Slow Food

Posted by admin on Feb 3, 2009 in Featured Articles | 0 comments

“When we started this shop, we had 10 varieties,” says Jane Suter of the Schokolade Café. “Now, we have 35.” She points out some of the exotic flavours made by her and her husband at their downtown Vancouver shop.

“Mango and jalapeño. Passion fruit and earl grey tea.” The food-loving Vancouverites gathered in the small café murmur in approval.

“Pear whiskey.” Now the participants in the Slow Food chocolate-making workshop begin their “ohs” and “ahs.”

Jane passes out samples of her last example.

“Don’t just throw it in your mouth,” she says. “Try it. See the inside, smell it, enjoy it.” The guests eagerly follow her instructions. She continues, as participants begin to savour their treats: “It’s the filling inside the chocolate that determines how much the chef likes to portray his message to you.”

My first Slow Food event could not be more ideal: a gourmet chocolate-making workshop, complete with do-it-yourself activities and, most importantly, samples. It takes place on a chilly evening on a quiet strip of East Hastings.

The Slow Food movement, began in 1989, is a lifestyle defined by three words: “good, clean and fair,” the international movement’s motto. The ideals manifest themselves in different ways: for some, it’s about sustainable farms, for others, it’s about a slower lifestyle or communal pleasure in food.

Slow Food’s logo is that of a sleek snail, which the website describes as “moving slowly and calmly eating [its] way through life.” This is the path that the 85,000 Slow Food believers worldwide tread daily: lives centered on quality taste, building community around food, keeping things pure and encouraging sustainability. It’s not a trend: it’s a lifestyle.

Christina Beaudoins, leader of Vancouver’s Slow Food chapter, has been actively involved in this lifestyle for over four years, ever since she attended her first local Slow Food event. “It was educational, it was convivial, it was tasty too – which is the whole idea,” she says.

I sat down with Christina in an artisan bread shop in Langley. “It’s about living a balanced life.” She recounts her difficulties with burnout and other health problems before her conversion to Slow Food.

“It’s very satisfying to live your life at an unhurried pace. And when you’re in that place, you enjoy everything in life more, and you require more – like better tasting food.”

“It’s a whole life philosophy,” she continues. “Younger and younger people are having midlife crises.”
Food is the foundation for the entire philosophy: loving it, nurturing it, appreciating it. As Christina explains, food is a pleasure that one can experience multiple times a day. Like the chocolates at the Schokolade, food becomes a personality to interact with.