Carlo Petrini

Slow Food – Italy

“A Slow Revolution toward respecting food, a deeper appreciation of food that serves as an example for the entire world.”

Carlo Petrini has profoundly articulated and re-shaped our contemporary understanding of food, its production, its inter-relationship with the environment and our wellbeing. Petrini came to prominence two decades ago when he stopped McDonald’s opening by Rome’s Spanish Steps. His non-lethal weapon of choice at the time? Plates of penne. Petrini coined the term “eco-gastronomy” to describe his vision of good food sustainably produced.

He has shepherded a worldwide movement that is re-examining and re-evaluating methods developed in agriculture, food production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food since the industrial age and have mobilized a global following through the Slow Food Movement. This movement has catalyzed and embraced the creation and valuation of sustainable food systems, social justice and regenerative cultural benefits stemming from a richer understanding and appreciation of the wisdom of age old slow food practices, well established around the world. Clearly he has ensured that “…food and its production regain the central place they deserve among human activities,” to quote from his own writings. For this, we wish to recognize his great achievement.

Born in Bra, Italy, in 1949, Carlo Petrini studied sociology at Trento University and then became involved in local politics and association. In the early 1980s when Petrini witnessed the speed of the industrialization of food and the standardizing of taste he concluded that it would lead to the disappearance of thousands of food varieties. He sought to demonstrate to people that they had more choice than what had become supermarket homogenization it led to the foundations for Arcigola, an association which eventually developed into the Slow Food movement in 1989.

He is the founder of the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo and Colorno and Terra Madre is also his brainchild. He is the author of Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, And Fair and of Buono, pulito e giusto. Principi di nuova gastronomia (Good, Clean and Fair: Principles of a New Gastronomy.

In 2004 he was named a ‘European Hero’ by Time magazine, and in January 2008, The Guardian named him as the sole Italian to appear in the list of ‘50 People Who Could Save the World’.

“The global market economy is destroying the Earth. We give more strength to local economies and we have better sustainability, better human relations and no need to fly food halfway around the world.”

Publication: Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, And Fair

Website: Slow Food

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carlosbakery
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slow.food_/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/SlowFoodUSA

Video 1) Slow Food Movement (Italian with CC)
Video 2) 2012 Speech