In the quest for fast food and efficiency people have forgotten how to taste. A lobby group aims to reawaken the senses
Barry Streek
Mercifully, a new international movement has been launched, first in Italy and now sweeping the United States, to promote the enjoyment of food and the long lunch or dinner. Slow Food, the new lobby group, is devoted to the reawakening of our taste buds and preserving regional cuisine.
“May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-tasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency,” says its manifesto.
Flavour, freshness, nutritional value, knowledge about where our food comes from, and the very experience of breaking bread with family and friends have often become less important than convenience.
We have become hamburglared, Macdonalded and outSpurred in the quest for fast food and efficiency. People have forgotten how to taste. Slow Food is about reawakening the senses. The movement originated in Italy where fast food has been less than successful at challenging culinary traditions: fast food accounts for only 5% of food eaten away from home in Italy, compared to 25% in the rest of Europe and 50% in the United States.
Founded in 1989, Slow Food now has some 60000 members in 42 countries. I don’t know whether South Africa is one of those 42 countries nor am I convinced that it necessarily needs a structured group to promote its underlying philosophy. But the very thought that food is more than eating and that a meal is something to be enjoyed and savoured is very appealing.
But it is, indeed, more than that. As Leon R Kass, Addie Clark Harding Professor of Social Thought at the University of Chicago, has written: “A civil society starts at the dinner table.”
He says in his book The Hungry Soul: “We may be spawning serious social problems with our increasingly utilitarian, efficient and ‘economic’ attitudes toward food. True, fast food, TV dinners and eating on the run save time, meet our need for ‘fuel’ and provide close to constant gratification.
“But for these very reasons, they diminish opportunities for conversation, communion and sensuous pleasure; they thus shortchange the hungers of the soul. Meals eaten in front of the television set turn eating into feeding.
“Wolfing down food dishonours both the human effort to prepare it and the lives of plants and animals sacrificed on our behalf. The habits of incivility, insensitivity and ingratitude learned at the family dinner table are carried out in the wider world, infecting all of American life.
“Conversely, good habits and thoughtful attitudes regarding food and eating have far-reaching benefits for both individuals and society at large. Self-restraint, consideration for others, politeness, fairness, generosity, tact, discernment, good taste and the art of friendly conversation all learnable and practised at the table enrich and enoble all of human life.”
So, the long, sociable meal is not just about enjoyment and taste, it is also about building civil society.
So what better time to make your contribution to building civil society than a slow meal with friends or family over the festive season. Preferably under a shady tree with a braai nearby although not too close in case the wind is blowing in the wrong direction and cooling facilities for drink, whether alcoholic or not.
Of course, this could be done in a restaurant, especially those with outside facilities and shade. But unless it is a really classy place, they often want to get you out as quickly as possible so that they make some bucks out of someone else, particularly over the holiday season when profits are high. So, to avoid the feeling of pressure to hurry up and finish, and not order another bottle of wine, do it yourself. Be PC and help build civil society this Christmas: enjoy your long and sociable meal. Cheers.