Slow Food Thanksgiving

What is a Slow Food Thanks­giv­ing? No, it isn’t just chew­ing your turkey slowly or rest­ing in between the cran­berry sauce and the pump­kin pie (although I would highly rec­om­mend both of those actions). Slow Food is actu­ally a “global, grass­roots asso­ci­a­tion that links the plea­sure of food with a com­mit­ment to com­mu­nity and the envi­ron­ment.” Accord­ing to their web­site, Slow Food is a way of liv­ing and a way of eating.

So when it comes to Thanks­giv­ing, Slow Food USA has a lot to say on the topic. If you go to their web­site, SlowFoodUSA.org, you will find all sorts of resources to enhance your feast: deli­cious recipes; infor­ma­tion about locat­ing her­itage turkeys and heir­loom ingre­di­ents for your din­ner; con­ver­sa­tion starters and tips and tricks to save time and money in your kitchen.

The Slow Food move­ment is gain­ing ground across the coun­try and around the world. Started as a resis­tance against the glob­al­iza­tion of fast food, the move­ment is based on the phi­los­o­phy of con­sciously slow­ing down our fast-paced lives and liv­ing the slow life with food, fam­ily and friends as the focus.

Here are Slow Food USA’s Top Five Tips to a Slow Food Thanksgiving:

1) Shop for fresh, sea­sonal and local foods at a farm­ers mar­ket (In Delaware County, visit the Delaware County Com­mu­nity Mar­ket or look for local foods at your favorite gro­cer. Whole Foods and Hills Mar­ket also carry local items)

2) Take the time to learn about where your food comes from and how it was raised

3) Give thanks for the labor that brought your food to your table and the Earth that grew it

4) Get all hands on deck in the kitchen. Teach oth­ers what you know and learn from them

5) Sit back and savor the meal with fam­ily and friends

So this Thanks­giv­ing, no mat­ter who pre­pares your food or no mat­ter what you eat, take time to pause and be thank­ful for our local food sup­ply and the farm­ers that work to feed us and, above all, count your blessings.

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware, is a writer and mother of four with a spe­cial inter­est in green liv­ing and pro­mot­ing local goods.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Nov 16 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.