Artisan Foods Reader

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UNDER CONSTRUCTION - LOTS MORE CONTENT COMING SOON

"There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk. That is what I say when people ask me, "Why do you write of food, and not of love and war?"" -MFK Fisher

Slow Food

Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract 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, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. Today, there are over 80,000 members all over the world. Major projects include a bienniel exposition of arisan foods called Salone Del Gusto, and a meeting of 5000 small farmers from across the world called Terra Madre. Slow Food International web site

“I am a gastronome. No, not the glutton with no sense of restraint whose enjoyment of food is greater the more plentiful and forbidden it is. No, not the fool who is given to the pleasures of the table and indifferent to how the food got there. I like to know the history of a food and of the place that it comes from, I like to imagine the hands of the people who grew it, transported it, processed it, and cooked it before it was served to me. I do not want the food I consume to deprive others in the world of food. I like traditional farmers, the relationship they have with the earth, and the way they appreciate what is good. The good belongs to everyone; pleasure belongs to everyone, for it is human nature.”

- Carlo Petrini, Founder. Slow Food Movement, President of Slow Food International. Quote from his book Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should be Good, Clean, and Fair (Originally published in Italian as Bueno, Polito, et Justo.) Photo shows Carlo Petrini at the 2006 Salone Del Gusto in Turino, Italy with Artisan Food conference organizer Lonnie Gamble, Valeire Gamble, and Clair and Torrey Witherspoon.

Artisan Foods defined

Carlo Petrini talk at UC Berkeley - 8 min. Carlo Petrini is founder and head of the world wide Slow Food movement. Picture shows Carlo Petrini with Lonnie and Valerie Gamble and students Claire and Torrey Witherspoon at the Salone Del Gusto in Torino, Italy in October, 2006.

Taste of Place

Article by Kellogg Agriculture and Food Policy Fellow Arlin Wasserman - Taste, Place, and Prosperity

Cheese

Great report from a cheesemaker in Wisconsin who got a small grant to study affinage (cheese aging) in France. Affinage Report

Audio interview about the renaissance in artisan cheese production in Ireland. Recorded by Lonnie Gamble at the Salone Del Gusto, Turino, Italy, October 2006. Irish Cheese Renaissance

Great Taste radio show on artisan cheese with host Steve Boss. Great Taste cheese show

Bread

Article about US Artisan Bread Makers: Artisan Bread Article

Wine

Great web site about the beyond organic, natural wine movement. Natural wines are made without industrial yeasts or other manipulations, little- or not-sulphated, and unfiltered. From France, in English. http://www.morethanorganic.com

Traditional Balsamic Vinegar

Big Green Summer faculty Steve Boss arranged for Claire and Torrey Witherspoon to work on a farm near Modena, Italy for 4 months, learning the process of making traditional balsamic vinegar. See more about Claire and Torrey's trip at http://www.torreyandheliinitaly.blogspot.com/

Iowa Products

Example Projects

Simone's Plain and Simple - Simone Delatey's two-day-a-week restaurant outside of Iowa City is sold out 6 months in advance. If you are one of the lucky ones with a reservation, you can eat her artisan breads made in a wood fired oven, surrounded by her gardens, which supply produce and herbs for your meal. http://www.simoneplainandsimple.com

Primo restaurant, Rockland, Maine http://www.primorestaurant.com/

Arrows Restaurant in Ogunquit Maine has a market garden integrated into the restaurant read more here

Inspiration from France and Italy

Great quotes on food policy and culture in France from Sixty Million Frenchman Can't be Wrong

Example: "“The way the French look at it, cooking is not a detached process of transforming food. It is an extension of the land itself, a natural prolongation, a system of value adding where the end product is an extension of the dirt where it started. The French are profoundly land attached, or as they say, terrien."