“I don’t know if it’s going to be the youthful, happening Woodstock they want it to be, but it certainly has the potential,” said Corby Kummer, a food columnist, book author and Slow Food board member. And the festival in San Francisco will be the perfect place to show off a more inclusive and more politically attuned Slow Food USA. Now, they say, the organization is getting a makeover. As a result, it has never had as much cultural or political impact as its parent group in Europe. But most acknowledge that the organization did not translate well to an American audience. Slow Food’s leaders, the chef Alice Waters chief among them, bristle at the criticism. When it first took root here in 1998, some people were drawn to its philosophy, while others were put off by what they saw as elitism and an inflated sense of importance. The American wing of the Slow Food movement, which began in Italy in 1986, has a tendency to polarize people. They also realize that it may be their best chance to prove that Slow Food, as a movement, is not just one big wine tasting with really hard to find cheeses that you weren’t invited to. The Slow Food faithful say they want the festival to be the Woodstock of food, a profound event where a broad band of people will see that delicious, sustainably produced food can be a prism for social, ecological and political change. Nearly $2 million has been raised.Īnd for the first time in its 10-year history, the notoriously finicky organization has embraced corporate partners like Whole Foods, Anolon cookware and the Food Network. Lecture halls have been booked, politicians invited and dinner parties planned. Fifteen architects have volunteered to build elaborate pavilions dedicated to things like pickles, coffee and salami. It will be the centerpiece of the festival, ambitiously named Slow Food Nation.Įvents will pop up all around the city over Labor Day weekend. To get things ready, the mayor let the group dig up the lawn in front of City Hall and plant a quarter-acre garden. AT the end of the summer, the gastronomic organization called Slow Food USA will host a little party for more than 50,000 people in San Francisco.

Sf foodie festival