The future of Slow Food

The organization’s new U.S. director talks politics

By Culinate staff

December 10, 2008

Slow Food USA has a new director, Joshua Viertel, and Gourmet.com recently talked with him about the future of Slow Food. It’s clear that Viertel has politics and justice on the brain:

[At Terra Madre] I was . . . so happy that, after standing up in front of our whole delegation and saying, “Good, clean, fair food is not a privilege, it is a right, and in everything we do, we need to work to make sure people have access to that right,” no one came up to me and said, “For me, Slow Food is really about fancy cheese and good wine — that’s why I got into it, and I don’t like this whole new political bent.” Everyone came up to me and said, “It’s so great that we’re addressing this.”