April 30 2009

TORONTO — Carlo Petrini, the Italian founder and president of the international Slow Food movement, is coming to Canada in May to meet with this country's leaders of the movement.

"Having Carlo Petrini is an important and historic event because we are working towards becoming a national association," says interim president Mara Jernigan, a chef from Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island.

Slow Food was founded by Petrini in 1986 in Italy to combat fast food when McDonald's tried to open a restaurant near the Spanish steps in Rome.

It now boasts 85,000 members and supporters in 130 countries. Slow Food is committed to safeguarding foods, raw materials and traditional methods of cultivation and transformation.

It also seeks to defend the biodiversity of cultivated and wild varieties of foods and protect convivial places which form a part of cultural heritage because of their historic, artistic or social value.

Jerigan says that in Canada there are almost 1,500 members of Slow Food and there are 36 conviviums (chapters). Many of the members are professional chefs, food writers, farmers, cheesemakers and bakers.

"We want to build on to the movement and bring the public into Slow Food," she says. "And there has been a growing demand from them for us to do events around Slow Food."

On Friday "Do it Slow" Banchetto, a food feast, will be held at Hart House at the University of Toronto. It will be a collaboration of 25 of Toronto and area Slow Food chefs and national leaders speaking on food-related issues.

"This dinner will be the biggest gathering ever of Slow Food convivium leaders and it's open to the public," says Jernigan. "Collectively, the Slow Food convivium leaders represent the pioneers of Canadian cuisine."

The event will begin with a reception hosted by chef Jamie Kennedy that will include Canadian raw milk cheeses and Canadian wines.

On Saturday, the leaders will gather for meetings at George Brown College in Toronto. It has a large culinary school which has graduated many of Canada's foremost chefs.

The gathering moves to a tour of the Niagara region on Sunday followed by a dinner to be hosted by the Ancaster Old Mill in Hamilton, Ont.

"To have Petrini come to my restaurant is as big as it gets," says Jeff Crump, executive chef of the restaurant. "I have met him a couple of times and he is revered by those of us who embrace the Slow Food movement."

The dinner will also be open to the public and a pig roast is planned to be served family-style, he says.

Crump says the event will be inducting the Tamworth pig to Canada's Ark of Taste.

For more information on the Friday dinner, contact arlene.stein(at)utoronto.ca. For the Sunday dinner, visit ancasteroldmill.com