Slow Food

‘Slow Food’ – a clever play on words that says so much. The perfect rejoinder to the loud and flashy proclamations of ‘Fast Food’. You can almost taste the phrase ‘Slow Food’ - it conjures up images, whiffs and echoes of unhurried meals; of palates surprised and delighted by the gentle release of flavours; of kitchens laden with produce from local bazaars and souks.

The Slow Food Movement has been simmering for a while now, beginning in the mid-eighties in Italy and steadily drawing in other continents into its appetizing manifesto: We must reclaim our right to taste.

Like all Movements, this one too is a ground-swell. Coming from a growing realization that in the last 50 years we have wittingly (and sometimes unwittingly) surrendered our taste buds (and of course our health) to the swagger and strut of Fast Food. We welcomed it into our homes, offices and even our holiday resorts – for it seemed like the perfect partner to our increasingly hectic lifestyles. More insidiously, Fast Food has become synonymous with a global definition of taste – the promise of an ‘unvarying’, ‘dependable’ flavour - whether you eat it in Barcelona or Bhavnagar. In response to this, the Slow Food Movement has got up and said – hey, we don’t appreciate this standardization – that’s not how real humans eat!

While globalization of any kind leads to circulation and exchange, in the matter of food, it has led to a forced homogenization that simply ignores or obscures local tastes, eating rituals, processes, and products. For instance, every culture, literally every family, has always had its own traditional ‘fast food’ – something that you rustle up in minutes for a quick bite which is low on fuss, high on taste, convenient to pack and eat on the move, and is cheap and healthy too. This kind of food usually never needs any packaging more elaborate than a piece of banana leaf or paper. Street food too, traditionally, has boasted of these qualities. The Indian wada pav, for instance, is the quintessential fast food. Moreover, each cook has his or her own unique blend, so that no one wada pav tastes like the other. But it’s fast being replaced by Big Brother versions that have altered the way we think about a quick bite.

Like all old cultures, India has always revelled in Slow Food. Quite routinely, even today, most of our home food is cooked ‘from scratch’. While convenience foods have gained much ground, and are a great option once in a while, most homes still buy fresh foods, wash and chop them on the spot, use masalas and condiments freshly ground, and sit down to a meal around a table, usually with the entire family. While the TV may be an additional member at this meal, there is no pre-packaged TV dinner, thank god! The fridge is an important member of our homes too, even presiding over the living room sometimes, but look into the fridge of an average Indian family, and rarely will you find frozen meals, pre-cooked ingredients, too many store-bought sauces and flavourings. You’ll find some milk, possibly dahi, maybe butter and a few veggies, possibly a chocolate or two. It’s not a sign of our poverty, it signals the affluence of our eating habits. We take it nice and slow!

And when it comes to occasions, festivals, celebrations, the slower the better. We’ve all heard of and even savoured the biryani that’s been on dum for 5 hours, the payas that have been simmering overnight, the rajma that is under no pressure to cook fast, and is allowed to release its velvety texture at its own leisurely pace on the back burner, the sweets that are made only after milk has been coaxed and caressed gently into reducing itself to a dense, creamy khoya…this is the stuff of an Indian meal.

It’s not just in our homes. Most Indian eateries too - Udupi joints, Chinese restaurants (of course Chinese food is Indian!), Mughlai places, you name it - end the day swiping and wiping clean their utensils, their stoves, their counters and their kitchens. So that they can begin literally from scratch the next day. No leftovers, no recycled curries, no reincarnated veggies, and most importantly, no pre-prepared ingredients. Only our more ‘globally oriented’ restaurants will promise you unvarying taste, guaranteed by the ‘cater packs’ of tomato and onion and garlic and ginger pastes that they will cook ‘authentic’ food with. If this is what ‘hospitality’ and ‘good dining’ now boils down to, we’re in trouble!

Pleasure, variety, rediscovery, surprise, adventure, relish, good company, flowing conversation are some of the word-pictures associated with food – cooking and eating it. Fortunately, many of us still savour these first hand, and some of us who are losing out on them are quite aware of what we see slipping away from us. The Slow Food Movement is steadily reclaiming the ground that we have lost to rush-job restaurants and a.s.a.p cuisine. It’s putting back the taste in food and the pleasure in cooking – and reminding us in India that we’ve always done it that way!

If Slow Food has grown into an international movement with over 60,000 members in five continents, it is because the concept of ‘pleasure’ is a complex one that refuses to be formatted and standardized and offered up as a globally rateable activity! The Slow Foodies want ardently to preserve and celebrate the shades and nuances that every culture brings to the words ‘pleasure’ and ‘enjoyment’. Cheers to that, or as they say in some parts of rural Maharashtra before a meal of a local brew and fish curry made from skipper fish caught in the village stream: Chaang Bhale! (Good on Everyone!)