I would characterize this movement as varied rather than elitist. Meals range from potlucks to $100+ fundraiser dinners.
Activities vary from country to country and state to state and include things like: Visiting an apple orchard and tasting heirloom apples Local Cider tastings Visiting a bakery and learning about slow stone flour grinding to produce better bread Fighting to preserve heirloom cheese making techniques (This has been a big problem with the new EU rules. There was an attempt to prevent the making of certain cheeses that had been made for centuries in the same way. Suddenly they were "dangerous" methods. The reaction to this was similar to what you would get if you told community gardens that from now on they were only allowed to eat winter chain grocery store tomatoes.) Seeing how salami is made from start to finish Tastings of local wine and cheeses Olive oil tastings from the new fall harvest Range Hamper Picnics (a variation on Stone Soup from local foods combined with a chef style box test) Producing/Using Local Food directories Dinners with local farmers that produce quality food Encouraging the production and use of heirloom foods Meetings with farmers whose crops have been contaminated with GMOs Learning about the traditional recipes of an area Learning about an area's traditonal preserving methods and recipes--with tastings! Each local group does different activities, so it seems to me that inviting them to tour some local community gardens, especially if you could focus on some plots that have interesting heirloom varieties or lesser known ethnic vegetables would be appealing to the group. If your group gives part of its food to a Soup Kitchen or Kid's Cafe, you might throw in some info about the sort of things they do with it to combat the problems that some soup kitchens deal with of having too much processed starch and too little whole foods to feed their diners. And who knows what sort of bridge might form from that. It might be helpful to have a handout with info on ACGA, local community gardens, Soup Kitchens/Cafes, and Seed Savers Exchange to go with the tour. In some ways I think the name Slow Food is unfortunate, but I think it was chosen to be in direct opposition to Fast Food. I think a better name might be Savory Food or Savored Food. A gardener-cook can make a delicious pasta sauce with fresh foods from the garden in the time it takes pasta to cook. This is often faster than going out to a drive through, so although it's not Slow, it can be quite Savory. Sharon [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
