MAR 29

18. MAR 29

Assigned Work

• Andrews, Geoff. Chapter 2: "The Critique of 'Fast Life'" The Slow Food Story (pp. 29-47). (18)
• Ogle, Maureen, In Meat We Trust, C2, "We Are Here To Make Money" (44-62) (18)

In-Class

• Unit 5 Student Reports on Food Ethics documentaries. Assignment start.

Unit 5 Food Ethics Documentary Assignment

• This assignment invites you to view one of the documentaries (or several short documentaries) on food ethics (either the ones listed under Documentaries_specific_to_Food_Ethics_and_Animal_Slaughter or one of your own choosing and report briefly (3-8 minutes) to the class on the item you viewed.
• Start by reviewing the choices I have found. or consider looking for your own. Then fill out this google form: Selection of Unit 5 Food ethics documentaries. Fill out the form by Wednesday, March 30, 12 noon for 5 points. If you want to pair up with others in the class, and even do a group viewing, please arrange that. In class, we will reconcile some of the different presentation dates.
• Then watch your documentary. When you see the list of presentation dates, if you see other students presenting on the same resources on different dates try to adjust your presentation dates to match.
• On the date of your presentation, give a very short overview and reflection on the resource, offering clips if you wish. These presentations are informal and will all receive 15 points.

Small Group Discussion: How Fast is your Food Culture?

• For this short group discussion, think of times in your current or past life where you enjoyed "slow life", the kind of experience of food and conviviality described by slow food advocates. For example:

• A group house diner that lingers and leads to great conversation or other fun.
• A friend comes to dinner, maybe you cook together,
• A meal out, no hurry, lingering while the restaurant empties out.
• Coffee/tea with a friend, conversation goes on past the drinks.
• Meaningful wasting of time. Sleeping in, pottering about, seconds on coffee and breakfast....

• Share your stories (and feel free to say you don't have this sort of experience!), but then shift the group discussion to try to identify what, if anything, is valuable about "slow life"?

• Alternate line of thought: Does our cell phone behavior make it harder to achieve “slow life” pleasures?

Andrews, Chapters 1 & 2, The Slow Food Story

Chapter 1, "Politics in Search of Pleasure"

(This wasn't assigned for us, but I have these notes to share:)

• context for slow food: social movements of the 60's and 70's. (Italian counter-culture.)
• low power radio stations common means: Radio Bra Onde Rosse.
• politics at Club Tenco, also the pursuit of pleasure.
• revival of traditional festivals: the singing for eggs (Cante i'euv)
• 1982 incident: Montalcino Sagra del Tordo (thrush) Mention Arci clubs.

• in play: Is the pursuit of pleasure through healthy food and culture a capitalist bourgeoisie plot or a fundamental "right to pleasure" to be advocated politically?

• formation of an "Arci Gola" (appetite)
• projects: Gambero Rosso, wine guides, Osterie d'Italia, guides to osterie.
• 1986: wine poisoning scandal. McDonalds opens in Rome at Spanish Steps.
• Slow Food Manifesto
• Parallel movement in US embodied on story of Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse. Pollan also finds sources of these ideas in 1960s US counter-culture.
• Eco-gastronomy -- (a great sub-field of food study, by the way! cf. Dan Berber, The Third Plate) and the "politics of aesthetics" (only partly in line with Marxism). (So Carlo Petrini is another candidate for Gramsci's authentic intellectual.)
• Projects: international food exhibitions, then Terra Madre (2004), related movements in Germany (Greens)
• slow food also has a conservative dimension. Restoration and preservation of historical food systems.

• Mention experience with Guido and the ancient grains seminar. Photos.

Chapter 2, "The Critique of 'Fast Life'"

• some key dates: McDonald's in Rome, 1986, incident between the two arci chapters (a moment in which politics and gastronomy interact to great effect!).
• critique of "productivity culture"; efficiency vs. frenzy; idea that you need to live faster because other things are accelerating (financial trade volume, sale, news cycles, social media posting and communication). Especially focused on speed.
• [In terms we have been using, Slow Food manifesto calls into question the "culinary cosmos" of the industrial lifestyle when it compromises basic human modes of experiencing pleasure in authentic and just food. ]
• critique includes resistance to corporate formations and rationalizations (degradation) of taste. Slow Food is tied to leftist politics, but also has a US upper middle class "face" in the US site. [1]
• Castell's theory of time-space compression -- capitalism more and more about speed of transactions. circulation of capital. (on edge of a big discussion about the future of work - piece work is coming back).
• Counter view of Charles Leadbeater and others: fast culture is the answer, the problem is that we have all of these institutions from the 19th century and earlier slowing us down.
• Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America's Advance through 20th Century Europe -- American hegemony in food expressed in "reduction" of all class and value distinctions in food. Rich and poor eat McD's.
• Ritzer's "McDonaldization of Society" -- "globalization of nothing" (social forms centrally conceived, centrally controlled and lacking in context).
• Schlosser, Fast Food Nation:

• 1970 6 billion on fast food; ("million" in the text is a mistake, I think)
• 2001 110 billion
• 2010 200 billion (not in text)

• British "trolley towns"; American suburbs. globalization of construction and architecture.
• Petrini on slowness: p. 39 read
• Slow cities: features of slow cities: "A 54-point charter was developed, encouraging high quality local food and drink, general conviviality and the opposition to cultural standardisation." (from Cittaslow wiki)

• Slow Food USA

Small Group Discussion: Slow food culture

• Does Slow Food culture require a loss of productivity or is it more about reclaiming some of your time for an essential activity, or both?
• Does the slow food movement present an attractive ideal for you? Or do you find yourself agreeing with Leadbeater that "fast culture is the answer"?
• For those of you for whom it is an attractive ideal, identify 3-5 ways that you might implement slow food culture in your life?