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Slow Food is Eataly’s consultant.
The Slow Food organization has a very precise concept of food quality as made up of three indispensable aspects. A food must taste good. A food must be ecologically sustainable. A food must be produced in a socially just way. This idea of taking responsible pleasure in food, of seeking out products which do not destroy biodiversity, ecosystems, environments and cultural identities and which are reasonably priced so as to offer the producers at least a decent way of life, can be summed up in one phrase: good, clean and fair.
In promoting and practicing this concept of quality, the ultimate aim is for these conditions to be respected and shared by both consumption and production. Consumers become co-producers, and as they work producers never forget the needs of consumers. Eating is an agricultural act and producing food is a gastronomic act.
This quasi-utopian vision (plant utopias and you harvest realities) comes up against its first obstacle when we have to note that many good, clean and fair producers actually have obvious structural restrictions. The supply of necessary raw materials can be limited, because they don’t travel well or because asking for a larger volume from the suppliers would mean violating a production system which is perfectly integrated with the local environment and society. The tension between quality and quantity is nothing new, and anyone who, like Eataly, wants to democratize food quality will inevitably find themselves confronting it. The path Eataly has chosen is ambitious and difficult, but at the same time it also deserves great attention. To successfully follow this path we must be well aware of the risks and take an approach which is in sharp contrast to the typical tactics of economies of scale and big business in general. Eataly must seek development and not growth, making quality a concept which guides every food-related action, from production to distribution to consumption.
As Eataly’s consultant, Slow Food’s specific role is to help us stick to this path.
To sum up it is necessary to know how to manage the set limits, limits arising out of a complexity which reflects the globalized world we live in as much as the profound multidisciplinarity of gastronomy itself. We must not at all costs seek to exceed these limits or to avoid them. We must manage the limits of quality and take good care not to create others.
To quote the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti: "Man, monotonous universe, / Thinks to spread his possessions / And from his fevered hands / Falls nothing but limitations without end."
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