Interview with Dr. Ursula Hudson

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Interview with Dr. Ursula Hudson

Dr. Ursula Hudson

Dr. Ursula Hudson, since February 2009 acting chairperson of Slow Food Germany, lives and works in Germany and in Great Britain. Newer publications and lectures are on cultural-thematic practise, culinary education, culinary books, as well as on culinary artistic sociability.

What means Slow Food?

First of all Slow Food is an international, membership-supported, grassroots movement, a not-for-profit organization whose aims are to protect local food traditions, diversity on the plate as well as in nature. It is based in the fundamental belief that everybody has a right to good, clean and fair food. Good regarding the enjoyment of eating it, its flavours and freshness; clean in the sense of a unadultered production that does not rely on additives which are there to make the production process easier and fair in the sense of social justice, i.e. fair work conditions and fair payment for producers.

How did your organisation develop and for what issues does it stand for?

Slow Food was founded in the late 80s; the idea has its origins in Italy; the founding myth states that Slow Food originated in resisting a McDonalds branch at the Piazza di Spagna in Rome; Slow Food counters the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. The foundation of Slow Food International took place on December 10, 1989 in Paris. Slow Food International is based in Bra, Italy.

How are you organized in Germany and worldwide?

Slow Food operates worldwide in local groups, they so called convivia. Several countries have national Slow Food organisations that link the local and the international movement, coordinate projects and represent the organization on a national level. In Germany, Slow Food has more than 10,000 members, 79 local groups as well as a first Slow Food on Campus student convivium. Worldwide Slow Food is present in more than 150 countries and has more than 100,000 members.

What means “biodiversity” in connection with food culture?

In the context of food culture and food traditions - biodiversity refers to the safeguarding of diversity of taste and flavour. Local varieties and local breeds are adapted to their location and they assist in securing food production worldwide. They also secure the variety of flavours on the palate, in the sense that they provide this variety as well as the enjoyment when eating good food, which is in contrast to the standardization of taste of industrially-produced food. Diversity on the plate also means safeguarding a local or regional culinary tradition, i.e. as a region to be distinctly different from others on the basis of authentic food, its production and its preparation, i.e. culinary tradition.

How do you influence food producers?

With our concept of quality through good, clean and fair food we encourage producers to take on our quality criteria and align their food production to them. The German Slow Food Fair, the “Markt des guten Geschmacks” (market of good taste), which takes place annually in Stuttgart, demonstrates clearly that there is a market for food produced adhering to these criteria. The numbers of visitors as well as exhibitors for the Stuttgart Slow Food Fair are still rising. For the producers a change in producing food complying with the Slow Food criteria also offers an opportunity to change from quantity to quality production. However, one should not forget that Slow Food offers an alternative – no more, no less.

What kind of nutrition must be preserved and how can this be done?

Food that is worth protecting in the Slow Food sense is food, and ways of cooking it that are under threat of being lost. Saving, or rather eating what we want to protect – that is the Slow Food advice for protecting food traditions. One has to create the demand for these foods and therefore their production. An important project of Slow Food, if not the central project is the so called Ark of Taste. It is an international project, founded in 1996 by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity. It is safeguarding worldwide nearly 1000 foods, local livestock breeds and plant varieties from being forgotten by listing them in the Ark of Taste. Together with the understanding that biodiversity has local roots - the Ark of Taste protects the culinary heritage of regions. In Germany the Ark of Taste covers currently 30 foods.

What do you critisise in the development towards Fast Food?

The rise of fast food is a rise of industrial food production, which extinguishes the diversity of tastes and flavours, biodiversity, food knowledge and skill as well as identity. Fast Food is mostly based on products that are of mediocre quality, which are further processed with the aid of additives in food that is not contributing to the health of people. A fast food world requires industrial livestock farming, monoculture and works closely together with the agro-industry. A fast food world is not sustainable.

On what projects do you work in the future?

We are currently working in the fields of food education, taste education, consumer education; we try to get young people and children interested in the central topic of food, food culture and enjoyment of food; we support and encourage the tying of close links between farmers and producers, producer networks, such as CSA projects in Germany – Städter und Bauern http://www.staedter-werden-bauern.de/ - and the further development of the Ark project.

Interview: Ralph Bloemer, InterMopro.de