Go slow
Respect for the flavour and diversity of seasonal, locally produced ingredients is one of the guiding principles of the international coalition of chefs and industry insiders known as the Slow Food Movement. At its core is the desire to rediscover and savour the tastes of small-scale top-quality food and wine producers typical of their region.
It was the arrival of the Big Mac in Rome's Piazza Navona back in 1989 that prompted respected Italian food and drink critic Carlo Petrini to found the Slow Food Movement to counter the harmful effects of fast-food culture on traditional eating customs.
At the heart of the Slow manifesto is a belief that everyone has a right to food of genuine quality and taste. It opposes global standardisation and narrowing of choice in the pursuit of convenience and higher productivity, which threatens the survival and diversity of particular food varieties.
For example, although Coca-Cola can be produced anywhere in the world and have an identical taste, a mountain cheese can achieve a certain flavour only if it is produced in a specific place following particular age-old techniques.
Slow is not purely a celebration of Italian regional artisan-produced food and wine, nor is its sphere of influence limited to Italy. Its philosophy is so compelling that it has more than 60,000 active members from 40 countries worldwide. In the UK, there are already eight local branches, called Convivia.
Slow Food has also taken its ideals to communities in need. For example, the Hakura Project in Brazil involves monthly financial support to the kitchen of a local hospital for long-term patients, with the proviso that nutritious food typical of the region is provided - a key tenet of the Slow Food philosophy.
In the UK, Slow Food hopes to provide opportunities to discover and taste ingredients in their natural provenance and promote awareness of local craft-based food skills. In doing so, it aims to protect and preserve small-scale food producers who reflect regional culture, skill and tradition.
Slow's guiding principles of conviviality and taking pleasure in shared good eating, is surely what being in the restaurant business should be all about.
The snail was chosen by the movement as an appropriate symbol of slowness with gastronomic connotations, not only to encourage the restoration of escargots to their rightful place on the menu, but also as an emblem of steadiness - a talisman against speed and impatience.
Undoubtedly the most celebrated event in the Slow Food calendar is the Salone del Gusto (Hall of Taste), an international fair of traditional food and wine producers, with more than 300 taste workshops, held biannually in Turin.
This year, Oliver Peyton's Isola in Knightsbridge, London, is holding a smaller event, La Sagra del Gusto. There will be taste workshops, a menu of osteria classics faithfully interpreted by head chef Bruno Loubet, and degustazione dinners prepared by three leading exponents of Italy's regional cooking. The aim is to celebrate the contribution Slow has already made to preserving Italy's artisan culinary heritage and to demonstrate what Slow Food UK could achieve.
"It's all about respect for terroir," says Loubet, a Frenchman, who first came across the Slow Food Movement about three years ago. "Its philosophy reflected my way of thinking, my concern with using only the highest quality, traditionally produced ingredients."
Loubet admits he is lucky that Peyton shares his beliefs. "I appreciate too many chefs are hampered by financial tensions which can undermine affording to buy the best ingredients," he says. "Oliver and I believe in sourcing ingredients of definitive integrity and consider this stance vindicated by the pleasure on the palate.
"I think the culinary stars of the future will be the producers rather than the chefs strutting their technical virtuosity. I love food with a story and a genuine local flavour - that is the essence of what enjoyment of good food should be about. With all the present problems in the food line, it is even more prescient to see beauty in simplicity.
"Our aim with the Sagra del Gusto is to create more interest and awareness of the Slow Food philosophy among professional chefs and the general public to help redefine our understanding of what real food is all about. I hope it will blow the minds of even the most jaded diners."
Loubet's commitment to local produce is deep-rooted. His father's family were shepherds in the Pyrenees and his family grew all their own fruit and vegetables, as well as rearing chickens and pigs. "I used to enjoy the rituals of going to the woods to pick cèpes, collecting eggs from our chickens and my mother making an enormous cèpe omelette served with salad from the garden," he says. "Some time in the future I will realise my dream of getting back to the soil by having a farm with a restaurant attached serving food I produce on my land."
Loubet says his first visit to the international Salone del Gusto last year was like being in paradise. "I would be tasting a salami, for example, and thinking that it was totally fantastic, and then tasting another even better. Meeting producers who were such passionate and characterful believers in what they do was hugely enjoyable too."
Among his most exhilarating experiences was coming across a rare pecorino, formaggio di Fossa, found just north of Bologna. The farmers put the cheeses into muslin bags and bury them in special wells lined with bricks covered with hay and leaves, before recovering them six months later. "Each time the cheeses taste a little different, sometimes more piquant, but always with a farmyard pungency," he says.
For the Sagra, Loubet has invested heavily in regionally sourced craft ingredients, many of which are rarely found outside their particular regions - more than 20kg of lardo di Colonata packed in marble, sarcophagus-like slabs with rosemary and oregano and served sliced thinly on bread; 15kg of culatelli, 35kg of fresh Piedmontese snails, 70kg of cotechino from Bologna, mortadella with its own DOC, Florentine finocchioni, artisan pastas from Gragnano, and vintage three-year-old parmigiano reggiano from the Bilzi family of Zaboform.
Loubet has spent time in Italy getting to know the chefs hosting the degustazione dinners at Isola. They have been chosen for being among the best exponents of fiercely regional gastronomic tradition. He jokes of a gruelling 1,200-mile round trip to discuss menus with the chefs, who come from three great osteria (traditional inns noted for their faithful use of indigenous ingredients and extensive selection of local wines).
"They have such incredible, obstinate pride and belief in their local produce and recipes," says Loubet. "They insist on bringing almost every ingredient. In fact, they're practically bringing their whole restaurants to London."
La Sagra del Gusto dinner dates
Dinners will commence at 7.30pm for 8pm at Isola (upstairs). Five courses at £35 per person, excluding service and drinks.
26 and 27 March
Chef: Renzo Vivalda, Ristorante Antica Corona Reale, Cervere, Piemonte
In the Vivalda family since 1855, the restaurant is the only one in Italy to hold a licence to serve lumache (snails) di Cherasco, which will be on the menu served ai porri di cervere con le mele (with local leeks and apple). Also on offer will be beef from Piedmontese cows - one of the world's most prized breeds of cattle, now protected by the Presidio Slow Food - La Granda.
Menu
Cherasco snails with leek and apple
Pasta with local sausage
Pot-roast veal with capers, olives and olive oil
Cheese
28 and 29 March
Chef: Peppino Tinari, Ristorante Villa Maiella di Guardiagrele, Chieti, Abruzzo
Located near both the Adriatic sea and the Appenine plains, this simple restaurant's specialities include dried liver sausage, lamb, home-made preserves and mosto cotto (cooked grape must). Chieti itself is famous for its torrone di fichi cecchi (nougat with dried figs), which Tinari hopes to bring to London.
Menu
Antipasti of liver sausage, ricotta, pickled mushrooms, crostini with herbs
Soup with cracked wheat, truffle and olive oil
New season milk-fed lamb with pumpkin and herbs
Cheese
Vanilla ice-cream with vina cotta
30 and 31 March
Chef: Giberto Venturini, Ristorante L'Ochina Bianca, Mantova, Lombardia
The cuisine of Mantova offers many sweet and savoury combination dishes, such as its famed tortelli di zucca (pasta filled with pumpkin) which is traditionally made with a mostarda of apple and spices. Venturini is arguably best known for his sbrisolona, an almond-based cake typical to Lombardy.
Menu
Tortelli di zucca served in a consommé
Pike poached in vinegar and oil with grilled polenta, pepper and salad
Braised beef
Cheese
Apple and pear compôte with vanilla ice-cream, candied pumpkin and vina cotta
Bruno Loubet's own menu will be served at lunch and dinner in Osteria Isola all week. Dishes will include:
Bruschetta di lardo, panzenella - made with clarified tomato juice mixed with tomatoes, capers, celery, basil and a special bread from southern Italy
Snails from Ischia
A wooden platter of the very best salumi including mortadella di culatello from Emilia Romagna
Florentine finocchiona (type of mortadella flavoured with fennel)
Passateli, a pasta made with bread, eggs, Parmesan, nutmeg and salt and pepper from Emilia Romagna
Grilled squid with tuna, clam and roasted tomato on the vine sauce
Sea bass en papilotte with orange and mint
Milk-fed lamb, stuffed and roasted with artichokes and fennel
Slow Food taste workshops
Taste workshops are the hallmark of the Slow Food Movement and are designed to encourage participants to use their palate to recognise the specific qualities and flavours of the typical products and wines
Ticket price: £25, Slow Food members £20
27 March, 5.30pm Ischia: an island of land
The agricultural traditions and typical food of Ischia are threatened by mass tourism. A tasting of protected and endangered products of the island by the D'Ambra family from trattoria Il Focolare, with wines from Casa D'Ambra and Pietratorcia.
29 March, 5.30pm Mountain cheeses
A tasting of cheeses from the best artisan makers committed to keeping alive the tradition of mountain cheeses, with wines from Fontanafredda.
29 March, 3.30pm Cheeses of Italy
A tasting journey through Italy's most prestigious cheeses, from parmigiano reggiano to mozzarella di bufala campana, selected by ZaboForm with wines from Terre Cortesi Di Moncaro.
30 March, 3.30pm Great cured meats of Italy
A tasting of traditional and rare salumi, selected by Zaboform, with wines from Piacenza.
31 March, 3.30pm The sweets of the south
Taste the great pastry tradition of southern Italy from Corsino di Palazzolo Acreade, with some of the best Sicilian dessert wines.
Joining the show
Membership, costing £33 a year, includes: four issues of Slow, two issues of Slow Wine, an anthology of Slow Annual Awards held in Bologna, discounts on all Slow products, the right to attend all Slow events internationally (subject to availability). There are now eight regional Convivia in the UK, organising educational and pleasurable dinners, taste workshops, lectures and trips. Tel/fax: 01844 339362, e-mail: wfogarty@compuserve.com
La Sagra del Gusto - Slow Food's Celebration of Taste, 26-31 March, Isola, 145 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7PA. Tel: 020 7838 1044/1055.
Oliver Peyton (right) and head chef Bruno Loubet at Isola, where
a celebration of traditional Italian food and drink is being held next week
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 22-28 March 2001
Photographs: Sam Bailey
