that they are going to host an Asia-Oceania international slow food fair, ‘Asio Gusto’, in Namyangju in 2013. Thus, a reporter of the Chungbuk Times, Jaehyoung Shin, went to the Slow Food Culture Center in Namyangju to figure out slow food. -Ed

 
Slow food, slow life
The start of slow food goes back to 1986. As McDonald’s, the symbol of fast food, entered the middle of the historic Piazza di Spagna in Rome in Italy, many Italians opposed it. Italian food lovers worried about the standardization which fast food might bring. Finally, by the present chairman of Slow Food International, Carlo Petrini, and his friends, the Slow Food Campaign began. The members of Slow Food Campaign announced their declaration in 1989, and Slow Food Campaign Organization has been developed into a global organization after its constitution. The head office of Slow Food Campaign is located in Bra in Italy, and over 100,000 members from about 160 countries joined.
The Slow Food Campaign was initiated to counter fast food and fast life at first. They reject standardization by mass production, industrialization, mechanization and that palates are becoming the same worldwide. They pursue traditional and diverse foods as well as inheriting and developing the culture of dietary life. They developed their spirit, and they judged that keeping foods and flavors based on protecting the farming industry. Therefore, they try to support producers who cultivate clean and healthy crops and to preserve producers’ way of cultivation and processing. They believe that it is hard to expect good foods unless good ingredients can be protected from the process of farming.
The philosophy of Slow Food Campaign falls into three categories. It describes eating good, clean, and fair food. Firstly, good food means various flavors, freshly seasoned food, and healthy food. Secondly, clean food means not polluting nature such as water, air, and earth. In other words, it is environmentally clean food without chemical fertilizers and agricultural pesticides. Lastly, fair food means that consumers pay deserved prices for foods to local producers before it is served at tables. Consumers are called ‘co-producers’ in Slow Food Campaign. Because consumers help producers continue their jobs by paying deserved prices to them. In addition, by doing that, consumers can be supplied good ingredients from producers.

Slow food in the world, slow food in Korea
Slow food can be considered as slowly cooked food in a simple way. Of course, it is part of slow food, but slow food is a much larger concept. Slow food includes organic food, local food, traditional food, and seasoned food. For example, a famous slow food in France and Italy, wine, takes a long time to be produced. Moreover, it uses grapes grown in local areas and does not apply agricultural pesticides. Finally, the traditional process of grape cultivation and the wine making process that has been handed down by generations is also one of the reasons how wine could become slow food.
Cheese is another example of the worldwide slow foods. Cheese has so many varieties such as Cheddar Cheese from England and Camembert Cheese from France. In accordance with how it is produced, it can be more meaningful as a slow food. In addition, sausage from Germany, olive oil from Greece, and katsuobushi from Japan are good examples of slow food from abroad.
Then, what is Korean slow food? The Korean representative slow food is Kimchi. Kimchi made by our mothers and grandmothers is one of the foods that qualifies it for most conditions of slow food. Kimchi can be considered a desirable food in terms of its tradition by generations. Our ancestors mixed organic Chinese cabbage with spicy seasoning for long periods of ripening, and they bequeathed it to their descendants. Jang Hyun-ye, the executive secretary of Slow Food Culture Center, said, “Foreigners were very attentive to Kimchi in Salone del Gusto, the international fair of food, in Italy this year. Making Kimchi every day was not even enough.” She said that typical Korean slow food for foreigners is Kimchi without doubt.

 

What if we eat slow food?
Slow food can keep everybody healthy because it does not have problems which current foods have. Today’s food contains lots of fat, cholesterol, salt, and sugar that cause lifestyle diseases such as obesity and high blood pressure. In addition, crops grown using chemical fertilizers and agricultural pesticides and genetically modified food are harmful for our bodies.
Slow food also suggests the method which saves the local farming industry. If we eat slow food and become co-producers, we can protect small farmers. As a result, everybody can eat many kinds of food and buy diverse kinds of ingredients. Although certain farm products have high quality, they cannot be produced if consumers do not pay attention to them.
Furthermore, Koreans will be able to have composure through slow food. In the example of a housewife, she can feel the composure while she prepares dinner by cooking and trimming vegetables in person. Koreans already know the side effects which come from ‘fast’ culture in Korea well. They are in need of having composure through slow food.
However, the problem is that young people have too little interest in slow food. One of Kyungnam University’s professors, Kim Jong-duk, who is a vice chairman of Slow Food Culture Center, said to university students, “Farming has been ruined by factory food since the Industrial Revolution, and there is food which is not considered as food. It is very sad that we have to eat that food as long as this situation continues” He added, “It is very important to have more interest from young people in this problem which is becoming their problem.”

By Shin Jae-hyoung | jh32@cbnu.ac.kr