The decade of ‘slow food’

Time is the biggest luxury that people have or don’t have. Time, and how valuable it is, is becoming more and more important in today’s age. An average Gen-Z will prefer to spend 6 Hrs a day on social media browsing food videos amongst others but won’t like to spend even 30 mins to cook something for themselves. Then again one might ask the question – isn’t this what development and progress is – why shouldn’t I click a few buttons and get what I want delivered.

Lifestyles were determined by what we ate and what was seasonally grown in the region. Food was the centre point in most household discussions. Growing up in Kolkata, we were used to eating Cauliflower only in the winter months and that cauliflower actually had a particular taste of its own which is unfortunately missing today.

The invention of the humble pressure cooker in the 1950’s ushered in the idea of cooking quickly to Indian households. Over the next few decades we got used to timing cooking not in minutes but in whistles.

Early 2000’s came the age of instant gratification with introduction of Fast Food - which radically transformed the eating habits for generation to come in India. In the western world the same happened as early as the 70s. Advancement of technology and infrastructure and a big contribution by popular media eased our access to other’s cultures. It was a revolution and before we even knew it, the way food was perceived changed.

Slow Food was a concept founded by Carlo Petrini an Italian journalist in the 1980’s after his famous protest against McDonalds near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Promoted as an alternative to?fast food, it strives to preserve traditional and regional?cuisine?and encourages farming of?plants,?seeds, and livestock characteristic of the local?ecosystem. It focuses on food quality, rather than quantity. It speaks out against?overproduction?and?food waste.?It sees?globalization?as a process in which small and local farmers and food producers should be simultaneously protected from and included in the global food systems.

Today we are more and more conscious as to what we put inside our bodies. The pandemic also has helped nudge at least some of us to think hard about food and nutrition. For decades 10 of the largest Global Food Producing companies have controlled more that 80% of what we consume daily – more importantly they have also controlled the narrative as to what is good and bad for us. Over the last 3 decades we have somehow lost touch with the real good food and most of the time we end up equating good food with a great restaurant or food which conforms to the prevalent popular dietary trend – keto, vegan and so on.

Slow Cooking has been a part of the Indian culture since its existence. The age-old techniques passed on through generations are as important as the ingredients that go into our food. Traditional Indian cooking even till date retains a lot of these techniques but sadly they are being phased out. Mustard Fish, a very typical Bengali dish is now being made with powdered mustard which is not even close to the real thing prepared using a Sil Batta (Stone G). Using a mixer grinder with mustard rarely work as it makes the product bitter by not letting the natural oil seep out.?

Does that mean we all start using a pestle and mortar to grind our spices – absolutely not. The idea would be to re-create the same experience by using better quality products and innovative processes which preserve the natural goodness of the food we consume and the way we cook. Multiple start-ups are experimenting with technology to deliver traditional cooking experience in a new age format suitable to today’s fast paced life. The pandemic made a lot of us realise, albeit forcefully, the therapeutic benefits of cooking. As the lockdowns eased most of us went back to the old pre-pandemic mode purely due to the lack of time or rather our intention of diverting some time towards being involved in making the food we consume.

The bottom line is ones health is in ones hand – we have the full control of what we put into ourselves. A meat eater will not overnight convert into Vegan unless there is a very serious alternative available. We are responsible for creating a demand for food which is environmentally safe for animals, the land and us. It should be healthy, nutritious and economically viable and not over processed.

Food is as important as language – recipes reflect what we stand for and needs to be protected, documented and regularly cooked. In the age of instant gratification there is a chance that we stand to lose touch with a large part of our heritage. Start-ups are using cutting age technology to extract nutrition and flavours while re-creating such complex recipes which will enable someone to enjoy slow cooking goodness at home will minimal effort. This decade will see a shift in the consumer mind-set where we will keep questioning the common narratives and hopefully that forces the large corporations and the nimble start-ups to come up with viable alternatives.

[I Wrote this Article for FNBnews.com on 05 September, 2022 / https://www.fnbnews.com/Top-News/the-decade-of-slow-food-70090]