A World Of Presidia: Food, Culture & Community (Paperback)

~ Anya Fernald (Author), Serena Milano (Editor), Piero Sardo (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In southern Chile, only three fishermen still harvest the wild black-bordered oyster in the traditional way. The Slow Food Foundation is helping them preserve their technique and the oysters; to do so, it coordinates a small "presidium," a local project focusing on a group of producers of a single product that develops production and marketing techniques to allow them to be economically viable. This book introduces presidia from Canada to Madagascar to Nepal. Because the foods are all so closely related to local culture, the story of a particular product is often as much about the community that uses it as about the food itself (e.g., the pages devoted to India's mustard seed oil presidium tell of the seed's role in Hinduism). Most of the products have been neglected or adulterated as labor-intensive processes required to produce these foods are replaced by modern efficiency and advances in technology - but each presidium aims to show that the extra effort is worth it. Occasional longer sections discussing varied subjects (e.g., the importance of rice; the history of hot peppers) are scattered throughout. Anyone interested in biodiversity and sustainable agriculture, or who loves exotic and heritage foods, will find this a wonderful primer on some of the world's finest culinary products and the societies they have anchored. Photos. (Mar. 15)
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Product Description

The international Slow Food movement is well known for promoting and protecting the world’s unique and traditional foods, and the people (farmers, fishermen, and artisan producers) who grow them or bring them to market. A World of Presidia celebrates the diversity and quality of real food and the human culture that surrounds it. The book features detailed descriptions and gorgeous color photographs of sixty-five exceptional products in thirty different countries, each identified with a particular region of the world and a traditional way of farming and living.

Presidia projects offer a safe haven for a wide range of local and traditional products, from the Araucana or "blue egg chicken" of Chile, to Ireland’s wild smoked salmon, to the golden oil of Morocco’s argan tree, whose cultivation is helping to keep the Sahara Desert at bay. Each of these products is valuable in and of itself and worth preserving as part of our collective food heritage.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 178 pages
• Publisher: Slow Food Editore (April 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8884990858
• ISBN-13: 978-8884990853
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #953,090 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and mouth-watering, February 14, 2008

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

Slow Food Editore of Italy produced this book. They chose the word "presidia" to describe their various projects because "Presidia in Latin means 'garrison' or 'fort,' and the Presidia are just that: a safe haven for great foods that protects them against the tide of globalized food production." (p. 8)

I had never heard of the Slow Food project until I picked up this book. Their motto is "good, clean, and fair food." They want to "sustain, promote, and raise the profile" of artisan foods, some of which might be said to be on something like the endangered food list. What they have done so beautifully in this book is to demonstrate 65 of their projects in 30 countries.

Two to four pages are devoted to each food. The foods range from Andasibe red rice in Madagascar, to Andean potatoes in Peru, to Gascony Black pigs in France, to Irish raw cow milk cheese in Ireland, to Cape May salt oysters in the United States, to Mangalica sausage in Hungary, to Chinantla vanilla in Mexico, to even some Mavrotragano wine from Greece. Food categories include cheeses, fruits and nuts, legumes, tubers and vegetables, cereals, animal breeds, oils, crustaceans, fish and mollusks, cured meats, cacao, coffee and spices, wines and fermented beverages.

Each focus contains some text describing the food and its history and tradition, how it's made and how the people who produce the food live and what their challenges are. Accompanying the text are beautiful color photos of the products and the people who produce them. There are photos of the landscape, the plants, the animals grazing, and the people in traditional dress as well as shots from the various market places. Sometimes the village homes are shown and sometimes there are photos of the various stages of the artisan food production including storage places.

In an age in which so many of our foods have lost their taste due to the mass production of varieties with the longest shelf life, it is a pleasure to see this sort of project at work. During my lifetime I have seen the shrinkage of available food types because the small, artisan farmer has been forced out of business by Big Agriculture through its control of the marketplace. Today most tomatoes for sale in supermarkets have been selected and cultivated for long shelf life so they are almost tasteless. And what ever happened to tender, first of the year, sweet yellow corn? Now most supermarket corn is white, too sweet and bland tasting.

Some foods featured that you may not have heard of and almost certainly haven't tasted are Puren white strawberries from Chile, the thirst quenching umbu fruit from Brazil, the melon flavored Yacon root from Argentina, Tibetan Plateau Yak cheese from China, and roasted guarana seeds from Brazil. I was fascinated to learn how vanilla is grown and processed differently in such places as Madagascar and Mexico, and of the differing traditions of cacao growth and processing in Ecuador compared to how its done across the Atlantic in the Sao Tome and Principe.

This book has inspired me to try a larger variety of foods and to think about going on a gastronomic travel adventure to some of the places described. One word of warning: do not read this book on an empty stomach. Your mouth may start watering.