The Blade, Toledo, Ohio, Kathie Smith Column: Slow Food Group Forms in Toledo
By Kathie Smith, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio
Jul. 3–The Slow Food movement is finding its way to Toledo, thanks to a group of founding members who held their first meeting on June 21 at the home of John and Paula Ross.
About 75 people attended. Some were interested in gardening, others in entertaining or food or wine. But each brought something to share. Mrs. Ross baked homemade bread. One had cornmeal, cilantro, and black pepper; for the other she used organic raisins and walnuts bought at the farmer’s market in Santa Barbara, Calif., a few days earlier.
“Both are slow-rise breads made with a small amount of yeast and are multi-step breads,” she told me before the event. That day she had also sent her son off to the Phoenix Food Co-op at 1447 West Sylvania Ave. to buy Calder Dairy (Michigan) milk so she could make ricotta. She intended to make it with buttermilk for acid (buttermilk makes a creamier ricotta, she says) and use honey from the Toledo Farmers Market to pour over the ricotta. She also made ricotta using vinegar as the acid and served it with herbs from her garden.
“Making ricotta is amazingly easy,” she says. “You bring the milk to a boil, and add acid. It separates into curds and whey. Pour off the whey (I save mine for baking) through a cheese cloth.”
She expected those attending the first meeting to bring an array of dishes, each with a story or a recipe, from seasonal strawberries and rhubarb to pad Thai with buttersquash noodles and Julie Leizerman’s tabboulleh made with parsley which she picks from her garden just hours before serving.
Slow Food is an international movement founded in 1989. It emphasizes artisanal methods of food production and preparation. From growers and harvesters to artisans and chefs, the movement emphasizes organic production, if possible, traditional methods of preparation, and producing healthful, delicious food while in equilibrium with the environment.
According to www.slowfood.com, “Slow food is good, clean, and fair food.” Food should taste good; it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare, or our health, and food producers should receive fair compensation for their work.”
It’s a philosophy that Mrs. Ross, a research associate with University of Toledo’s Urban Affairs Center, embraces. “I’ve been a member of Slow Food for a few years,” she says. (Membership is about $60 per year per person or $75 per couple.) “I wanted to participate in a convivium (chapter of the organization) in Ann Arbor or Cleveland, but I would spend more time driving.” So she and a group of friends decided to start a local chapter. The founding group of Slow Food Maumee Valley includes Mrs. Ross and her husband, John; Mrs. Leizerman and her husband, Michael, Michael Szuberla, and Lucy Long.
Besides the local convivium, there’s Slow Food International and Slow Food USA, a nonprofit educational organization.
Recently in Chicago, Mrs. Ross heard Carlo Petrini, founder and president of Slow Food, speak about his new book Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should be Good, Clean and Fair ($22.50). A Slow Food Nation exposition will be May 1-4, 2008, in San Francisco.
Mrs. Ross also saw Mr. Petrini at the Chicago farmers’ market. “Principles of Slow Food will lead many to shop at the Toledo Farmers Market,” says. Mrs. Ross, who also shops at Westgate Farmers Market, which is run by the same association. (The Urban Affairs Center is a strategic partner with the Toledo Farmers Market for the 2007 season.) For the Slow Food meeting, she bought radishes, cucumbers, zucchini and summer squash for grilling, and flowers for the table. “My arms were loaded down.” She also bought beets, which she roasted to serve with sour cream and a blue cheese dressing with those organic walnuts from California.
For more information on Slow Food Maumee Valley, contact psross@ameritech.net or call 419-536-0807.
Kathie Smith is The Blade’s food editor.
E-mail her at food@theblade.com Read more Kathie Smith columns at www.toledoblade.com/smith
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