Entries associated with the tag "Slow Food":

In the early 90s there were fewer than ten raw milk cheese makers in the U.S. At this year’s American Cheese Society meeting, held in Burlington, Vermont, in August, almost half of the 200 producers who entered the competition had a raw milk cheese offering.

Before 1862, when Louis Pasteur determined that heating and refrigerating milk could kill harmful pathogens, all cheese was made with raw milk. Since then there has been continuing pressure to pasteurize all milk products, though in 1949 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration OK'd the use of raw milk for cheese as long as the cheese was aged 60 days. As Judy Schad of Indiana-based Capriole Farmstead Goat Cheeses explained in a presentation at Pastoral the other night, a 60-day aging period ensures that “good” bacteria overgrows “bad” bacteria, such as listeria and salmonella, which are also destroyed as the cheese product becomes progressively more acidic.

In the view of professionals like Schad, as well as food scientists such as Harold McGee and artisan cheese chroniclers and Slow Food enthusiasts such as Jeffrey Roberts, you can make a very good cheese using pasteurized milk. Consensus, however, seems to be that raw milk is more conducive to truly great cheese. Natural flora – which varies by factors such as terrain, the grasses grazed upon, and the time of year – are what give cheeses made from raw milk a distinctive terroir, an indelible taste of the land. These unique flavor compounds are frequently processed out during pasteurization.

As part of her presentation, Schad walked us through a number of cheeses; two that stood out for me were the Grayson from Meadow Creek Dairy and Mont Saint Francis under Schad’s own Capriole label, both raw milk products. These are some serious cheeses: if you search “stinky” on the Web site for Artisanal Premium Cheeses, these two are at the top of the list.

Grayson is made of raw cow’s milk from Meadow Creek’s farm in Galax, Virginia. It’s “washed rind,” which means the cheese makers stimulate the surface growth of B. linens (Brevibacterium linens) by rinsing the cheese in brine; the cheese, in effect, ripens from the outside in. The Southern Foodways Alliance named this cheese one of its top ten southern cheeses, praising it with words such as “very strong smelling, funky” and “barny and earthy.” I found it powerfully buttery and pleasingly minerally around the edge. Schad described it as akin to a “creamy Gruyere,” though that may understate its potency. I found it a match for a big red wine, both cheese and wine holding their own as they duked it out in my mouth.

Schad called her Mont Saint Francis “a backseat cheese,” meaning that when you drive home with it, you’d best put it in the trunk to avoid being knocked off the road by its assertive and alluring aroma. This raw farmstead goat’s milk cheese, produced in the Kentuckiana region of Indiana, also has a washed rind, and is semihard with a mellow flavor you wouldn’t anticipate if you went by smell alone. Somewhat salty, it tingles the tongue and has an almost crumbly texture. When it comes to pairing drink with this cheese, Schad doesn’t mess around: she suggests bourbon or a bitter beer as accompaniments.  You definitely something with enough backbone to withstand the gustatory onslaught.

Pastoral, at 2954 N. Broadway, carries both Meadow Creek Dairy’s Grayson and Capriole’s Mont Saint Francis, at $19.99 and $25.95, respectively. Obviously that’s a hell of a lot more than you’d pay for a block of cheddar at the grocery store, but as Daniel Sirko, Pastoral’s fromager, says, “These are artisan products; they’re very labor intensive and express a depth that’s not possible with a commodity product. It’s like the difference between a handmade suit and something off-the-rack, or an original painting and a reproduction.”

The Park Grill, Park Cafe, and concession stands in Millennium Park feature "regional delicacies" as part of the Great Performers of Illinois Festival this Friday through Sunday. Among the offerings at the Park Grill: chilled corn soup with creme fraiche and American caviar, pork with a horseradish lime vinaigrette, soybean and watercress salad with pecorino and orange zest, and sweet corn flan, as well as wine from local wineries. The Park Cafe will feature Parmesan and truffle popcorn with black pepper. Apparently popcorn is the official state snack of Illinois--who knew? 

The Chicago Korean Festival also runs this Saturday and Sunday--there'll be traditional Korean food, cooking demos, and an eating contest, as well as live music and dance. Admission is free.

Wine is a time-honored tradition for bringing singles together, but it's not every day that master sommelier Alpana Singh is there to advise. And judging from the chapter of her book titled "Pairings: Wine, Hooking Up, and Dating," she's quite familiar with the combination. The Book Cellar's DateandDash singles mixer on Saturday features a wine tasting hosted by Singh from 5:30 to 6:45 PM, followed by speed dating until 8. It's $39 with the wine tasting, $32 without; registration is required.

Slow Food Chicago and the fruit fans at Seedling team up for Hot Chocolate's five-course peach dinner this Monday at 6:30 PM. It'll include peach and green tomato gazpacho, lambic poached peaches filled with Jasper Hill Winnemare cheese, peach-sugar cured Copper River salmon smoked over peach wood, and peach succotash, among other offerings. The $50 ticket includes wine pairings but not tax and tip.

Bringing a taste of France to Chicago, Cafe Matou's monthly wine dinner this Tuesday at 7 PM showcases the Basque region with dishes including grilled, marinated octopus and spicy gazpacho with crab-chorizo toasts. The "Le Pays Basque" dinner is five courses with wine pairings; it's $65 a person. And Kiki's Bistro is featuring a special three-course Provencal menu from August 15-31 for its Taste of Provence. The menu is $55 with wine (five rosés are being featured) or $35 without.

Joel "Gubnah" Smith of Slow Food Chicago just forwarded this letter from Carlo Petrini addressing the controversy stirred up by a passage in his book Slow Food Nation. The letter to CUESA, the Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture, which organizes the Ferry Plaza market in San Francisco, was sent May 10, prior to the spat going public. 

Dear CUESA,

I was quite surprised to learn in the past few days about some negative reactions to a passage called "Green California" in my just-published book, Slow Food Nation, and wanted to take a moment to try to explain my intentions and clarify what I believe happened.
 
First of all, I want to apologize for any offense caused by this passage, whether to your organization or the many farmers who are your members and collaborators.  It was absolutely not my intention to denigrate or attack the farmers of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market  or of any farmers market, for that matter.  I hope that you will consider the rest of my book, not to mention the range of Slow Food projects I have founded over the past twenty years, a testament to the deep admiration I feel for the farmers who grow sustainably and depend on the direct market economies of farmers markets, both in the United States and around the world.  The network of farmers and food producers that we brought together at Terra Madre has only helped to reinforce how strongly I believe in the importance of farmers as defenders of the earth and stewards of our future. 

In part, I believe that the translation of this passage was, unfortunately, not as accurate as it should have been, and that the misinterpretation of certain phrases and the omission of a few key words resulted in a tone that differs significantly from the spirit of what I wrote in Italian. In fact, my original words were meant to demonstrate the positive impression I had of the two farmers with whom I spoke, based on their apparent success in making farming a viable livelihood for themselves.

I have also come to realize that this specific passage may be vulnerable to misunderstandings when judged outside of the context of the chapter in which it resides, not to mention the book in its entirety. For this I can only apologize for the imperfections of my own writing, in my attempt to explore some of the contradictions that exist within the highly relative concept ofsustainability.   

The loss of biodiversity in our food supply; the rights of migrant farm workers; the elitism argument against organic and artisanal foods; not to mention the twin epidemics of obesity and hunger that plague our planet, are all contradictions which we need to acknowledge and explore in a way that respects multiple cultures and points of view. 

I believe strongly that the only way in which we can overcome these contradictions is to create a dialogue where we face these issues with an open mind and a generous heart. I very much look forward to meeting with you on Saturday where we can come together to recognize our common values in the pursuit of food that is good, clean and fair. 

In friendship,
 
Carlo Petrini
President
Slow Food International

On Sunday afternoon Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini had just finished a lunch of rare wholesomeness at a long, sun-dappled table behind a log farmhouse just outside of Champaign, and was expanding in Italian upon the themes of his new book, Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, and Fair. Craig Svozil, a young chef from Vie, sidled up to to his interpreter and asked if the august gastronome had tried the lamb prosciutto. “I made it,” he whispered.

Petrini took in the news and his eyes widened. “Eccellente!' Complementi!" "In Italy they call it a violin," he continued through his translator. "They hold it like a violin when they cut it.”     

The visit to Prairie Fruits Farm, which took place the day after Petrini's speech before more than 500 at Northwestern Law School, was arranged by Slow Food Chicago, and a set designer couldn't have manufactured a more perfect pastorality for the Illinois stop of his book tour. Four baby goats frolicked on the lawn, while on the other side of the table a plump speckled Sussex hen clucked and pecked in grass. In attendance were some of the local celebrity farmers championed by the group. There were John and Connie Caveny, Monticello producers of Bourbon Red turkeys and Rouen ducks. Henry Brockman, a fixture at the Evanston farmers' market was there, and Stan Schutte--named 2006 Farmer of the Year by the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service--was grilling brats with his son on a giant rig beside the driveway. Hosts Leslie Cooperband and Wes Jarrell make the only farmstead cheese in Illinois, which means it is made on the premises with milk from their own goats. These farmers were the real deal. One had arrived with an ugly purple lump on his lower lip, the result of a kick from one of his sheep.     

Petrini was accompanied by a small entourage of young organization staffers, including Erika Lesser, director of  Slow Food USA. The day before she sat with her hands folded, translating, while Petrini wandered the Northwestern stage, addressing the audience as much with his hands as with his words. An Italian woman later described his oratory, heavily inflected with the idiom of his Piedmont hometown of Bra, as like that of an politician from the 70s, colorful and a little old fashioned. “Cursed be those that reduce gastronomy to the spoon and pot!” he declaimed, meaning those who imagine gastronomy as a narrow focus on recipes and cookbooks rather than the multidisciplinary science he proposes will save the world from itself.    

The farm visit was the sort of exercise in “taste education”--going out to meet the people and visit the places that produce good food--in which Petrini thinks everyone should be taking part. Before lunch Leslie Cooperband led the group through the the farm's cheesemaking operation, housed in a converted machine shed. Before entering the cheese cave (a walk-in cooler), a woman broke off from the group, poised her nose next to a bale of hay, and inhaled. “I love the smell of hay,” she sighed. Petrini posed for pictures standing next to Cooperband and Jarrell with a plastic container full of aging blue. Then it was time to meet the goats, who obligingly proffered their heads for scratching.    

Petrini's visit to the United States hasn't all been baby goats and heritage turkey enchiladas. A book signing at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market was scotched when vendors there objected to a section in Slow Food Nation relating an earlier visit, and the scuffle blew up on the blogosphere. In what could have been just an undiplomatically translated bit of soul searching, Petrini addressed a common criticism of the local, organic, and sustainable products he celebrates: they can be be prohibitively expensive to the eater of average means, let alone for the poor. In it he described a farmer at Ferry Plaza who claimed he earned enough from selling high priced squash in two monthly trips to the city that he could support his family and spend hours surfing. Petrini went on to liken the market's customers  to “actresses, [who] went home clutching their peppers, marrows and apples, showing them off like jewels, status symbols.”    

At lunch Petrini, who had visited our own boutique Green City Market, said he wasn't trying to be critical. “He is not against the fact that it is expensive,” said Carlo Bogliotti, the Slow Food staffer who translated. “For him, when the farmer earns money it is always right. The problem in the the U.S. is not that you have expensive foods in farmers' markets. The problem is that food is too inexpensive. The food is too cheap and cannot be quality.”     

Petrini believes that taste education will bring quality to the mainstream. Once people know what is good and are willing to pay fairly for it, he argued Sunday, a host of small farmers will respond and a host of small local economies will develop to meet the demand.

Still, critics of the Slow Food movement, wonder how a dismantling of the agro-industrial complex capable of producing lots of cheap, low-quality food will feed the world. As befits the name of his organization he's not in much of a hurry. All of this will happen slowly, he said, at a manageable scale. He's not advocating a Pol Pot-style agrarian revolution--these are market-driven solutions, after all--though some of his rhetoric contains a revolutionary whiff of the late-60s Italian left from whence he came. “We need to increase the number of farmers,” he pronounced. “This is how we will prevail over the capitalist-industrial system!”     

After the meal he stood and praised the food produced by the farmers and the chefs in the group. “I was really curious to see how these goats were being raised,” he said. “I've decided if I get to have another life I want to come back as a goat here.” He then posed for a group photo, kissed the women goodbye, and headed back out on the road.

Another busy week with the National Restaurant Association show and American Craft Beer Week, but unless you've been in a food coma all month, you know the big gig is Slow Food International founder Carlo Petrini's lecture at Northwestern Law School. You can read my Critic's Choice writeup in the paper (not online yet) here and buy your tickets here.

In the meantime, tonight Gourmet Magazine's Gourmet Wine Cellar hoedown at the River East Arts Center, 335 E. Illinois, happens at 6. There'll be tastings, seminars, and cooking demos by the likes of Sara Moulton, Achatz, and Bayless, and noshes from some 16 local restos. $100 benefits the Greater Chicago Food Depository. 

Friday, Women Chefs and Restaurateurs presents a dinner at the Union League Club of Chicago, 65 W. Jackson, featuring the work of local gals Deann Bayless, Ina Pinkney, Michele Garcia, and others. It's $150 .

Saturday Bobtail Ice Cream Company outlets at 2951 N. Broadway, 3425 N. Southport, and 338 W. Armitage is giving away free scoops between noon and 3 PM.

Also on Saturday The Drinking & Writing Brewery, which "works to keep the tradition of the hard-drinking writer alive," presents the Beerfly Alleyfight at Rock Bottom Brewery, 1 W. Grand. Ten home brewers will pair a special beer of their own making to a special dish which will then be interpreted by a dancer, actor, musician, photographer, or some other artist. It's $10 and starts at 1 PM

Sunday Clotilde Dusoulier creator of Chocolate and Zucchini, is signing her Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen at the Book Cellar at 1:30 PM. 

On Wednesday at 7 PM Alpana Singh and Adam Seger conduct a tasting of 20 Italian wines for $20 at Osteria via Stato, 620 N. State. Call 312-642-8450 for reservations. 

Also on Wednesday at 7,  Lucy Saunders, author of Grilling With Beer: Bastes, BBQ Sauces, Mops, Marinades & More, Made with Craft Beer, will be signing the book at the Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln. She promises beer from Unibroue.

Last month I reported the unconfirmed visit of Slow Food International founder Carlo Petrini for a major speech tied to the U.S. release of his book, Slow Food Nation: Why our Food Should be Good, Clean, and Fair. Well, now it's confirmed: Saturday, May 19, at 2 PM in Thorne Auditorium at Northwestern University Law School, 375 E. Chicago. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased through the Chicago Humanities Festival. Call 312-661-1028, ext. 40.

UPDATE: Slow Food Chicago says the book title has been changed from Slow Food Nation: A Blueprint for Changing the Way We Eat, despite what Amazon says. 

It's not official yet but a particularly credible little bird told me that we can expect a visit some time in May from Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini, who'll be touring in support of the U.S. publication of Slow Food Nation: A Blueprint for Changing the Way We Eat, due out in late April. It's more than a simple book signing. I'm told this will be a major speech outlining the principles of the book, that food should be "Good, Clean, and Fair," which happens to be the title of the Italian edition. For people who care about food, this is something like Jesus coming to town to reprise the Sermon on the Mount. The event was originally booked for May 16 at the Instituto Italiano di Cultura, but organizers fear that venue isn't big enough--Petrini draws thousands when he speaks in Europe. It'll probably happen a few days later in a larger space. Stay tuned for more details.