Slow Cheese 2023: the dark side of Slow Food, and thoughts on a fringe festival for 2025.
Introducing my new alter ego: Cheese Horse, A.K.A caciocavallo. He’s pissed.
My favorite cheese event - one I attended for the third time last week - happens every two years in a small town called Bra in Piedmont, Italy. Organized by Slow Food International, it is not a contest, but a marketplace, with tastings and speaking events. The event has influenced my path by allowing me to experience first hand how exceptionally wonderful cheese can be, especially naturally fermented ones.
I didn’t fully understand how mediocre and standardized most cheeses are before coming to Slow Cheese. This year, the 4 days were a carnival of social convivility, as I met up with cheesemakers and mongers, dairy farmers, writers, and enthusiasts from around the world. It is the greatest opportunity out there for a person to expose their palate to a huge range of cheeses and get a sense of the traits of different global styles, by direct side by side comparison.
But there are a few “burrs under my saddle”.
This is a beautiful and literal idiom from the American west. A horse annoyed by a sharp “burr” under its saddle will be unruly and kick.
Say hello to my new alter ego: Cheese Horse.
Also known as caballo de queso, or caciocavallo.
This week’s burrs are as follows:
1. The event is dominated by Italian cheeses, with a sprinkling of big names from the UK, the US, France, Spain, and a few other European countries in a subordinate second tier. For an event that portrays itself as a global celebration of cheese, there is a high degree of Eurocentrism and Italophillia. There are obvious difficulties with getting cheeses from outside Europe to this event, but this doesn’t fully explain the bias. I love Italian cheese, it is a world in itself that I will continue to explore. But the bias towards Italy is fairly blatant and at times smells of, dare I say, cultural superiority?
2. A large percentage of the conferences I attended this year were more a display of ethnocentric mansplaining by Italian academics than valuable conversation on the theme of “permanent pastures”. I only attended 7 of these, and maybe that is not a fair sample size. But I know there are others who share this sentiment. I am not the only one who would like to hear more from cheesemakers, shepherds, and activists representing non-Italian Slow Food presidium cheeses. I am not the only one picking up on the unfortunate tendency for this year’s events to be filled with far too many old Italian men yelling at people, soapboxing, and being allowed disproportionate stage time. There are so many diverse voices gathered at the event that could have been showcased. I observed with dismay as one such voice, a woman from Macedonia, was given about 5 minutes to speak in wonderful poetic terms while sharing captivating photographs of shepherd life, towards the end of an 1.5 hour event. These 5 minutes were so enriching, and are the reason I have enjoyed attending such events in years past. What I would have liked is to hear more from voices like hers.
It is not an original thought to point out the conservative, patriarchal, Italophillic tendency of Slow Food Italia and International. But I have perhaps naively thought things would move in a more inclusive direction as the organization moves forward.
The whole idea of spatially organizing the booths by country displays a 20th century paradigm that resists more progressive ways of viewing cheese through bioregional and cultural lenses. Gastronationalism, and vaguely disguised racial superiority masquerading as culinary pride are things many of us would like to move away from. A cheese isn’t made by a country. It’s made by people, communities, and cultures. By landscapes, animals, microbes. By sunshine, sweat, and mountain streams. I know I am speaking in simplistic, poetic terms; and that there exceptions to these blanket statements. Pride in regional cuisine can obviously function to help keep endangered food-ways alive. Certain cheeses are rightfully associated with certain nations. But for me, for now, where I stand, cheese has certain anti-state tendencies.
Slow Food is an international phenomenon, with chapters in many countries, and I have met many helpful peoples within this diverse network. This piece is not a diatribe against all of this network. Or even all of Slow Food Italia. It is a very important stand that has been taken by the slow food “movement” and many of the aims align with my sentiments. Old Italian men have plenty of important things to say, share, and teach. But when noble sentiments become institutions, it’s time for Cheese Horse to break his tethers. And kick cowboys in their swollen testicles.
Defining tradition is a tricky matter. Who gets to decide, and how did they obtain this authority? It is a highly problematic role for any person or organization to take on. It’s alarming to me how fast people are to categorize things as either fitting into tradition or not. To label other people within their own community as “those staying true to tradition”, or as “those who are betraying tradition”. Tradition is a dangerous word. It is a projection of the present, and too often an idealization of the past.
Beware of those who define traditions.
For me, some of the most enriching and energizing social events that happened at Bra this year were unofficial, spontaneous pop-ups. Impromptu tastings at bars or cafes, such as the meeting of two of my cheese mentors, Peter Dixon of Parish Hill Creamery in Vermont and Anton Sutterluty, who I made cheese with in Austria. You can read more about my time with Anton in these posts that I take pride in:
Substack: making cheese in the Austrian Alps part one
There are whispers of trying to put fringe events like these together in a more organized way in 2023. Gatherings, tastings, and discussions taking place in public spaces in town, or potentially at private sites nearby such as homes or rented villas. A more broad, non-aligned, open space for less orthodox cheese and ideas to be shared, connections to be formed, and borders transcended.
Cheese horse will be there.
Standing guard and kicking cowboys in the balls.
I’d love for you to share this somewhat provocative post.
What do you think about these ideas? Do you like Cheese Horse, when he gets pissed off?
Is this type of ranting valuable at all outside of a very narrow bubble?
Am I missing important information and insights into the history and function of various facets of Slow Food? I think that is highly likely.
Refreshing to read this from someone else other than the few of us BIPOC always making the demand to open up spaces, to let others speak, to hear from experiences from abroad. We tried in 2017 when we had the conversation about raw-milk with people from Cuba, the Balkans, and elsewhere in the "periphery". We spoke about the situation in our countries and for a global fight. However, even then Slow Food used us as props to elevate their standing. I despise the organization. As for you, for me the best moments were in the fringe, with people who share values and move away from national definitions. I would love to see a meeting of the rest, but that would only be possible if the conversation also includes people from all corners, not only in English-language, and with a real opportunity for people to transport their cheeses from many places for others to try.
Cheese Horse,
You're onto something here, and I'm thankful that you've been able to put words to it. I even attempted to get into the mess of Slow Food in a recent piece of my own, referencing the elitist culture of the organization and the tendency of Slow Food to push producers into supplying that which they've deemed "worthy" to market to their moneyed networks, despite regional limitations. They aren't working to preserve all foodways, but merely those in their narrow framework.
Or at least that's how it appears on the ground here in Missouri, where I've dealt with our local chapter. Having dealt with them on the commerce end a couple times now, I've gotten a burr about it too. The gastronationalism is pretty pervasive when there's so much more worth preserving. They're pushing chicory here when we have fewer and fewer sorghum mills operating in Missouri.
If anything, you went too easy on them.