Slow Food movement gathers momentum
of culinary culture, customs and unique aspects of life, as
highlighted in a recent Slow Food exhibition in Montpellier.
The event, entitled Aux Origines du Gout , featured hundreds of delicious products tied to specific regions and climates.
In doing so, it underlined the importance food plays in regional identity, and also showed how interest in good food is growing at a time of increasingly processed products.
As a result, local producers are experiencing not only growing demand but also new means of directly targeting food-conscious consumers, and this event, held at Montpellier's Parc des Expositions, provided the perfect forum to communicate the Slow Food ideal.
Founded in Italy in 1986, Slow Food is now an international association that promotes food and wine culture, but also defends food and agricultural biodiversity worldwide. It claims to oppose the standardisation of taste, and protect cultural identities tied to food and gastronomic traditions.
Such principles were much in evidence at the show, the second time such an event has been held in the southern French city.
"This event is fantastic - it allows me to demonstrate good food to adults and to kids," said a butcher handing out charcuterie samples behind the Aude Pays Cathare stand. "I've nothing against hamburgers, but it's great for kids to taste something they might never have tasted before."
All products behind this particular stand bear La Marque de la Qualité Audoise , a regional mark of quality started ten years ago. It is designed to attract consumers to products unique to this corner of southern France and guarantee quality.
"I think this movement has a little power now," said the butcher. "It is all about quality and taste, which I think consumers consider as still very important."
Other delicacies on display included maize-fed foie gras from La Dordogne region of France, biological lemons from southern Italy and 70 varieties of goat's cheese from Gascogne. Chestnuts from northern Languedoc were roasted - FoodNavigator was amazed to learn there are over 100 varieties - and there was even organic rice from India.
Over 600 varieties of wine from around the world were also available for tasting, ranging from premier cru Champagne through to Brazilian red. There were even wines from Switzerland, Israel and Morocco.
The event, which finished today, is clearly tapping into growing interest in real food, in products sourced from regional ingredients and made with taste, rather than cost, in mind. The Slow Food movement now boasts 83,000 members worldwide and offices in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the USA, France, Japan, and Great Britain.
The network of Slow Food members is organized into local groups which, coordinated by leaders, periodically organize courses, tastings, dinners and food and wine tourism, as well as promoting campaigns launched by the international association at a local level.
The next Slow Food event is the third edition of the 'Universitè de Saveurs et Savoirs' which will take place at the Sorbonne in Paris. This year's theme is "Ethics or profit?" .
With consumer knowledge about food growing as a result of exhibitions such as the one in Montpellier, this is an issue of increasing concern to the whole food industry.
