The long road to Slow Food Nation

Thursday: The gathering takes shape

By James Berry and Kim Carlson

August 29, 2008

Culinate staff members started a long migration Wednesday from our offices in Portland to the Slow Food Nation gathering in San Francisco. We hope the promise of great food at the conference wipes away the taste of the sorry road food we experienced en route, a stark reminder that slow food has not yet made it to the highways of America.

Alice Waters signs the Declaration for Healthy Food.

Thursday night, on the eve of the event, Slow Food luminary Alice Waters, joined by food experts Dan Imhoff, Marion Nestle, and others, unveiled a “Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture,” a set of 12 principles they hope will frame food and agriculture policy, “to ensure that it will contribute to the health and wealth of the nation and the world.”

Following the declaration, Slow Food delegates and faithful gathered at long tables around the Victory Garden for a slow dinner on an unusually hot San Francisco evening.

Tables for Thursday’s dinner.	Tents awaiting the arrival of farmers from around the area.
The Slow Food Nation Victory Garden, with San Francisco	One of San Francisco’s countless homeless sleeps in the shadow of a Slow Food tent.