How about lazy summer day with Slow Food?

June 12, 2007
| 31 Comments

In my last post about hot summer in Oslo, where the Vikings went skinny dipping in fountains (scroll down to read!), I promised you some more from Oslo’s Summer Festival with the theme: ‘Norwegian Food in the Streets’. There were stands with traditional Norwegian food everywhere. The air was filled with spiced and smoked sausages, herrings, reindeer and moose stakes, a variety of fish of course and cheeses such as goat cheese. Let me give you a peek as I shot some pics with my Nokia mobile phone (click to enlarge):

This is Oslo’s main street, Karl Johan. You have a glimpse of The Royal Castle at the end of the street and to the right the east wing of the old university from the same century. Let’s have a look of what they served:

A variety of sea food

An alternative to Hamburger: fish patties and homemade honey

What really got my attention though was the stand of Norwegian Slow Food:

I must admit I’ve thought that the Slow Food was an anti-fast food movement raising their fingers against fat, fast, one taste and high calorie food, but there is much more: I was listen to the enthusiastic couple working at the stand and the more they talked, the more interesting this became to me:

Let me give you some ideas of what they talked about and what I’ve found on their website:
Slow Food believes in recognizing the importance of pleasure connected to food. We should learn to enjoy the vast range of recipes and flavours, recognize the variety of places and people growing and producing food. We should respect the rhythms of the seasons and conviviality. Slow Food has called this approach ecogastronomy. It is an attitude that combines a respect and interest in enogastronomic culture with support for those battling to defend food and agricultural biodiversity around the world. At their website, I also found some interesting figures, such as:
Today, we rely on very few crop species for human nutrition – less than 30 plants provide 95% of the world’s nutrition. In the past century, 300 000 plant species have become extinct. Since the beginning of the twentieth century America has lost 93% of its agricultural products, Europe almost 85%.

My regular readers know how I love food and the differences in how it is preserved and/or made with recipes developed through thousands of years of traditions and experience. You’ll also know how I love to sit around the table and share this food with good friends accompanied by interesting conversation, sharing everything from the daily life and knowledge in all kinds of subjects. Just you click here from my previous food posts, and you’ll see what I mean.

So now you understand why I prefer a nice gourmet kind of restaurant with a variety of food to McDonald. How about you: will you still buy mostly hamburgers or things that only ‘taste like chicken’ until it’s the only thing our cynical food industry will provide us? Or will you take care of your culture, traditions and variety? The choice is yours, what’s for dinner?

PS: I’ve been food tagged by Shantanu on his Traveller’s Tales. I’ll do it my way, so this is my return of his favor.

Culture, Food, Summer, Tradition