In Praise of Slow Read online

  “I always feel a bit guilty after eating somewhere like McDonald’s,” says Vittorio. “But I think other Slow Food members eat there, too. They just keep quiet about it.”

  With that dirty little secret hanging in the air, we polish off the cappon magro. It is now time for dessert. Pierpaolo? Pierpaolo? Ah, there he is, cleaning up a broken glass underneath a neighbouring table. He glides over to talk us through the dolci. A few minutes later, the desserts arrive—a chocolate torte with a dollop of mascarpone and zabaione cream; apple sorbet; strawberry bavaroise. All are exquisite, especially when paired with a local Malvasia wine, which is sweet, smooth and the colour of maple syrup. “Delicious,” purrs Vittorio.

  Wilde was right about the power of a good dinner to make one forgive anything. As we slide into post-prandial nirvana, that glorious state when the appetite is calmed and all is right in the world, Vittorio’s McDonald’s confession already seems like a distant memory. We drink strong espressos in companionable silence. Pierpaolo brings a bottle of grappa and two small glasses. After some more sipping and chatting, we are the only customers left in Da Casetta. The rest of the Morelli clan come out of the kitchen onto the deck for some fresh air. The mood is mellow and magnanimous.

  I look at my watch. It is 1:25 A.M.! I have spent four hours at the table without ever once feeling bored or restless. Time has floated by imperceptibly, like water in a Venetian canal. Perhaps because of that, the meal has turned out to be one of the most memorable of my life. As I write these words, more than a year later, I can still recall the bittersweet smell of the cipolline, the delicate sea notes of the cappon magro, the sound of leaves ruffling in the darkened piazza.

  In the afterglow of dinner at Da Casetta, it is easy to imagine that the future belongs to Slow Food. Yet the movement faces some serious obstacles. To start with, the global food industry is structured to favour high-turnover, low-cost production—and food manufacturers, long-distance transport companies, fast-food giants, advertising firms, supermarkets and industrial farms all have an interest in keeping it that way. In most countries, subsidy systems, regulations and supply chains are stacked against the Slow producer.

  Fans of the status quo argue that industrial farming is the only way to feed the world’s population, which is forecast to peak at ten billion in 2050. This seems logical: we need to accelerate output to make sure no one goes hungry. Yet the way we farm now is clearly unsustainable. Industrial agriculture ravages the environment. Some experts now believe the best way to feed the world is to return to smaller-scale mixed farming, which strikes an eco-friendly balance between crops and livestock. Already, similar thinking is starting to sink in at the European Union level. In 2003, the EU finally agreed to reform its Common Agricultural Policy to reward farmers more for the quality, rather than the quantity, of their output and for safeguarding the environment.

  When it comes to modifying our own behaviour, Slow Food is realistic. It recognizes that every meal cannot be a four-hour banquet of handmade delicacies. The modern world simply does not allow it. We live in fast times, and taking a Fast approach to food is often the only option. Sometimes all we want or need is a sandwich on the run. Yet it is possible to work some of the Slow Food ideas that inform the menu at Da Casetta into our own kitchens. The place to start is with the raw materials. Local, seasonal produce. Meat, cheese and bread from conscientious producers. Maybe even a few herbs, like mint, parsley and thyme, grown in the garden or on the balcony.

  The next step is to cook more. After a long, bruising day at work, our reflex is to throw a ready-made meal in the microwave or call out for Thai food. But sometimes that reflex is just that: a reflex. It can be overcome; we can find the time and energy to do a little chopping, frying and boiling. In my experience, taking a deep breath and just heading into the kitchen can be enough to get over the I-can’t-be-bothered-to-cook hump. And once there, the payoff is more than just gastronomic. As the crushed garlic slides into the pan of hot oil and starts to sizzle, I can feel the stresses of the day melting away.

  Cooking a meal need not be a long and laborious affair. Anyone can rustle up a homemade supper in less time than it takes to have a pizza delivered. We’re not talking about a cappon magro. A Slow dish can be quick and simple. A book stall at the Salone del Gusto stocked a magazine with recipes, from tomato pasta to mushroom soup, that took as little as fifteen minutes to prepare. Another way round the time crunch is to cook more than you need when you can and freeze the surplus. So instead of heating up a ready-made meal or phoning for a curry, you can defrost a homemade dish. In our house, we order a lot less takeout—and therefore save a fortune—now that the freezer is stocked with our own chili con carne and lentil dahl.

  Certainly, we can all benefit from taking a Slow approach to the way we eat. Food is harder to enjoy when scoffed down on the run or in front of the television or computer. It becomes fuel. Savouring food is easier when you slow down and pay attention to it. I appreciate my supper a lot more at table than I do balancing it on my lap in front of the evening news or Friends.

  Few of us have the time, money, energy or discipline to be a model Slow Foodie. Such is life in the fast-paced twenty-first century. Yet more and more of us are learning to slow down. Slow Food has captured the public imagination and spread across the planet because it touches on a basic human desire. We all like to eat well, and are healthier and happier when we do. Anthelme Brillat-Savarin put it best in his 1825 masterpiece The Physiology of Taste: “The pleasures of the table are for every man, of every land, of every place in history or society; they can be a part of all our other pleasures and they last the longest, to console us when we have outlived the rest.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CITIES: BLENDING OLD

  AND NEW

  The tide of life, swift always in its course,

  May run in cities with a brisker force,

  But nowhere with a current so serene,

  Or half so clear, as in the rural scene.

  —WILLIAM COWPER, 1782

  AFTER MY MEETING WITH CARLO PETRINI, I set off on a walking tour of Bra. Even on a normal workday, the headquarter city of Slow Food seems like the perfect place to get away from it all. Locals linger over coffee at sidewalk tables, gossiping with friends or watching the world drift by. In the shady, tree-lined squares, where the air smells of lilac and lavender, old men sit like statues on the stone benches. Everyone has time to say a warm “buon giorno.”

  And no wonder. By local decree, la dolce vita is now the law of the land here. Inspired by Slow Food, Bra and three other Italian towns signed a pledge in 1999 to transform themselves into havens from the high-speed frenzy of the modern world. Every aspect of urban life is now recast in line with the Petrini principles—pleasure before profit, human beings before head office, Slowness before speed. The movement was christened Citta Slow, or Slow Cities, and now has more than thirty member towns in Italy and beyond.

  For a denizen of chaotic, breathless London, putting the words “slow” and “city” side by side is instantly appealing. To see if the movement is more than just a pipe dream or a marketing ruse, I arrange to interview Bruna Sibille, deputy mayor of Bra and a driving force within Citta Slow. We meet in a conference room on the first floor of the town hall, a handsome fourteenth-century palazzo. Sibille stands at the window, admiring the view—a sea of red terracotta rooftops, skewered by the occasional church tower, stretching into the distance. As a young man cycles languidly through the piazza below, her mouth curls into a satisfied smile.

  “The Slow movement was first seen as an idea for a few people who liked to eat and drink well, but now it has become a much broader cultural discussion about the benefits of doing things in a more human, less frenetic manner,” she tells me. “It is not easy to swim against the tide, but we think the best way to administer a city is with the Slow philosophy.”

  The Citta Slow manifesto contains fifty-five pledges, such as cutting noise and traffic; increasing green space
s and pedestrian zones; backing local farmers and the shops, markets and restaurants that sell their produce; promoting technology that protects the environment; preserving local aesthetic and culinary traditions; and fostering a spirit of hospitality and neighbourliness. The hope is that the reforms will add up to more than the sum of their parts, that they will revolutionize the way people think about urban living. Sibille talks with zeal of “creating a new climate, an entirely new way of looking at life.”

  In other words, a Slow City is more than just a fast city slowed down. The movement is about creating an environment where people can resist the pressure to live by the clock and do everything faster. Sergio Contegiacomo, a young financial consultant in Bra, waxes lyrical about life in a Slow City. “The main thing is that you do not become obsessed with time. Instead you enjoy each moment as it comes,” he says. “In a Slow City you have the licence to relax, to think, to reflect on the big existential questions. Rather than get caught up in the storm and speed of the modern world, where all you do is get in the car, go to work, then hurry home, you take time to walk and meet people in the street. It’s a little bit like living in a fairy tale.”

  Despite their pining for kinder, gentler times, the Citta Slow campaigners are not Luddites. Being Slow does not mean being torpid, backward or technophobic. Yes, the movement aims to preserve traditional architecture, crafts and cuisine. But it also celebrates the best of the modern world. A Slow City asks the question: Does this improve our quality of life? If the answer is yes, then the city embraces it. And that includes the very latest technology. In Orvieto, a Slow City perched on a hilltop in Umbria, electric buses glide silently through the medieval streets. Citta Slow uses a snazzy website to promote its philosophy of buon vivere, or living well. “Let’s make one thing very clear: being a Slow City does not mean stopping everything and turning back the clock,” explains Sibille. “We do not want to live in museums or demonize all fast food; we want to strike a balance between the modern and the traditional that promotes good living.”

  Slowly but surely, Bra is working its way through the fifty-five pledges. In its centro storico, the city has closed some streets to traffic, and banned supermarket chains and lurid neon signs. Small family-run businesses—among them shops selling handwoven fabrics and speciality meats—are granted the best commercial real estate. City Hall subsidizes building renovations that use the honey-coloured stucco and red-tile roofing typical of the region. Hospital and school canteens now serve traditional dishes made from local organic fruit and vegetables instead of processed meals and produce from distant suppliers. To guard against overwork, and in keeping with Italian tradition, every small food shop in Bra closes on Thursdays and Sundays.

  Locals seem pleased with the changes. They like the new trees and benches, the pedestrian precincts, the thriving food markets. Even the young are responding. The pool hall in Bra has turned down the pop music in deference to the Slow ethos. Fabrizio Benolli, the affable owner, tells me that some of his young customers are starting to look beyond the high-octane, one-size-fits-all lifestyle promoted by MTV. “They are beginning to understand that you can also have fun in a tranquil, Slow way,” he says. “Instead of gulping down a Coke in a loud bar, they are learning how nice it can be to sip local wine in a place where the music is low.”

  Joining Citta Slow is helping member towns cut unemployment and breathe life into flagging economies. In Bra, new shops selling artisanal sausages and handmade chocolates, along with food festivals featuring local delicacies such as white truffles and Dolcetto red wine, draw thousands of tourists. Every September, the town is clogged with stalls run by speciality cheese-makers from across Europe. To meet the surging demand for high-quality food from both foreigners and locals, fifty-eight-year-old Bruno Boggetti has expanded his delicatessen. He now sells a wider array of local goodies—roasted peppers, truffles, fresh pasta, peppery olive oil. In 2001, he turned his basement into a cellar stocked with regional wines. “The Slow movement has helped me transform my business,” he tells me. “Instead of always grabbing the cheapest and fastest thing, which is what globalization encourages, more people are deciding it is better to slow down, to reflect, to enjoy things made by hand rather than machine.”

  Citta Slow even hints at turning the demographic tables. In Italy, as in other countries, the young have long fled rural areas and small towns for the bright lights of the big city. Now that the charm of high-speed, high-stress urban living is wearing off, many are returning home in search of a calmer pace of life. A few urbanites are also joining the influx. At the counter of a gelateria in Bra, I bump into Paolo Gusardi, a young IT consultant from Turin, a seething industrial city 30 miles north of here. He is looking for an apartment in the centro storico. “Everything is rush, rush, rush in Turin, and I’m tired of it,” he says, between mouthfuls of mint chocolate ice cream. “The Slow vision seems to offer a real alternative.” Gusardi plans to work most of the week in Bra, designing websites and business software, and only commute into Turin when he has to see someone face to face. His main clients have already given him the green light.

  Nevertheless, these are early days for Citta Slow, and in every member city deceleration remains very much a work in progress. Some of the obstacles that the movement will face are already apparent. In Bra, even as life gets sweeter, many locals still find work too hectic. Luciana Alessandria owns a leather goods store in the centro storico. She feels as stressed as she did before the town signed up to Citta Slow. “It’s all very well for politicians to talk about slow this and slow that, but in the real world it is not so easy,” she scoffs. “If I want to afford a decent standard of living, I have to work hard, very hard.” To some extent, Citta Slow is a victim of its own success: the promise of Slow living draws tourists and outsiders, which brings speed, noise and bustle.

  Citta Slow campaigners have also found that some reforms are easier to sell than others. Efforts to curb noise pollution are thwarted by the Italian penchant for shouting into mobile phones. In Bra, the hiring of more traffic cops has failed to extinguish that other national passion: driving too fast. As they do in other Slow Cities, cars and Vespas speed through the streets that are still open to them. “I am afraid people continue to drive badly here, just like in the rest of Italy,” sighs Sibille. “Traffic is one part of life where it will be hard to make Italians slow down.”

  At the very least, though, Citta Slow has opened up another front in the worldwide battle against the culture of speed. By 2003, twenty-eight Italian towns were officially designated Slow Cities, with another twenty-six working towards certification. Inquiries are also flowing in from the rest of Europe and as far away as Australia and Japan. Two towns in Norway (Sokndal and Levanger) and one in England (Ludlow) have already joined the movement, with two German towns (Hersbruck and Geimende Schwarzenbruck) soon to follow. At the end of our interview, Sibille is in high spirits. “It is a long-term process, but bit by bit we are making Bra into a better place to live,” says the deputy mayor. “When we are finished, everyone will want to live in a Slow City.”

  That may be going a little too far. Citta Slow, after all, is not for everyone. A strong emphasis on preserving local cuisine will always make more sense in Bra than it does in Basingstoke or Buffalo. What’s more, the movement is limited to towns with fewer than fifty thousand inhabitants. For many in Citta Slow, the urban ideal is the late-medieval city, a rabbit warren of cobbled streets where people come together to shop, socialize and eat in charming piazzas. In other words, the sort of place most of us will only ever see on holiday. Nevertheless, the movement’s core idea—that we need to take some of the speed and stress out of urban living—is feeding into a global trend.

  In chapter 1, I described the city as a giant particle accelerator. That metaphor has never been more apt than it is today. Everything about urban life—the cacophony, the cars, the crowds, the consumerism—invites us to rush rather than relax, reflect or reach out to people. The city keeps us in mot
ion, switched on, constantly in search of the next stimulus. Even as they thrill us, though, we find cities alienating. Not long ago, a poll found that 25% of Britons do not even know their neighbours’ names. Disillusionment with urban life goes back a long way. In 1819, Percy Bysshe Shelley observed, “Hell is a city much like London.” A few decades later, Charles Dickens chronicled the squalid underbelly of the fast-growing, fast-paced cities of industrialized Britain. In 1915, Booth Tarkington, a Pulitzer-winning American novelist, blamed urbanization for turning his native Indianapolis into an impatient inferno: “Not quite so long ago as a generation, there was no panting giant here, no heaving, grimy city … there was time to live.”

  Throughout the nineteenth century, people looked for ways to escape the tyranny of the town. Some, like the American Transcendentalists, moved to remote corners of the countryside. Others made do with occasional bursts of back-to-nature tourism. But cities were here to stay, and so campaigners sought to make them more liveable, with reforms that echo today. One measure was to import the slow, soothing rhythms of nature by building public parks. Central Park in New York City, which Frederick Olmstead set about creating in 1858, became a model for North American towns. From the early twentieth century, planners sought to build neighbourhoods that struck a balance between urban and rural. In Britain, Ebenezer Howard launched the Garden City movement, which called for small, self-supporting towns with a central park and a greenbelt of farmland and forests. Two garden cities were built in England—Letchworth in 1903 and Welwyn in 1920—before the idea crossed the Atlantic. In the United States, where the automobile was already king of the urban jungle, architects designed Radburn, New Jersey, a city where residents would never need to drive.