When I have been on holiday in Italy I have been impressed by the number of family businesses that are still active in small towns and villages. Meanwhile in the UK things like family fishmongers, butchers, bakers and greengrocers are endangered species. In my town we have four large supermarkets (with a fifth on the way), have no fishmonger, the last butchers have gone out of business and we have one baker and greengrocer left - both of which are still thriving.

In Italy there is also less of a presence of the big fast food multinationals e.g. Burger King, KFC, etc. Sadly in Britain we have not embraced food in the past directly from European neighbours (e.g. pizza, german sausages, cappucino, etc) but have gobbled it up when a naffer version is marketed by US-based multi-nationals (McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Starbucks). We did not learn to eat the crisp fine Italian pizza but a soggy deep pan US version. We waited until Starbucks offered "Italian coffee" (I am glad they get decent competetion from Caffe Nero, etc); we Brits must be mugs!

It is not surprising that the Italians revolted against the growing presence of fast food and started the Slow Food movement in 1986. They have aimed to support diverse, sustainable, local food and to resist the growing homogenisation of food. They therefore support some traditional food production that it is at risk of dying out. From what I have read they do not seem to be caught in a time warp either.

 

Some interesting facts taken from their main website.
- 75% of European food product diversity has been lost since 1900
- 93% of American food product diversity has been lost in the same time period
- 33% of livestock varieties have disappeared or are near disappearing
- 30,000 vegetable varieties have become extinct in the last century.

Of couse, while I have no doubt that a large number of traditional British products have disappeared (from a smaller base of regional dishes than say France or Italy), we have had our taste repetoire enriched from India, Thailand, Spain, etc.

On Monday the UK Slow Food HQ was opened in Ludlow Shropshire. Ongoing projects exist around Somerset cheeses, cheese and beef from Old Gloucester cattle, perry and Cornish pilchards.

While I do not see myself joining up (too specialised for me) I am glad some people are doing this and going in the opposite direction of big multinational business. I'm afraid I will still need my fast "real food" from good fresh ingredients for some of the time but we will all benefit if Slow Food is successful.