Slow Food Nation - Of Course It's Political

After three solid days of listening, talking, watching, and tasting, I can declare that the inaugural Slow Food Nation celebration in San Francisco has been a resounding success.

Food is a connecting force between many different issues, from labor policies and immigration law to problems of healthcare, energy policy and climate change. Everyone is a participant in food, and whether the discussion at hand relates to the taste of a peach or the system of farm subsidies, everyone who eats has a stake in the debate. This weekend, Slow Food Nation united people by this shared interest in eating food that is good, clean and fair.

Gavin Newsom, San Francisco's mayor, at left, receives high praise, via translator, from Carlo Petrini, right.

Roast chicken at Civic Center

Teaching the compost gospel

Crowds downtown for Slow Food Nation

As Wendell Berry says, eating is an agricultural act.

Tasting at the Taste Pavilion in Fort Mason

Sharing the wonders of a good tomato

The conversations and foods shared this weekend have filled my notebook and my belly, and have strengthened my faith in the power to effect change that is inherent in the shared passion that people have for good food.

In the age of industrial nameless food, it can sometimes be easy to forget that food begat civilization itself - agri cannot be divested from culture. The move from hunter-gatherer to cultivation-based societies hinged upon the idea that by working together to fulfill our basic needs, each individual can have a better quality of life. So in this light, events like Slow Food Nation are not simply a celebration of food or gluttony or elitist culinarianism, but rather a celebration and reminder of our common humanity.

Such noble expectations of a food festival become more understandable when we consider that the International Slow Food movement began as a political organization with markedly socialist attitudes toward the symbiotic relationship between producers and consumers of food. Food is the original political issue, and in my view, the most important one, because it is embodied and affected by nearly all questions of social justice and responsibility. And as Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Wes Jackson, and countless others attested this weekend, it affects us all.

Carlo Petrini and a starstruck Food Crusader