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Slow!Food!in!a!Fast!Paced!Time!
!Understanding+the+Global+Popularity+of+the+Slow+Food+Movement+through+
Processes+of+Authentication,+the+Invention+of+Tradition,+and+as+a+Product+
of+Modernity!
!In truth, none of us believed in the ‘old little world’, but everything led us to think it was better ‘to defend’ it, because, when the floodgates are opened, the only safety is the Ark.
(Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food Movement in Simonetti 2012: 182)
! ! ! ! Lien!Moonen! 10459111! ! Bachelor's!thesis!'Cultural!Anthropology!and!Development!Sociology'! Tutor!Dr.!I.L!Stengs
Second reader Dr. A. Strating! Words:!11.601! University!of!Amsterdam
E-mail address: lien.moonen@student.uva.nl! ! June 1,!2015 ! ! Source!Cover!Image:!http://www.rhsprints.co.uk/benaryNernst! ! ! !
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!Slow Food in a Fast Paced Time
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Understanding the Global popularity of the slow food movement through processes of authentication, the invention of tradition, and as a product of modernity.
Contents
Good, clean and fair...7
Slow Food from an anthropological perspective...10
From Bra to the world...11
Food scandals as a source of public food anxiety...14
Alienation and impotency...16
The Slow Food Movement in a society of risk...18
The invention of tradition...21
The materialisation of authenticity...25
A problematic opposition between tradition and modernity...29
Conclusion...32
References...35
I, Lien Moonen, have read and understood the University of Amsterdam plagiarism policy [published on http://www.student.uva.nl/fraude-plagiaat/voorkomen.cfm]. I declare that this assignment is entirely my own work, all sources have been properly acknowledged, and that I have not previously submitted this work, or any version of it, for assessment in any other paper.
Good, clean and Fair
As I'm writing this thesis, there is a plastic see-trough container with almost perfectly identical waffle biscuits sitting next to me. On the package, there is a vast amount of information, stating for example when the product was produced, and up until when it is safe to eat (down to the minute!). A separate label guarantees that the biscuits are made with organic ingredients. By reading a barcode printed on the bottom, I could find out which company produced the waffles. But this is not necessary, since the packaging states in big letters that it is a product of Colruyt Group, a well-known Belgian supermarket chain. Furthermore, in small letters a long list of ingredients is cited, ranging from wheat flour, over 14% eggs, to an additive named E330, which is an acidity regulator. The one thing that is not printed anywhere is where and how exactly the waffles were made.
Meanwhile, my mother calls me to the table for a lunch of some good, old-fashioned yummy salad. When I look out the window, it is almost as if I can see the lettuce and tomatoes grow. Then my glance finds my father and brother, who are both working the garden, and I get overwhelmed with a feeling of warmth. 'This', I realize, 'must be what the Slow Food Movement is all about!' Then, the waffle biscuits on my desk draw my attention again. Suddenly, I notice a label on top, which reads: ‘Artisanal Waffle Biscuits'. I can't help chuckling a little, and begin to wonder. What exactly is it that makes these biscuits artisanal? And more interestingly, why would the packaging state that they are artisanal, even though they are obviously mass-produced? What does that concept of 'artisanal' even mean?
The longing for artisanal, authentic and real food is part and parcel of the Slow Food Movement. It started in Italy in the 1980's, when a group of activists wanted to counter the upcoming fast-food trend. These activists noticed that people's interest in their own food was dwindling, and local food traditions were disappearing. These developments
were undoubtedly linked to an increasing pace of life in general. So as a countering gesture, the idea of Slow Food became associated with taking the time to prepare a good, healthy meal, and enjoying the outstanding tastes of local specialties in the company of family and friends. Slow Food activists simply wanted to slow down people's lives by reviving local food traditions. In other words, Slow Food was about living the good life.
Over the years however, the movement has come to represent a whole lot more. Slow Food now also stands for the desire to connect people with the planet, their plates, and their respective cultures as a whole. More so, the movement now focuses on the relation between producers and consumers, and also on the way in which food is produced. That means, among other things, paying attention to the environment as well as the social aspects of food production, such as work conditions and fair pay.
The movement thus strives for more sustainable and qualitative food systems. Slow Food should thus be 'Good' (qualitative, flavoursome and healthy), 'Clean' (produced without harming the environment) and 'Fair' (accessible to consumers and produced under fair working conditions and income for producers).1 The movement's active character is now displayed in activities which focus, amongst other things, on building community and connecting people to biodiversity. One example is the raw milk-campaign, which was launched in 2001 to protect the rights and support the cause of small-scale, traditional dairy producers.2
This unfolding of what the movement represents has been accompanied by a huge surge in popularity. Officially founded in the small town of Bra by Carlo Petrini some twenty years ago, the movement now has members and followers in over 150 countries. There are several national sections, like Slow Food Nederland, Slow Food Brazil, and Slow Food South-Korea.3 In any case, Slow Food can no longer be labeled as a hobby of a few gourmands.
In this thesis, I will investigate how the popularity of the Slow Food Movement's ideology can be understood. For this, my arguments are to a large extent inspired by the vision of anthropologist Jeffrey Pratt, who has done extensive research on food in Italy. It will become clear that the popularity of the movement's ideology is inevitably rooted in current social circumstances. Indeed, the Slow Food Movement can be used as a tool !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1 See www.slowfood.com (6/03/2015).
2 See www.slowfood.com/international/23/raw-milk (1/05/2015). 3 See www.slowfod.com (4/03/2015).
to gain insight in recent processes of social and cultural change.
We live in a time in which supply-chains are longer and more globalised than ever. We live in a time in which food scandals seem to occur more frequently. A time in which some complain that their children no longer realise 'milk comes from a cow, not a bottle'. A time in which, simply said, we are increasingly alienated from the foods we consume. I will start my argument by illustrating that this sense of disconnection is reinforced by a sense of public anxiety that arises out of recent food scandals. Public food anxieties, food scandals and alienation all lead to a longing for reconnection. I will then make clear that this longing for reconnection causes certain projections onto the past, and is materialised in the search for authentic and traditional foods. It will, however, become clear that there is not one simple definition for ‘authentic’ and ‘traditional’. These concepts are not static. Rather, they are perceptions that are being given form and meaning by the particular romantic projections of those craving for reconnection.
Producers are all too happy to capitalise on consumers' longing for the authentic and to adjust their production, and more so their marketing accordingly. I will continue my argument by clarifying how consumers and producers mutually construct romantic images of for example family and friends gathering to enjoy tables full of traditionally prepared foods, while looking down on roaming sheep on the mountainside and inhaling the smell of new-mown hay. It will become clear that such romantic images do not only have the power to invoke nostalgic feelings, but are themselves also the very result of the presence of nostalgia in modern society. Indeed, Slow Food may well compensate for feelings of loss that come with the industrialisation and globalisation. In this sense, even though Slow Food is often associated with 'the old ways', I will argue that food products considered as Slow Food, are not just remnants of a remote past, but are preeminently a product of this time.
Furthermore, I will argue that despite this, the relationship between modern and traditional foods is often wrongfully perceived as a strict dichotomy, resulting in the perception that local is for example also automatically healthy and traditional must be sustainable. Instead, foods that are perceived authentic and qualitative might for example still be intensively produced while making use of exploitative labour. For alternative movements such as the Slow Food Movement to be truly transformative, it is necessary to bring this perceived, yet incorrect dichotomy to the surface.
Slow Food from an anthropological perspective
Within the discipline of anthropology, a sub-discipline is dedicated to the topic of food, namely the anthropology of food. Cultural anthropologists Robert Dirks & Gina Hunter have written an extensive document on what distinguishes this sub-discipline from other anthropological subjects, named Anthropology of Food. Among other things, it covers the historical development of the sub-discipline. The origin of the anthropology of food goes as far back as 1865, when Edward. B. Tylor wrote the book Researches into the
Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization, in which he set down the
notion of cooking as a human universal (Dirks & Hunter: 2). The approach was picked up by various anthropologists such as John Bourke, William Robertson Smith, Audrey Richards, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Mary Douglas and soon developed into two streams. On the one hand, food culture was approached from a materialistic point of view. In this case, food habits and culture are solely seen as a reflection of practical necessities (ibid.: 2-3). On the other hand, a symbolic vision was developed in which culture was considered to be a manifestation of shared mentalities (ibid.: 3).
Anthropological research on the topic of slow, local and authentic food maintains the vision that the topic of food serves as an excellent tool to illuminate broad societal life and processes. This view is held by well-known anthropologists such as Sidney Mintz, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Polly Wiessner, Daniel Miller and Mary Douglas, who agree that eating habits of individuals document a vast amount of information on who these individuals are, and how they want to present themselves to the outer world (Dirks & Hunter: 3; Mintz 2002: 100). Also Mintz agrees in The Anthropology of Food and
Eating that the topic of food lends itself well to research themes that revolve around the
construction of identity (Mintz 2002: 109-110). The topic of identity construction inevitably encompasses processes of inclusion and exclusion. Mintz remarks that food has the dual ability to solidify group membership and to make a distinction between different groups (ibid.: 109).
Even though the Slow Food Movement lends itself well to investigate processes of inclusion and exclusion,4 and doing so can be of great value, I consider this is no !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4 See for example Nonini who describes Slow Food as a tool for upper-middle class elite to create their identity in The
local-food Movement and the Anthropology of Global Systems (2013) and Sassatelli & Davolio who discuss the
limited economic and cultural access to Slow Food, and the resulting tensions between inclusion and exclusion in
longer the most relevant approach. As I have previously stated, the movement now encompasses a lot more than being a tool for a selected group of wealthy gourmands to gain status and create their identity through the consumption of rare specialty foods. Indeed, the focus of the movement has become more political as it came to emphasise the power of consumers to combat the increasing globalisation and industrialisation of food systems, as a symbol for the hastening of society in general.5 Therefore, I have chosen the approach of this thesis to follow these recent societal developments.
Such approach is not new, as Mintz (2002: 103) acknowledges that topic of food has generally been used to research social circumstances, and in particular social change. Italian anthropologist Edmundo Morales6 and Eduardo Archetti7 use the guinea pig as a device to make globalisation and the working of world market tangible, and debate the cultural and social change that emanates from this (ibid.). In a similar way, I will take up the topic of the Slow Food Movement to research social and cultural changes that characterise modernity, such as what the movement refers to as 'the fast pace of life’. Furthermore, the value that the movement attributes to authenticity and tradition can provide insights in the interaction between individuals and this changing sociocultural context surrounding them.
In short, the Slow Food Movement appears as a movement that does not solely serve as device for individuals to unconsciously or consciously shape their identities, but also advocate a certain ideology about how to shape society. Studying the Slow Food Movement can thus provide broader societal insights that go well beyond the movement itself.
From Bra to the world
Human geographer Mara Miele & sociologist Jonathan Murdoch combined their disciplines and shared interest in food consumption practices to write various essays on the topic of traditional cuisines, with a focus on Italian cuisine.8 In Fast food, Slow Food: Standardizing and Cultures of Food they research the case study of the Slow Food Movement, starting off with a history of how the movement was born. In this !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5 See www.slowfood.com (8/05/2015).
6 In The Guinea Pig: Healing, Food, and Ritual in the Andes (1995).
7 In Guinea Pigs: Food, Symbol, and Conflict of Knowledge in Ecuador (1992).
8 Their joined efforts have resulted in publications such as The Practical Aesthetics of Traditional Cuisines: Slow
Food in Tuscany (2002), The Aestheticisation of Food: Taste, Time and Typicality (2001) and Back to Nature: Changing 'Worlds of Production' in the Food Sector (1999).
section, I will tell the story of how and why the movement came to be, and how it developed over the years.
The Slow Food Movement finds its origin in a small Italian town in the northern region of Piedemont named Bra (Miele & Murdoch 2003: 32). In 1985 the first Italian McDonald's opened its doors in a region in the North East of Italy, Trentino Alto Adige. This happening led to a growing concern amongst a small group of food writers and chefs; what would be the impact of the introduction of McDonald's on the Italian food culture? A year later, a second restaurant was opened on the renowned Piazza di Spagna in Rome. As Rome has long been seen as the epicentre of Italian cuisine, the opening touched the heart of many more Italians. The happening served as a catalyst for the spread of worries concerning McDonald's as a threat to the Italian food culture (ibid.). A series of local protest actions followed, in which the protesters, mostly local gourmands, occupied the streets with bowls of self-prepared pizza's and pasta, products that they perceived as being typical and authentic Italian food products.
One could explain the strong reactions to the opening of McDonald's restaurant by referring to the strong food culture Italy has. I believe that the fact that the opening provoked strong reactions is in itself an indication of the meaning and importance that is given to food in Italy. More specifically, it is an indication of the value they grant to what is perceived as traditional, authentic and typical Italian food. Fabio Parasecoli, professor in the interdisciplinary field of food studies, explicates in Food Culture in Italy how the strong association of Italian culture with food manifested. He refers to an attitude of companilismo, which encompasses the proudness that each town has towards its own dishes (2004: 1). Parasecoli argues that this attitude finds its origin in the fragmented territory that the Italy we nowadays speak of once was (ibid.: 3). This fragmented landscape was the result of the waves of different populations9 that inhabited Italy throughout the centuries. The diversity of food traditions which these populations brought have left their marks in Italy, and has created an identity which lies precisely in its diverse origins (ibid.). The local identity of a town was and is thus shaped by means of their own specific food practices, as these distinguish the specific town from other areas. In this process, food and Italian culture have become inevitably intertwined, leaving its marks in the current idea that 'Italian culture and food go hand in hand' (ibid.: 1). As a matter of fact, in my opinion, the process in which local identities are linked to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9 Between the eight and the third centuries B.C.E, Italy was inhabited by various populations such as the Etruscans, Phoenicians, Greeks and Celts.
traditional food products, adds to explain the strong desire of Italian Slow Food activists to preserve their traditional dishes.
The fact that the topic of food is so interwoven with the Italian culture also becomes visible in the extensive literature written by Italian anthropologists on food and identity, authenticity and locality. It is thus not a coincidence that in a 2007 special issue on local food products and systems, published by the journal Anthropology of Food, most contributions were made by Italians. It can also be remarked that the association of Italian culture with food is not solely made by Italians themselves, but also perceived as such far outside the nations' borders. The University of Oregon organises its anthropological minor 'The Food & Culture Program', in which students travel to Italy's Tuscan region to 'get to know the foods of the region and develop a fuller understandings of complex food-related issues and gain insights into the ways in which food mediates social, political, environmental, cultural and economic processes'.10 The presence of Italy and its food culture within the academic world becomes also visible in the extended literature written on the topic, ranging from the discipline of history, to medicine, to ecology.
Once started as a small protest action of chefs and writers wanting to preserve the Italian food culture, the Slow Food Movement has expanded enormously from the small Italian town of Bra, and is now seen as a global movement (Roos, Terragni & Torjusen 2007: par. 13).11 While the international headquarters are still located in Bra,
local sections - the so-called Convivia- are active in various countries worldwide.12
Apparently, the intertwining of food within the Italian culture is not the only factor that explains the existence of the movement. The rapid expansion of the movement indicates that the issues addressed were not limited to Italy, but find broad support in many more European countries and even on other continents. Indeed, the aim of the protester is not just to protect the authentic food products, but also to occupy the streets to combat the rise of an industrialised civilization and advocate a slower pace of life (Sassatelli & Davolio 2010: 204). In the next section I will investigate how food scandals, and the public food anxieties they provoke, may serve as a catalyzer for the movement's opposition to the industrialised food system.
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10 See http://international.uoregon.edu/italy/food_culture (8/03/2015).
11 This article is part of a special issue published in the online journal Anthropology of Food. Since no page numbers are available, I will refer to the paragraphs instead. The articles by Brunori (2007), Grasseni (2011), Holt & Amilien (2007) and Terragni, Torjusen & Vittersø (2009) are also part of a special online edition and will follow the same logic.!!
Food scandals as a source of public food anxieties
In 1984, a cow died on a farm in Pitsham, West Sussex, in England. This event was only the beginning of what two years later would be referred to as the epidemic of the mad cow disease, caused by a harmful disease which found its ways onto the plates of many Englishmen, mainland Europeans and to some extend even of those on the American continent. As the human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), infiltrated in the human food chains, many got ill and more than 200 people lost their lives.13 In 2012, the Guardian published an article in which attention was brought to the fact that even though millions of cows were slaughtered in order to eliminate the disease and prevent it from spreading, the dangers that came with the outbreak of the disease still live on as we speak.14 Even though the British government reassures that people are no longer in danger of getting vCJD from eating British beef, recent health publications15 bring attention to the risk of people contracting the vCJD through blood transfusions. More than 30,000 British citizens would still be carrying the disease in a dormant form.
The above example is one of many which illustrates how in the last decades the industrial food system has time and again failed to deliver what most consumers expected it to: safe and relatively inexpensive food. The mad cow disease-epidemic is the best known, but certainly not the only food scandal that occupied the newspapers in the past decades. In the same year, a wine scandal occurred in Italy, where methanol was produced during the fermentation process, resulting in more than twenty deaths and dozens of cases of blindness. In 1999, Belgium suffered from the so-called Dioxin Affair.16 In 2003, the Netherlands suffered from an outbreak of the bird flu,17 the same virus that previously led to several deaths in China and the United States.18 Furthermore, over a hundred ton of rotten meat was detected in various supermarkets in Germany in 2005.19 And most recently, there was the horsemeat scandal in the Netherlands in 2013,
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13 See http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/25/mad-cow-disease-british-crisis (18/03/2015). 14 See http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/25/mad-cow-disease-british-crisis (18/03/2015). 15 Amongst which research conducted by 'Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’, see
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/13/1/06-0396_article (18/03/2015), a fact sheet published by 'the World Health Organization', see http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs180/en/ (18/03/2015) and an article published by 'Eurosurveillance', see http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=3117 (18/03/2015). 16 See http://retro.nrc.nl/W2/Lab/Voedingsschandalen/dioxinen8.html (15/03/2015).
17 See http://nos.nl/artikel/2005101-2003-was-het-rampjaar-van-de-vogelgriep.html (15/03/2015). 18 See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/08/birdflu.china (15/03/2015).
in which horsemeat that wasn't predestined to enter the food supply chain was being passed off as beef.20
I think it is no coincidence that the occurrence of the mad cow disease in the UK and the wine scandal in Italy in the mid 1980's run parallel to the early development of the Slow Food Movement. Certainly these food scandals nourish public feelings of anxiety and the desire to scale down and return to 'a time when one still knew what one was eating’. Later on in this thesis, I will argue that food scandals as well as the larger supply chains provoke feelings of distanciation and result in a perceived loss of agency. I will also clarify that the Slow Food Movement is a response to the lack of agency and the sense of powerlessness the above scandals provoke. First however, it needs to become clear in what way the food scandals can lead to a sense of general mistrust towards industrialised food products.
An explanation for this can be found in what I see to be a communality of these scandals, namely that their existence is inevitably linked to and even a result of vulnerable food systems. First of all, these food systems are vulnerable because of the massive scale of the food chains, which allows for diseases to spread easily and quickly. Commissioned by the Daily Mail newspaper, Tom Rawsthorne takes us backstage to witness the production process of the famous Big Mac of McDonald's. He discovers that because of the mass production of for example, hamburgers, it is required to work on a scale in which batches of minced beef are produced through a blending process. Because of this blending process, one could visit a McDonald's restaurant on any given day and eat a hamburger that contains beef from up to a hundred different cows.21 Since one cow contains more or less 300 kg of produced meat, a quick calculation tells us that this also means that one single contaminated cow could potentially contaminate 30,000 burgers. On top of that, infected meat from just one infected cow can contaminate up to sixteen tons of beef. Secondly, the food systems under which the scandals occur are vulnerable since they make it hard to trace the contaminations back to the cause. To come back to the previous example, the blending process makes it close to impossible to track down what specific cows were in the given hamburger, and where they were produced.22 Lastly, and as a result of the vulnerabilities mentioned above, food systems are !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 20 See http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/02/09/nederland-speelde-rol-in-paardenvleesschandaal-vlees-hier-verhandeld/ (15/03/2015). 21 See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2826020/How-one-Big-Mac-contains-meat-100-cows.html (18/03/2015). 22 See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2826020/How-one-Big-Mac-contains-meat-100-cows.html (18/03/2015).
vulnerable in the sense that if contaminated products find their way into the food chains despite severe hygienic laws, it is hard to bring the contamination under control.
I have made clear how food scandals manifest under vulnerable food systems, and can thus lead to general feelings of mistrust towards these. A common feature of the vulnerabilities discussed, is that they can all be linked to an increased distance between individuals and the foods they eat. The mass production and globalising transport of food products may thus result in feelings of alienation (Mintz 2002, Leitch 2000: 105). In the next section, I will further investigate the concept of alienation, and how this might lead to a sense of impotency. Furthermore, I will highlight how this impotency, in which individuals feel dependent on a food system that they cannot influence and they cannot trust, may in fact be a major driving force in the movement's popularity.
Alienation and impotency
According to anthropologist Roos, Terragni and Torjusen international trade agreements have had major impacts on the food chains since the Second World War(2007: par.1). Nowadays, the distance between production and consumption can be as little as the length of ones own garden path, but can also encompass routes that cross several continents. Furthermore, in modern globalised industrial food systems, the origin and quality of food products are becoming less visible to consumers (Lien and Nerlich 2004 in Sassatelli & Davolio 2010: 203). Roos et al. (2007: par.1; par.5) argue that the combination of an increased physical and emotional remoteness, in other words alienation, and a decrease in transparency, results in a loss of control from the consumer’s perspective.
This alienation however, is dual. Not only is there a perceived increased distance between individuals and the food they eat, the current food system also makes individuals feel increasingly alienated from each other (Holt & Amilien 2007: par.20). Fast food and microwave cooking is generally perceived as leading away from the communal act of eating, thus increasing feelings of alienation. Combined with a cultural trend towards individualisation, this leads to an increase in loneliness (ibid.).
By means of the following quote of renowned anthropologist Daniel Miller, I will argue that it is exactly this process of alienation that lies at the base of the birth of the Slow Food Movement.
I want to reflect on a condition in which very little of what we possess is made by us in the first instance. Therefore to be a consumer is to possess consciousness that one is living through objects and images not of one’s own creation. [...]. Within such a dominant ideology [that is one which espouses the aesthetic ideal of authenticity through creation] the condition of consumption is always a potential state of rupture. Consumption then may not be about choice, but rather the sense that we have no choice but to attempt to overcome the experience of rupture using those very same goods and images which create for many the sense of modernity as rupture (Miller 1995: 1–2).
The citation above suggests that the globalised and industrialised mass production of products is accompanied by the condition that individuals no longer produce the things they wear, use and eat themselves. The fact that for the biggest part, individuals no longer make the things they live by, is felt as a loss. In this sense, the very act of consumption is experienced as rupture (Pratt 2007: 296). As a way to diminish this sense of rupture, Miller (1995) argues, we adjust our consumption. Following this idea, Pratt (2007: 296) suggests the possibility that in reaction to this rupture, consumers crave a connection to the world of production. They try to do this by means of adapting their consumption to products for which the world of production is known, thus so-called authentic and traditional products (ibid.). In this sense, the search for 'authenticity' as broadly shared by those adhering the Slow Food Movement can be said to arise out of feelings of alienation. In addition, I believe that the above process in which consumption patterns are altered can also be seen as an illustration of how individuals attempt to regain agency as an answer to a sensed loss of control and impotency. The popularity of the movement can thus be understood as a response to increased feelings of alienation and impotency, and the will to compensate for this rupture.
Miller's and Pratt's idea of increased alienation is not new. Already in 1988, French sociologist and anthropologist Claude Fischler stated that the process of sophisticating the food sector results in the fact that we know increasingly less about what we eat (1988: 291). Where Pratt (2007) and Miller (1995) agree that this alienation result in the adaption of consumption patterns, Fischler (1988) holds a slightly different vision. He asserts that feelings of alienation and existing gaps in knowledge are
compensated for by a vast amount of trust. In Trust in Food in the Age of Mad Cow
Disease (2004) sociologist Lisbet Berg adds to this that this trust is unconscious and
naturally present, as long as it is not damaged. However, the trust that consumers hold towards the food sector can be negatively affected by bad experiences at a societal level (Berg 2004: 24), such as the food scandals depicted above. In the following section I will place this distrust in the wider context of modernity by means of the notion of the risk society.
The Slow Food Movement in a society of risk
In a way, the food anxiety and distrust described above are surprising, the paradox being that industrial foods in particular are produced according to severe hygienic standards. This can be illustrated by a case that has received recent attention, namely the 'chlorinated chickens'. Just recently, in May 2015, the European Commission announced to end the import ban on chlorinated chickens.23 In the United States, chickens are routinely treated witch chlorine after slaughter, as a way to combat pathogens. In this lies the paradox that, while conducted under a slogan of so-called consumers safety, the chlorination of chickens has led to commotion amongst European consumers, who perceive it as a threat for their health. The paradox in this is that measures taken to increase safety are simultaneously causing mistrust and anxiety. In this section, I will elaborate on this paradox by means of the concept of risk. I will elucidate how the anxiety and mistrust towards industrialised food, which I previously indicated as an explanatory factor in the popularity of the Slow Food Movement, can be placed within a a broader risk discourse. Furthermore, I will elaborate on the notion of reflexivity as a crucial factor to the popularity of the Slow Food Movement.
I previously explicated how the Slow Food Movement involves more than solely attempting to preserve traditional dishes. Indeed, academics that have written on the movement generally agree that it represents a broader ideology of how one should live one's life, and what values society should hold in a time of rapid economic, cultural and social change. One example is the Italian anthropologist Alison Leitch (2010, 2000), who acknowledges that this ideological part of the movement transcends the topic of food. She sees this public anxiety over the safety of the agro-industrial food system as !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
symptomatic for public anxiety related to the fast rate of social and economic change since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 (Leitch 2010: 442; 2000: 106). According to her, food is more and more becoming a channel through which these broader fears concerning globalisation are debated (Leitch 2010: 442). These anxieties however, are also debated through different channels, such as for example in relation to nuclear power. Food safety issues and the anxiety it generates can be placed within a wider discourse of what has been called the 'risk society’; a term associated with key writers on modernity, such as sociologists Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens. Doing so can help to gain a better understanding of the meaning of this anxiety and mistrust, and how this relates to the existence of the Slow Food Movement. For this, I will make use of the work of Lisbet Berg (2004), whose work is greatly inspired by Beck's thinking.
In his book Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity, Beck (1992) links common held feelings of distrust on the one hand to uncertainty, anxiety and risk on the other hand. Beck defines a risk society as 'a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernisation itself’ (Beck 1992: 21). With this, Beck refers to the idea that industrial societies have themselves caused potential risks, which are modern in the sense that they are the result of human activity rather than natural sources. Examples of these risks are the scandals discussed above, and other food related safety-issues, such as the use of antibiotics and growth hormones and the consequences for health and environment (Leitch 2010: 441). Thus, the industrialisation of the food system brings with it not only risks which wouldn't have been possible on such scale without this industrialisation, but these risks are also a direct result of how a society has chosen to organise its food provision. Also Anthony Giddens asserts that as a society transits from traditional to modern, new risks arise. What makes these risks different from traditional risks is that they are difficult to calculate, as the abandoning of traditions leads to an increased unpredictability (Giddens 1994 in Berg 2004: 22). I have previously discussed this unpredictability when referring to the vulnerability of the current agro-industrialised food system. This vulnerability I explained to be mainly the result of its massive scale, the difficulty of tracing back the food products and the laborious process of keeping possible outbreaks under control.
The major point that needs to be stressed is that, in contrast to what one would expect after having read this thesis so far, modernity does not simply bring about anxious, worrying and distrustful citizens. On the contrary, Beck (1994 in Berg 2004: 23) asserts that the risk society creates reflexive and critical citizens. In Berg (2004: 23),
Beck sets down four possible attitudes towards food safety, all of which occupy a specific spot on a scale from trust to distrust and from reflexive to non-reflexive. Affiliation with the vision of Claude Fischler (1988) as described earlier, he states that the normal, primary relationship to food is one of non-reflexive trust. However, once trust is damaged, which can happen as a result of food scandals, this damage is arduously repaired. If this occurs, the relationship generally develops in one of either 'reflexive trust', 'reflexive distrust' or 'repressive distrust’. In an attempt to understand the motivations of those adhering the Slow Food Movement, it suffices to closer investigate the orientation of reflexive distrust. An attitude of reflexive trust is one in which individuals take precautionary measures (Berg.: 23).
Consumers who are reflexive are sensible consumers who attempt to eliminate danger by routinely and repeatedly taking precautions related to food safety. Those complying with an attitude of reflexive distrust, are skeptical and alert consumers who feel mistrust towards many foods despite their cautiousness (ibid.). I consider the attitude of reflexive distrust to be characteristic for those adhering the Slow Food movement. As Berg states 'they [that is those adhering an attitude of reflexive distrust] live in a ''beckian" risk society' (ibid.); A society in which, as referred to earlier, the industrialisation of society has led to new risks, which are the very result of human activity itself. The main characteristic of reflexive and distrustful consumers is their attempt to safeguard the safety of food systems by reaching for products which are still absent of these modern risks, namely products with a pre-industrial character (ibid.). Therefore, the link to the Slow Food Movement is easily made. Indeed, by reaching for so-called authentic and traditional food, those adhering the movement do not only secure their own health but also attempt to safeguard food systems and generate general feelings of safety in doing so (ibid.).
It is clear that distrustfulness in itself is not enough of an ingredient to understand the popularity of the slow food movement. Rather, it is the combination of reflexivity and distrustfulness, which is a characteristic attitude for those living in modern risk society (ibid.), that is essential for the existence of the movement. As reflexivity and distrustfulness consumers are confronted with the occurrence of food scandals, increasingly vulnerable food systems and a sense of powerlessness to influence these, a strong desire to step away from the current agro-industrial food systems is created, which results in a search for what is perceived as the complete opposite, namely 'authentic' and 'traditional' foods. In the following sections it will become clear that this
perceived opposition between the modern industrial on the one hand, and the authentic and traditional on the other, is incorrect. In order to understand where this perception comes from, it first needs to become clear how concepts such as 'tradition' and 'authenticity' are also inseparably interwoven with aspects of modernity.
The Invention of Tradition
Many Italians perceive lardo di Colonnata, a type of bacon made from the fat on the back of the pigs, as a key example of a traditional food product. Not only has there been a yearly lardo festival in Colonnata since 1995 (Leitch 2010: 445), it has lately become a key symbol of the Slow Food Movement's 'Endangered Foods' campaign. Just like
lardo, many other Italian food products such as salamis and sausages, are claimed to be
traditional by many Italian small-and medium-scale food producers. Ironically enough, these products are often made with modern industrial machinery on a sparkling clean factory floor (Cavanaugh & Shanker 2014: 54). In this section, I will further investigate this paradox between tradition and modernity, attempting to understand how certain products are valorized by means of (the creation of) tradition. For this, I will make use of the work of Historian and Anthropologist Alison Leitch, who conducted elaborate research on the cultural politics of the Slow Food Movement through the ethnographic window of lardo di Colonnata, resulting in The Social Life of Lardo (2000) and Slow
Food and the Politics of Pork Fat-Italian Food and European Identity (2010). I will
embed her findings within Hobsbawm's vision towards tradition, as presented in his book The Invention of Tradition.
For many local people of Colonnata, nothing appears more ancient, and connected to an age-old past than the traditional skill of producing lardo. It is a product which recalls a shared past of poverty and food scarcity in the popular imagination (Leitch 2000: 108). Hobsbawm sheds a different light on this seemingly immemorial aspect of tradition, by asserting that 'traditions which appear or claim to be old are in fact often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented' (1983: 1). Hobsbawm's argument finds its origin in the context of the recent yet seemingly ancient development of nationalism. Through symbols such as the National Flag and Anthem the ancient identity of the nation is created, he argues (ibid.). This argument however can easily be expanded to the area of food traditions.
related. In other words, something only becomes traditional when it is no longer practical. Back in the days before the development of agro-industrial food system, some farmers raised their own meat, and others produced their own olive oil. These farmers, and the people who consumed their goods, probably didn't consider this as traditional. More likely, these ways of obtaining food were considered necessary, and thus the practical implication of the will to survive. In a similar way, lardo was once an essential caloric food in times of food and protein scarcity. For the men who spent their days cutting hay and hauling marble up to fifteen hours a day, lardo was nothing more than a practical necessity (Leitch 2000: 108). This product, once seen as staple food for poor families, is now locally sold in a number of modest village delicatessens, where it is purchased by a new middle-class elite (ibid.). According to Leitch, the reviving of a peasant food is not typical to lardo, but befalls many other products too. Leitch (2000: 104; 2010: 448) declares that this phenomena occurs as a result of a piercing nostalgia for 'what has once been', mostly referring to a longing for community, good quality food, and a slow pace of life in general.
This longing for the past is what cultural anthropologist Rosaldo Renato has called 'Imperialist Nostalgia'. With this concept, he refers to the romantic regret for conditions that are recollected from a distant past. The loss of these conditions is condoned, even orchestrated by society itself (Grasseni 2012). I believe the Slow Food Movement is an exercise in this 'Imperialist Nostalgia' too, as the movement's ideology encompasses a longing for traditional products from an ancient past to counter societal developments in the present. This ideology is put in practice by attempting to safeguard these traditional products before they are lost to modernity. However, it is not a given fact that the images associated with these traditional products are in accordance to the historical past. Indeed, this past is often romanticised (Simonetti 2012:180; Sassatelli & Davolio 2010:207; Pratt 2007:290). One might associate lardo with images of a conscientiously prepared dish, enjoyed in good company and a general relaxed atmosphere, thus putting 'slow living' in practice. Indeed, the preparation process is very delicate and elaborate. But this need for slow preparation must not be confused with slow living. Objectively seen, and in opposition to the romantic perceptions, lardo represents a hard and laborious rather than a romantic history. Anthropologist Cristina Grasseni has conducted elaborated research on the way in which alpine cheese that is increasingly produced in standard ways, is nevertheless considered as a traditional product by many consumers (2012: 2007). In Re-inventing food: Alpine Cheese in the
Age of Global Heritage (2007) she makes clear how this results out of the fact that the
mountain cheese is produced in typical environments, feeding on romantic images of the countryside. These processes, in which products gain a sense of antiquity and tradition through the attachment of certain imagery, are what Hobsbawm (1983) refers to as 'the invention of tradition'.
Processes in which traditions are invented occur more frequently in times of social and cultural change, when the existing social patterns are weakened by a rapid transformation of society (Hobsbawm 1983: 4), such as the industrialisation and globalisation of food systems. As Hobsbawm phrases 'where the old ways are still alive, traditions need be neither revived nor invented’ (ibid.: 8). The fact that the old ways are no longer practical and alive does not imply that that the old ways are no longer feasible or available. More often, Hobsbawm argues, the old ways are deliberately not used or adapted. This occurs as these old ways may be regarded as obstacles to progress by those who plead for radical innovation (ibid.). All too often, small-scale farmers and/or producers are condemned to not be able to produce enough for the world population. Those opposing traditional farming instead plead for a total conversion to the innovative, promising, agro-industrial, mass production of foods.24 It can be argued that pulling down ideas of a small-scale, local farming is not a matter of what is possible,25 but what a certain, and most powerful group within society, considers to be most desirable. Indeed, the invention of traditions can tell us something about the balance of forces (ibid.: 2). In this light the Slow Food Movement, with its focus on the old way of life, appears as a movement which is fighting the forces which thwarted ideals of tradition, locality and small-scale production in the name of innovation and progress; the only difficulty being that 'the old way' that those adhering the movement refer to, is not factual, but is itself imagined.
In The Ideology of Slow Food, Luca Simonetti, a business lawyer based in Rome, criticises the Slow Food Movement for the invention of an 'unhistorical, mythical and romantic past' (2012: 180). With this, he refers to its ideological attempts to replace the past with a pastoral countryside, based on 'ideals of peace, quietness and harmony, yet !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
24 See for example http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/un-only-small-farmers-and-agroecology-can-feed-the-world (3/05/2015) and http://www.foodlog.nl/artikel/geen-voedselzekerheid-zonder-industriele-productie/allcomments/ (3/05/2015) in which the ongoing international debate between those promoting the possibilities of small-scale agriculture and those pleading for conventional farming to meet food demands becomes visible.
25 For possibilities of a more traditional, small-scale and local way of producing food, see for example Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). For academic publications acknowledging small-scale agriculture in developing countries, see for example Altieri (2008) in Small Farms as a Planetary Ecological Asset: Five Key Reasons why we
totally fictitious' (ibid.: 183-184). Furthermore, Simonetti, as well as Pratt, also criticise the way in which the movement presents traditional products as 'remnants of the past' (Pratt 2007: 297). Also Tregear (2003: 102-103) agrees that so-called traditional products can not be seen as one of the few surviving items from times when food production was still local, but should be seen as a product from the current time. He argues that traditional products are constructed in the interaction of both tradition and innovation in a time of mass markets (ibid.: 102-103).
One example that Simonetti (2012: 182) cites which supports the modernity of traditional products is the fact that traditional products used to be only sparingly purchased in the pre-industrial age because of their high price. According to Simonetti, their success, and their existence in a time of mass production, can only manifest through the industrialisation and economic development, which has generated an exclusive group of rich consumers (ibid.). This point, however, I dare to contest, since I previously discussed how lardo in fact used to be an essential staple food for the poor working proletarians. Indeed, as I have argued, these products have only recently received special attention. Consequentially, one would think that they also only recently became expensive as their value increased. It is clear however, that it is the existence of modern industrial society itself that makes the safeguarding, and preservation of the most rare and costliest products possible (Laudan 2001: 43). If it weren't for the fact that a market has been created for them, these traditional products would vanish as they lose their practicality (ibid.). In this sense, also Slow Food, with its focus on tradition, is preeminently a product of modernity.
The Slow Food Movement can thus be understood as a movement which transfers the ideals of quietness, harmony and peace which it can no longer find in the present into a far past, which is seen as traditional. However, as pre-industrial society was characterised by poverty and food shortages (ibid.: 40), this traditional past is in fact invented and romanticised. As Hobsbawm (1983: 14) points out, traditions might feel natural as they are often passed on from generation to generation, yet they have always been subjected to change. This is how, even though we can rationally say that there is no such thing as 'the old time when everything was still peaceful', the Slow Food Movement still advocates their way of eating and dealing with food as 'natural' and rooted in the remotest antiquity. In the following section, I will make clear how also the concept of 'authenticity' is to a certain extent imagined and constructed.
The materialisation of authenticity
In fighting anxiety and alienation, the search for authenticity, comes to live. Not only consumers, also producer respond to processes of alienation and public anxiety. Supermarkets display food products labeled with slogans such as 'the original', 'authentic cuisine' and 'following grandmothers recipe', all suggesting a sense of authenticity in their own way. Authenticity, according to Pratt (2007: 294), signifies that the production process is known, that consumers know where the food comes from, whom it was made by, and what it is made of. Clearly, the products described above do not correspond to this definition, as all too often this knowledge lacks when consuming industrialised mass products.
When thinking about authenticity, associations such as 'original', 'real', and 'true' might pop up. But what do these terms mean? It is clear that in reality, the boundaries of what is considered to be authentic are a lot blurrier than considered upon first thought. According to Jillian Cavanaugh and Shalini Shankor, authenticity must be seen as both a product and a process (2014: 56). Both anthropologists maintain a special interest in linguistic anthropology, in the light of which they investigate the construction of authenticity in their essay Producing Authenticity in Global Capitalism: Language,
Materiality, and Value (2014). Whether a food product is perceived to be authentic or
not, they state, depends on the influence that both producers and consumers exert, and consequentially on the process of production and branding on the one hand, and consumption on the other. This process of authenticating will show to be embedded within and even constructed by means of the concepts of 'tradition' and 'locality'.
Cavanaugh and Shanker (ibid.: 52) assert that the perception of any kind of product, being it carefully slaughtered salamis in Italy or a recording of a Taiwanese pop star in America, is created by the interaction of both linguistic and material means. The use of both written and verbal language in combination with processes of material production, they state, plays a major role in authenticating the product and thus producing value (ibid.: 61). In creating value, however, simply labeling something as authentic does not suffice (ibid.: 53). In order to create a sense of authenticity, producers employ various methods that respond to how consumers imagine authentic products. Foremost, according to Pratt (2007: 294) authenticity is attributed to foods which are either specific to a location or result from a specific craft process. The importance of both locality and craft becomes visible in the promotion of so-called labels of
authenticity, such as 'PDO' (Protected Designation of Origion), 'PGI' (Protected Geographical Indication) and 'TSG' (Traditional Speciality Guaranteed)(Kjørstad 2007: 232), which producers aim to acquire (Grasseni 2011: par.10).
Moreover, for a product to be considered authentic it mostly requires the imagination of a clear connection between what has been made in the past, and what is made now (Cavanaugh & Shankar 2014: 54). Producers pay attention to this through a process of linking linguistic and material elements. More concrete, in the process of branding an Italian product, Italian terms for land, territory and origins are paired with names of specific regions, resulting in linked terms such as terra orobica and territori
Bergamasco. A similar process occurs in relation to references to history (storia),
tradition (tradizione/i) and typical (tipico) (ibid.: 52), thus tapping into both the aspect of locality and tradition. In this way, products are being authenticated through the use of language.
This language, in which producers trigger a process of imagining by making connections to aspects of either locality or tradition, is frequently exercised on farmers markets, during a food degustation or event, and so on. In short, places where producer and consumer meet. In his essay Configuring the Authentic Value of Real Food anthropologist Brad Weiss (2012) brings to attention how any given market place creates opportunities for, and is even a central player in, the process of materialising authenticity. Cavanaugh & Shanker (2014: 55) mention a cheese-tasting event in Bergamo, in which the organiser presented one of the cheeses as 'typical of the area', followed by a detailed description hereof and an enumeration of the many generations that had been producing this cheese. In doing so, the cheese at hand was linked to products from a distant past, anchored both in a specific place, as carrying deep historical roots (ibid.: 55). Next to these linguistic aspects, Weiss (2012: 617-618) stresses that the interaction itself also plays a major role in the authentication of products, as in this face-to-face transaction between producer and customer, the trafficking of 'real food' is demonstrated, as it is the product of the good and uncompromising judgment of both the consumer and farmer.
It is clear how the process of authenticating can be consciously employed by both small-scale as mass producers to create value (Cavanaugh & Shanker 2014: 53). As a result products branded as authentic might just be a response to what consumers perceive as authentic, such as aspects of locality and tradition, blurring the concept of authenticity in doing so. I take that what appears to be the real character of these
products, namely not merely authentic but certainly influenced by modernity, does not stroke with how the movement pictures Slow Food. In the next section, I will highlight how another pillar of the movement, namely locality, encounters a similar problem of vagueness. By doing so, it will become clear how misconceptions around these concepts might stand in the way of the movement's own objectives.
Local food is not just local food
The concept of local food frequently occurs in literature on the Slow Food Movement.26 Indeed, locality is an important dimension in the ideology of the Slow Food movement (Roos et al., 2007: par.7). All too often however, both in the self-presentation of the movement, as within academic literature on the topic, the reference to local products is easily made while lacking a clear definition, thus leaving room for different interpretations and convoking different associations in people's minds. Even though many references can be made within the concept of locality, I distinguish two main types of local that are often ranked under the same heading. While one interpretation is mainly referred to by sustainability advocates, gourmands mostly mention another. If a distinction between both interpretations is not made, they might be interchangeably used, while in some cases both interpretations might contradict. Holt & Amilien (2007: par.17) quote an example of this: 'local food is seen as greener than organic food'. It is clear, that even though this might be a common perception, it is not necessarily true. Addressing this is important as the focus of the Slow Food Movement has lately shifted from a pure gourmand-perspective, to also including an emphasis on environmental premises, such as biodiversity, sustainability, and responsible consumption (Sassatelli & Davolio 2006: 211). As the movement now presents itself as eco-gastronomists (Leitch 2010), it is important to make a distinction between these two interpretations of locality, since local practices might be for example culturally local, yet not local in the sustainable sense of the word.
The first interpretation refers to locality as 'produced in the region'. In this case local food is the seasonal, fresh produce one usually associates with farmer markets or local grocery shops. This image exists in opposition to the image of industrial, heavily packaged produces, characterised by a typical taste (or rather the absence of taste) created by the cooling system needed in order to safeguard transportation across the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
world. This type of locality is often used within a sustainability discourse, advocating a reduction of food miles to combat global issues such as global warming.27 Besides this approach that focuses on local production, local food can also be interpreted as 'preserved in the roots of local tradition' (Petrini 1987 in Roos et al., 2007: par.14, emphasis added). Locality in this sense is strongly associated with the customs, traditional recipes and history of a specific region. The absence of this aspect of locality, results in 'foods without identity', according to Petrini (2005 in Roos et al., 2007: par.15). Reversed, local foods in this sense are thus foods which still have this identity, created through local traditions. This interpretation of locality can be more easily grasped by means of the concept of terroir. This term finds it origin in the French wine industry in the early 19th century, in the process of labeling the vast amount of differently tasting wines (Guy 2002:42; Pratt 2007: 290). The elastic term was originally limited to the physical characteristics of a terrain, such as geology, soil type and most importantly geographical boundaries, but gradually, the term also referred to the specific skills and knowledge involved in creating and/or maintaining this specific terrain. Eventually, it also encompassed the social and cultural character of those inhabiting the region (Pratt 2007: 290; Grasseni 2011). Nowadays, terroir can be defined as: 'sharing soil and weather conditions...the earth as a whole [...] the culture and morals of the proprietor, and the soul of the country' (Guy 2002 quoted in Holt & Amilien 2007: par.13).
It now becomes clear that while both interpretations might congregate -such as for example locally produced wine that is also locally consumed-, both interpretations can also mutually contradict. You might enjoy drinking the same regional wine on a holiday on the other side of the world. Also, hutspot, often referred to by the Dutch as a typical dish, might be prepared with Belgian potatoes and high-quality ham from a typical local Italian region. The pigs to produce ham might even be reared far away from that region, and the piglets might be bought from yet another faraway place (Kjørstad 2007: 226). Local food is thus no longer perceived solely in terms of physical distance, a phenomenon which Roos et al., (2007: par.6) link to the process of globalisation. 'Local Food', she states, 'is no longer food that is just produced near you by people you know. It is also the product waving from the shelf of a supermarket, having travelled miles, with !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
27 Examples of how the consumption of local food is advocated by sustainability initiatives in order to reduce food miles can be found on the following websites: http://www.ecostreet.com/10-ways-to-reduce-food-miles/,
a label reminding consumers of the local dimension embedded within' (ibid.).
As I have discussed so far, traits such as authentic, local and traditional are not to be seen as given facts, but are the product of an underlying process in which these traits are constructed. A traditional Bergamesco cheese is not in itself an authentic product, but is either perceived or presented as such by respectively producers and consumers, and their interaction. Similarly, lardo is not traditional, but is constructed as such through romantic nostalgia. It has become clear that both the search for authenticity as the very processes of inventing tradition and materialising authenticity, can be understood as resulting from feelings of alienation; a modern phenomena. In this sense tradition (or its invention) must thus be seen as a product of modernity itself. Even that what appears to be the absolute reverse of modernisation, is predicated on its very premises. As professor of history Victoria de Grazia summarizes: 'As fast food advanced, so did Slow Food' (2005: 471 in Sassatelli & Davolio 2010: 207). However, the Slow Food Movement's ideology suggests an opposition between modernity and tradition, in which the latter is perceived to be more superior. The opposition between modern and traditional foods is just one of many incorrect dichotomies which need to be addressed as the movement encroaches on the terrain of sustainability.
A problematic opposition between tradition and modernity
Slow Food was founded to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. 28
At first sight, this quote as depicted on the Slow Food movement's website, seems innocent. What it shows is how the movement creates its own identity, by means of opposing a set of characteristics, which all in some way or another refer to the modern food system. Where modernity is associated with industrialised mass production, the Slow Food Movement opposes this modernity through a romantic discourse of authenticity and tradition. In the previous sections, it has become clear that such strict distinction between modernity and tradition cannot easily be made. Can mountain !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
cheese, which is produced by means of a specific ancient skill, yet adapted to consumers taste, health regulations, and produced for the world market, still be considered traditional? As I have made clear, traits such as 'authentic' and 'local', which are commonly associated with the Slow Food Movement, are inevitably defined by blurry boundaries. In this light, the Slow Food Movement cannot straightforwardly be considered to be an alternative movement (Pratt 2007). Yet, through its emphasis on tradition, this is exactly how the movement is often seen.
The above would not be problematic if the Slow Food Movement were to keep to its original character, consisting of a small group of gourmands safeguarding Italian tastes. Nowadays however, as previously mentioned and as illustrated in the end of the quote, the movement has entered the field of global justice and environmentalism,29 thus fulfilling a role of promoting critical and ethical consumption (Sassatelli & Davolio 2010: 205). As the movement ventures into political territory, it can no longer afford to refer to romantic images of for example authenticity and locality without clearly defining what this encompasses, and more importantly, without knowing how sustainable these traditional products they promote truly are.
Pratt (2007) argues that movements that promote alternative food products, such as the Slow Food Movement, tend to (unconsciously) present a polarised and generalised image. Associations such as junk, fast food, non-sustainable, polluting, unhealthy additives, unknown ingredients and production processes, and so on, are all gathered under the overarching category 'industrialised food'. By contrast, the alternative movement stands for reconnection, linking production and consumption, and healthy, authentic, traditional, good and true food products (ibid.: 291). Thus, both circuits are conceived in opposition to each other. The impersonality of the market is perceived right against the personalised alternatives and artificial food products are opposed to genuine and authentic products.
This field of opposition can even be enlarged to incorporate the whole concept of modernity: concepts which are characteristic for modernity, such as quantity, singularity, innovation and progress are opposed to authentic traits, such as quality, diversity, the circular. According to Pratt the very fact that this field is a simplification and construct of reality, makes that associations can mutually evoke each other (ibid.: 288). In this way, what is local can automatically be perceived to also be authentic, and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
