The ideology of Slow Food

Abstract

This article addresses the ideology of Slow Food (SF), an influential movement founded in Italy in 1986. Through an analysis of a wide range of texts, ranging from SF’s opposition to fast food to its ambition to establish a new ‘gastronomic science’ and a new ‘development model’ based on the three criteria of buono (good), pulito (clean) and giusto (tasty), the article concludes that SF is a descendant of the countercultural and anti-consumerist movements of the 1960s and 70s. It also claims that SF’s understanding of the capitalist system is limited, that its idea of a new agriculture and a new economy is simply that of returning to a primitive, pre-industrial economy (without explaining how that economy could feed the present world population), that its ideal of a new world is that of a stratified and immutable society, and that its main goal is to combine the commercial promotion of high-price luxury food products with political engagement.