The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure

Andrews, Geoff (2008). The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure. London: Pluto Press.

URL: http://plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745327440&

Abstract

The Slow Food movement was founded in Italy in 1986 as a response to the perceived domination of fast food chains, supermarkets and agribusiness. It now has over 100,000 members in more than 130 countries and has become a significant player in debates on biodiversity, local food communities, and GM Food. It has also played a leading role in the new interest around ‘gastronomy’ as an academic discipline, establishing the first ‘University of Gastronomic Sciences’. This book is the first in-depth study of the politics of Slow Food and contains chapters on the ideology and social composition of the movement, as well as its growing international profile. The book outlines the history of Slow Food from a mainly gastronomic association into a social and political movement and a growing appeal beyond Europe. The book argues that the Slow Food movement has developed a distinctive ideology which has challenged both existing left and right political traditions, and expressed in a new conceptual language of ‘virtuous globalisation’, ‘good, clean and fair’, eco-gastronomy, the ‘co-producer’ and the ‘universal right to pleasure’. The book argues that while the Slow Food movement has grown in many different national and local conditions, including North America and Eastern Europe, and latterly Africa, as well as Western Europe, it has retained a coherent philosophy.

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