Slow Food

According to its very own Manifesto, Slow Food is "a movement for the protection of the right to taste."

Slow Food. Get it? Slow, like the opposite of the very kind of food that helped America make the world fat!

More manifestage: "If we wish to enjoy the pleasure which this world can give us, we have to give of our all to strike the right balance of respect and exchange with nature and the environment. This is why we like to define ourselves as ‘eco-gastronomes.’ The fact is that our pleasure cannot be disconnected from the pleasure of others, but it is likewise connected to the equilibrium we manage to preserve (and in many cases revive) with the environment we live in."

Eco-gastronomes. Not such a catchy name. But an idea that is at least as subtle, complex, and full-bodied as a Finnish Kalakukko.

One of the many book projects I have lying in wait for the next available publisher is called "Eating for Fun." It takes the DeepFUN approach to dieting. Which means, of course, that a person on a DeepFUN might not lose weight. But will definitely have fun. A kind of fun that is, well, deep. Satisfying. Deeply satisfying. Which means, as the Slow Food people have so brilliantly described, a pleasure that in not only derived from the food itself, but also from the people you eat with, and places you eat in.

By the way, I found the Finnish Kalakukko by way of yet another Slow Food project. This one called: "Ark of Taste."

Are these guys fun, or what?