The Pleasures of Slow Food: Celebrating Authentic Traditions, Flavors, and Recipes [Hardcover]

Corby Kummer (Author), Susie Cushner (Photographer), Carlo Petrini (Introduction), Eric Schlosser (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

In a world increasingly dominated by fast food, The Pleasures of Slow Food celebrates heritage recipes, artisan traditions, and the rapid evolution of a movement to make good food a part of everyday life. Slow Food is defined by how its made: if its allowed to ripen before its harvested, prepared by hand and enjoyed among friends, its Slow Food. Its a philosophy, a way to farm, a way to cook...a way to live. Its also the name of a 65,000-strong international movement, numbering among its members some of the most distinguished names in the food world. The Pleasures of Slow Food showcases over 60 recipes from the worlds most innovative chefs for dishes that feature local handmade ingredients and traditional cooking methods. Premier food writer Corby Kummer also profiles Slow Foods luminaries, such as Italian cheese maker Roberto Rubino and Canadian Karl Kaiser, who makes sweet ice-wine. Pairing fantastic recipes with engaging stories, The Pleasures of Slow Food brings the best of the food world to the kitchen table.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As its name suggests, the Slow Food movement, founded in Italy, is dedicated to preserving and promoting traditional foodways--to protecting artisanal food producers and the pleasures of eating well. Corby Kummer's The Pleasures of Slow Food introduces readers to the movement and its goals, while acquainting them with some of the producers worldwide who embody its spirit and objectives. Thus we meet the likes of Cindy and David Meyers, whose Vermont dairy makes exceptional cheeses, and Germany's Torshen Kramer, producer of fine cured meats and sausages. The artisans also share with Kummer the stories of their work (of their early cheese-making efforts Cindy Meyers says, "The bleu wouldn't turn blue ... I buried a lot of cheese in the manure pile").

Most excitingly, perhaps, Kummer has included 40 recipes from chefs and everyday cooks whose approach to food and cooking also represents the Slow Food ideal, and in this Kummer has excelled. Not meant for weekday cooking, but easily doable if, in line with the Slow Food ideal, people will put aside time to produce truly gratifying food, the recipes are hits that just keep on coming. Whether it's a simple Chicken Cacciatore with Baked Potatoes from the Piedmontese farm of Elena Rovera; Fried Plantains with Chipotle Ketchup, courtesy of Steve Johnson at the Blue Room restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts; an extraordinary lamb stew from master chef Daniel Boulud; or Alice Waters's caramelized Apricot Tart, the recipes are universally superb. With an introduction by Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and marvelous color photos by Susie Cushner, the oversize book offers a thoughtful introduction to the movement, as well as culinary thrills to those willing to take it slow. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

The organization Slow Food-meant to stand as the antithesis to "fast food"-dedicates itself to artisanal and traditional foods. Italian journalist Carlo Petrini, president of Slow Food, and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, contribute a brief preface and foreword, respectively. Kummer's history of the organization ably chronicles its growth from a protest against installation of a McDonald's in Rome in 1985 to its current focus on the Ark, "a directory of endangered foods around the world that members rescue by enjoying them." There is a section on 10 of the artisanal products included in the Ark, some coupled together for comparison (for example, there is a short essay on cheese made in the Basilicata region of Italy and another on cheese made in Vermont): these stories provide glimpses into the psyches of people like Jim Gerritsen, who has dedicated his life to growing heirloom potatoes in Maine. Kummer then offers simple, homespun recipes, and proposes that through each one, the homecook can learn "how to imprint that taste on your own dishes." Recipes are arranged from "Old World to New," so there are a few selections from Italy, such as Pesto alla Genovese from the Garibaldi family, who run a farmhouse restaurant in Liguria, and from Ireland-Baked Cheese with Winter Herbs from Tom and Giana Ferguson of County Cork. The vast majority of these 44 recipes, however, come from American restaurateurs such as Ana Sortun (Lamb Steak with Turkish Spices and Fava Bean Moussaka) from Oleana Restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., as well as from Alice Waters and Daniel Boulud. And while the recipes from America don't always focus on local ingredients, they do embrace the spirit of Slow Food. This is a noble and handsome effort.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811833798
• ISBN-13: 978-0811833790
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,272,511 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not much here, even for a slow reader, November 8, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Pleasures of Slow Food: Celebrating Authentic Traditions, Flavors, and Recipes (Hardcover)

I heard about this book on the radio and was very excited, since I love cooking and hate fast food. This book is overpriced and overproduced. The information about "slow food" is interesting, but could have been a long magazine article--just doesn't warrant oversized full-color treatment. There are very few recipes. I recommend the recent regional Italian cookbook, Rustico, by Mikol Negrin, a real treasure trove of slow recipes.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Essay on Slow Food. Little use as a cookbook, December 12, 2004

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B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Pleasures of Slow Food: Celebrating Authentic Traditions, Flavors, and Recipes (Hardcover)

`The Pleasures of Slow Food' is edited by Atlantic Monthly editor Corby Kummer in that the half of the book contains recipes collected from European and American chefs prominent in the Slow Food movement. The first thirty pages of the book are taken up by a preface written by the founder of the Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini, a Foreword written by Atlantic Monthly colleague (and author of the best-selling `Fast Food Nation') Eric Schlosser, and with an essay by the author on a description of the history and activities of the Slow Food organization. Eleven (11) essays take up the next fifty pages on various artisinal food producers. After the recipes is a very nice two-page table of contacts for the Slow Food movement in Europe and the United States and for contributors to this book.

The most important question to a prospective purchaser of this volume is `Do I want to shell out $40 for a collection of recipes by Rick Bayless, Deborah Madison, Alice Waters, Judy Rodgers, Paul Bertolli, Daniel Boulud and ten other notable American and European chefs'. The question becomes more acute if you, like me, already own twenty cookbooks by these contributors. I will soon point out some observations that make this decision even easier.

The `Slow Food' moniker for Carlo Petrini's movement is really a serious misnomer, as the primary objective of the movement is not as an adversary to MacDonalds, even though the projected startup of a MacDonalds at the base of Rome's Spanish steps was the precipitating act which set the movement in motion. As Allison Janney's character C. J. Craig said in a `West Wing' episode, `We need an enemy on this issue'. Fast food restaurants are not so much evil in themselves as, like Gresham's law, they threaten to drive out the things which this movement wishes to preserve. These valuables are artisinal foods and methods, most of which have been used and practiced for centuries, and are in danger of disappearing as much through the action of large food processors and government regulations as they are by the presence of a McDonald's in Rome. This is not to say Fast Food is not evil in its own right, as Schlosser points out, a typical fast food hamburger is a virtual soup of overprocessed, underflavored, artificial ingredients with an unpleasant aftertaste. But this is really a different battle than the preservation of valuable food traditions.

The Slow Food movement was founded in Italy, which still has the largest participation. In the early years of the movement, the leading country outside of Italy was Germany. France came to the table very late, and in the last few years, membership in the United States has been leading the charge alongside the Italians. This is largely due to the synergy between the movement's objectives and the vision of American culinary leaders such as Rick Bayless, Deborah Madison, Alice Waters, and Waters' apostles Judy Rodgers and Paul Bertolli.

The movement has three principle initiatives. These are the Ark, a directory of endangered foods around the world, the Presidia or local organizations which work at preserving Ark foods, and the Slow Food Award which brings attention and assistance to agricultural activists who work with Ark foods. The most visible activity of the movement is the Salone del Gusto, a multi-day conference on the activities of the movement. But back to the book.

As an introduction to the Slow Food movement, this book is much better than the two earlier books I have reviewed on this subject by prominent authors Paula Wolfert and Joyce Goldstein. Had I known of the information in this book before I reviewed Wolfert and Goldstein, I would have had a much better take on their books. Still, this book may be less valuable in the long run than the cookbooks by Wolfert and Goldstein. My first reason for saying this is that for $40, you are getting nothing more than 80 pages of recipes from a very wide variety of different voices. Since almost all cookbooks are, by their nature, reference books to which one goes when you need a recipe to fit a particular situation, this book is poor, as there is no central theme to the recipes. There is no question I can think of which would make me pull this book from my shelves in preference over any one of a dozen other books.

But wait a minute. Isn't this book supposed to be all about slow food? Yes, but the recipes in this book do not really exemplify the slow food objectives, as they simply do not focus on artisinal ingredients and techniques. And, unlike Wolfert's and Goldstein's books, the recipes range in style from Germany to Mexico. So, while a lust for something Italian may take me to Goldstein's book, nothing will suggest I go to this book. The only thing connecting the recipes is the recipes' authors are all active in the movement.

By far the most valuable contribution of this book is in its informing us of the various families of Ark foods to which we can give allegiance and to help support. The most famous issue for Americans may be the case of raw milk cheeses. As the government may at any moment tighten up on their ban on importing raw milk cheeses from Europe, creating these delights in the United States becomes more and more urgent.

While the book was written by a professional writer, I was surprised at the number of cases of poor usage and exaggerated metaphors I found in the text. It is really a bit much to say that a plate being passed from one person to another is white hot. My recollection from physics is that white-hot is about 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. But, this is not the real issue.

You may want this book if you need a good description of the Slow Food activities and objectives.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written (and beautiful) book on important movement, November 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Pleasures of Slow Food: Celebrating Authentic Traditions, Flavors, and Recipes (Hardcover)

I think that "The Pleasures of Slow Food" is a remarkable book with something for everyone. You can enjoy the engaging stories of farmers, food artisans and cultural preservationists from around the world, written in Kummer's delightful manner. Alternatively you can relish in the sheer beauty of the photography. It's even a cookbook if you want to try the recipes of world reknown chefs. But what I liked best was the understanding I gained from it about the Slow Food movement. I'd never heard of it before. When I bought the book I thought it just referred to slow cooking. Instead it is a truly important effort that combines the fight against the loss of traditional ways of growing and preparing foods (as big business assumes more and more control of agriculture) with the desire for healthy, realistic (and delicious) alternatives to a fast food, high fat diet. Who knew you could join a movement that was both making the world a better place while allowing you to nurture your palate? Rush to get this book and to support what it represents.