Pictured here: Eureka lemons from Betty Van Dyke, a living goddess farmer here in Santa Cruz, and I will be visiting her orchards again soon.
I got something in the mail last night from a Convivium leader, passed down from Erika Lesser, who stood to translate for Carlo Petrini at CUESA when some farmers/growers of the San Francisco Farmers Market were angered at the portrayal of their market in Petrini's fictionalized anecdotes in his just-released Slow Food Nation book.
I had, upon reading some excerpts at the Rancho Gordo blog, gotten pissed off. Then I read about the actual meeting at CUESA, which Steve Sando (aka Rancho Gordo) attended (and abruptly left), and I got more pissed off. (It'll pass.) The short story is that Carlo claims something was lost in the translation: the poetic nuances and wisdom of his vast and benevolent soul, no doubt. But the fact remains: SOMEONE wrote those words, and SOMEONE smeared the farmers...I'll print this again, because I want to drive it in just what lies these are [emphasis mine]:
Petrini wrote: "The former [of two farmers],
with long hair and a plaid flannel shirt, held his lovely little blond-haired
daughter in his arms and told me, in a conspiratorial tone, that he had to
drive two hundred miles to come and sell in that market: he charged incredibly
high prices for his squash, it was “a cinch,” in just two monthly visits he
could earn more than enough to maintain his family and spend hours surfing on
the beach."
1) While it is true that some people may drive 200 miles, those people would be inland, and not surfing at all. Santa Cruz is about 75 miles from San Francisco: the farthest coastal city, I believe, located on the CUESA map of farms. (How cool is that map?)
2. The "conspiratorial tone" really bothers me. It's a really ugly word, isn't it? Coming from a Latin word meaning "to breathe," it implies secrecy and evil...whispers of deceit or illegalities. Someone approved that word in conjunction with an organic farmer.
3. "In just two monthly visits": what a lie. The implication here is that this guy just casually gathers his crops (which magically grow themselves, because who wants to bend over and get dirty doing actual work?) and shows up for Gravy Train twice a month, bilking all the "actresses" (I wonder, do they all dress like this up in San Francisco?) who are prancing around with their "jewels" ("peppers, marrows, and apples"), and then laughing all the way to the bank.
The day after this scandal (and it is a scandal) broke, I received an invitation from Slow Food USA to attend an event in San Francisco. For $50, I could attend a festival featuring "top Italian indigenous & regional wines" and receive an "engraved wine glass" ("etched" is more likely). Well, I wrote them back immediately, pointing to Steve Sando's blog posts, saying this:
Slow Food has lost my membership, thanks to Mr. Carlo Petrini's remarks in his book, Slow Food Nation. (I was probably not going to renew it anyway, but his lies about the farmers were the last straw.)
Also, I do not support events or restaurants that feature all-Italian (or any all-imported) wine lists. That carbon footprint is unnecessary, especially given the abundance of wineries within 100 miles of San Francisco.
Ciao, Slow Food! (You could do it better without Petrini!)
Shortly thereafter, I received a response from Erika Lesser:
Dear Tana,
I am very sorry to hear that you were upset by Carlo's comments. We are sorry to have lost you as a member.
Please know that it was absolutely not Carlo's or our intention to denigrate or attack the farmers of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. I hope that you will consider the range of Slow Food projects that the organization has created and sustained over the past twenty years as a testament to the deep admiration we feel for the farmers who grow sustainably and depend on the direct market economies of farmers markets, both in the United States and around the world.
I appreciate your feedback about local wines, and agree that local sourcing is important. We would always be happy to welcome you back.
Slow regards,
Erika Lesser
At the Slow Food dinner I photographed last month, Heidi Schlecht (one of 1000 chefs around the world invited to attend the Terra Madre in Italy last October) said something really wonderful, but it's something I've never heard again from anyone in Slow Food...she said Petrini says that we shouldn't have all the importing and exporting, that each region should treasure its local farms and artisans. If that's true that he said it (and I believe her completely), then why all the folderol about bringing Italian wines to San Francisco? (I know, they taste good. So do California wines.)
Having said all that, here is the letter sent out by the head of Slow Food USA, Erika Lesser. I don't envy her position right now, having to do damage control about such a distorted account about some really good people. I have to think that SOMEONE needs to come clean, and say, "God, how awful that we let such things get printed: we didn't have any reason to doubt Carlo's words, because who would ever do such a thing? Gosh, we're sorry. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa."
Recent Comments