I've been having a fine exchange with Eric Holt-Gimenez at Food First about Slow Food. Slow Food is an idea about which I'm a little ambivalent. It was founded on some fairly important political principles, particularly around the politics of taste. Slow Food's founding question: 'why can't the masses have pleasure when they eat, why is it only the rich who can afford to eat well'?

The response was to observe that workers need two things to bring this kind of pleasure within reach - time and money. So they organised, working with unions to increase agricultural labourers' wages, and fighting for a two-hour lunch break in which to enjoy food.

Now, as Eric notes, Slow Food has increasingly become a circle jerk of olive oil and blue cheese fantasists, moving away quite sharply from its political roots. ... read more »

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Posted on 25 February, 2008 - 20:16

Front page, above the fold, in the Financial Times today - the UN is going to ration food aid because of the high price of agricultural commodities.

Shares in Archer Daniels Midland, meanwhile, are trading at 25% higher than in December.

Coincidence?

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Posted on 25 February, 2008 - 20:23