Savoring Ideology - An Ethnography of Production and Consumption I

University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online
Theses and Dissertations
Fall 2011
Savoring ideology: an ethnography of production and

consumption in Slow Food's Italy
Rachel Anne Horner Brackett
University of Iowa
Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of the Anthropology Commons
Copyright 2011 Rachel Anne Horner Brackett
This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2715
Recommended Citation
Horner Brackett, Rachel Anne. "Savoring ideology: an ethnography of production and consumption in Slow
Food's Italy." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2011.
https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.60etbkfz
Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd

Part of the Anthropology Commons
SAVORING IDEOLOGY: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF PRODUCTION AND
CONSUMPTION IN SLOW FOOD'S ITALY
by
An Abstract
Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree in Anthropology
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
December 2011
Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Erica S. Prussing

1
ABSTRACT
With over 100,000 members in 153 countries, the Slow Food movement
emphasizes the ethical and social dimensions of eating habits by creating a new kind of
socially and ecologically aware consumerism. However, Slow Food’s rhetorical
emphasis on the agency of the consumer obscures the parallel role of the food producer,
complicating inquiry into the broad claims for social justice presented by the movement.
This dissertation examines the tension between the ideologies and practices of Slow Food
and the locally-situated goals of small-scale food producers working to create economic,
ecologic and cultural sustainability on daily basis. Multi-sited ethnographic research
conducted in Italy between 2006-2009 explores 1) international, national, and regional
Slow Food events and 2) everyday life and work on a Tuscan agriturismo (farm-based
tourism estate). Through an analysis of discursive messages that consumers receive, on
the one hand, and the experiences of food producers on the other, I argue that Slow
Food’s restructuring of the consumer/producer relationship may play out on paper and at
conferences—and sometimes even at the table—but it does so less often and less
obviously on fields and farms.
Current scholarly work on alternative food networks emphasizes the structural
and economic processes that connect food producers to politically-conscious consumers.
I extend and elaborate this discussion through a critical analysis of Slow Food’s
rhetorical and discursive strategies, and link these findings to my ethnographic study of
small-scale, organic food producers in Italy. An emphasis on the relationships between
producers and consumers underscores the changing nature of society’s relationship to
food production and consumption, highlighting the reflexivity of Slow Food in response
to local, national, and global change.

2
Abstract Approved: ____________________________________

Thesis Supervisor
____________________________________
Title and Department
____________________________________
Date
SAVORING IDEOLOGY: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF PRODUCTION AND
CONSUMPTION IN SLOW FOOD'S ITALY
by
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree in Anthropology
in the Graduate College of
December 2011
Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Erica S. Prussing

Copyright by
RACHEL ANNE HORNER BRACKETT
2011
All Rights Reserved

Graduate College
Iowa City, Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_______________________
PH.D. THESIS
_______________
This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of
has been approved by the Examining Committee

for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy
degree in Anthropology at the December 2011 graduation.
Thesis Committee: ___________________________________

Erica S. Prussing, Thesis Supervisor
___________________________________
Mac Marshall
___________________________________
Rudolf Colloredo-Mansfeld
___________________________________
Margaret Beck
___________________________________
Doris Witt
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was made possible with the support of numerous individuals and
organizations. First, I am indebted to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, which made my research in Italy financially
feasible. Additional funding for various stages of this research came from several
sources at the University of Iowa, including the Graduate College Summer Fellowship,
the T. Anne Cleary International Dissertation Research Fellowship, the Center for Global
and Regional Environmental Research Graduate Student Travel Grant, and the
Department of Anthropology Summer Research Fellowship. I was also fortunate to
receive a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship from the United States
Department of Education to fine tune my Italian language skills.
I will always be grateful for the opportunity to conduct research at the Tenuta di
Spannocchia, the most beautiful field site on earth. I am beholden to the Spannocchia
Foundation for cooperation on this project. To Spannocchia’s employees, interns, guests,
volunteers, and proprietors: thank you for welcoming me, for sharing meals and stories
with me, and for being the wonderful individuals you are. I could not have asked for a
better group of people to work with.
Thank you to my advisor and mentor, Erica Prussing, for pushing me onward
through this intellectual journey. I am grateful to my entire committee for providing
valuable feedback on my work. Special thanks go to Mac Marshall, who first encouraged
my interest in food and agriculture as a thesis topic. I also recognize Beverly Poduska
and Shari Knight for their ongoing administrative support. My colleagues and friends at
the University of Iowa (in anthropology, public health, and beyond) provided
encouraging words and inestimable advice over the past ten years. I am particularly
grateful for the long-term friendship and support of Kenda Stewart, my confidante and
travel companion, who stood by me since day one of graduate school.
ii
Last but certainly not least, I am humbled by the love and support of my family.
In particular, I am amazed by the unwavering support of my parents, Mark and Michele
Horner, in all of my academic endeavors over the years. Thank you for your love and
encouragement. Equally astounding is the boundless love and enthusiasm of my
children, Arys and Dell Brackett. Thank you for reminding me, every day, what is truly
important in life. Finally, I acknowledge my husband, Kelcey Brackett, who had no idea
what he was getting into when he married an academic. Thank you, Kelcey, for your
steadfast support of my work (both economic and psychological), your patience with me
as a human being, and your ability to direct me toward humor and joy in all things.
iii
ABSTRACT
With over 100,000 members in 153 countries, the Slow Food movement
emphasizes the ethical and social dimensions of eating habits by creating a new kind of
socially and ecologically aware consumerism. However, Slow Food’s rhetorical
emphasis on the agency of the consumer obscures the parallel role of the food producer,
complicating inquiry into the broad claims for social justice presented by the movement.
This dissertation examines the tension between the ideologies and practices of Slow Food
and the locally-situated goals of small-scale food producers working to create economic,
ecologic and cultural sustainability on daily basis. Multi-sited ethnographic research
conducted in Italy between 2006-2009 explores 1) international, national, and regional
Slow Food events and 2) everyday life and work on a Tuscan agriturismo (farm-based
tourism estate). Through an analysis of discursive messages that consumers receive, on
the one hand, and the experiences of food producers on the other, I argue that Slow
Food’s restructuring of the consumer/producer relationship may play out on paper and at
conferences—and sometimes even at the table—but it does so less often and less
obviously on fields and farms.
Current scholarly work on alternative food networks emphasizes the structural
and economic processes that connect food producers to politically-conscious consumers.
I extend and elaborate this discussion through a critical analysis of Slow Food’s
rhetorical and discursive strategies, and link these findings to my ethnographic study of
small-scale, organic food producers in Italy. An emphasis on the relationships between
producers and consumers underscores the changing nature of society’s relationship to
food production and consumption, highlighting the reflexivity of Slow Food in response
to local, national, and global change.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................vii
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1
The Rise of Slow Food .................................................................................. 4

Situating Slow Food ...................................................................................... 8
Slow Food Ideology ...................................................................................... 9
Consumption and New Social Movements .................................................. 11
Chapter Outlines ......................................................................................... 12
CHAPTER ONE: SITUATING SLOW FOOD .............................................................. 18
Portrait One: Sofia’s perspective on Slow Food........................................... 18

Framing Consumer Distinction .................................................................... 20
False Dichotomies ....................................................................................... 24
Locating Slow Food .................................................................................... 26
Spannocchia ................................................................................................ 28
Why Tuscany? ............................................................................................ 31
Local Nostalgia, Global Identity .................................................................. 33
CHAPTER TWO: INFORMING TASTE ...................................................................... 41
Salone del Gusto ......................................................................................... 41

A Brief History of Salone del Gusto ............................................................ 42
Navigating the Slow network ...................................................................... 45
The Halls of Taste ....................................................................................... 47
The Case of Lardo....................................................................................... 50
Taste Re-education ...................................................................................... 53
Retraining the Senses: Biodynamic Wine ............................................. 55
Rethinking Terroir via Prosciutto ......................................................... 57
Corporate Co-Producers? ............................................................................ 59
Corporate Sponsors .............................................................................. 61
Negotiating Sponsorship ...................................................................... 65
Making a Pig Smell Like a Rose........................................................... 67
Beyond “Greenwashing:” Alternative Explanations ..................................... 69
CHAPTER THREE: CREATING FOOD IN TUSCANY .............................................. 72
Portrait Two: Brynn .................................................................................... 72

Locating Slow Food Producers .................................................................... 74
The History of Spannocchia ........................................................................ 80
Translating Tradition: The Cookbook .......................................................... 85
Cooking with Loredana ............................................................................... 88
Saperi e Sapori (Knowledge and Taste) ...................................................... 91
Nostra Cena (Our Dinner) ........................................................................... 94
Slow Food at Spannocchia .......................................................................... 96
The Most Italian of Meals ........................................................................... 99
v
CHAPTER FOUR: (CO-) PRODUCTION AT SPANNOCCHIA ................................ 102
Portrait Three: Gavin the Intern ................................................................. 102

Internships at Spannocchia ........................................................................ 106
Organizing Labor ...................................................................................... 108
Everyday Work ......................................................................................... 110
Realities of Co-Production ........................................................................ 113
Portrait Four: Giuseppe, the farmhand ....................................................... 114
The Anthropologist as Co-Producer .......................................................... 116
A Word of Warning .................................................................................. 119
The Transformation Kitchen ..................................................................... 120
Butchering ................................................................................................ 124
Salumi versus Salame ................................................................................ 127
Le Muffe (The Molds) ............................................................................... 132
CHAPTER FIVE: THE CINTA SENESE.................................................................... 136
Eat It to Save It ......................................................................................... 136

A Truly Tuscan Pig ................................................................................... 138
Emphasizing Locality Through EU Standards ........................................... 143
The Trouble with Labels ........................................................................... 147
The Ark of Taste ....................................................................................... 152
CHAPTER SIX: PRODUCERS IN THE MARKET .................................................... 157
Portrait Five: Riccio .................................................................................. 157

The Sovicille Market ................................................................................. 160
The Casino di Roma.................................................................................. 166
Shifting Roles of Production ..................................................................... 173
A Return to Turin: Terra Madre ................................................................ 175
Fetishizing Cultural Diversity.................................................................... 180
Finding a Middle Ground .......................................................................... 186
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 188
Pleasure and Politics ................................................................................. 189

Shifting Fields ........................................................................................... 191
Future Directions ...................................................................................... 193
APPENDIX A: SALUMI PROCESSING AT SPANNOCCHIA.................................. 197
APPENDIX B: ARK OF TASTE GUIDELINES......................................................... 200
BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 203
vi
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 San Francisco Victory Garden ......................................................................... 19
Figure 2 Postcard image; Image courtesy of Instituto Valorizzazione Salumi

Italiani .................................................................................................................. 38
Figure 3 "Map" of the Slow Food network .................................................................... 45
Figure 4 Buono, Pulito e Guisto: Good, Clean and Fair ................................................. 47
Figure 5 Selling salumi products from Sicily ................................................................ 52
Figure 6 Slow Food branded items for sale at Salone del Gusto 2004; Image
courtesy of Slow Food International ...................................................................... 60
Figure 7 2006 Parmigiano-Reggiano booth ................................................................... 62
Figure 8 2008 Parmigiano-Reggiano booth ................................................................... 62
Figure 9 2006 Lavazza coffee booth ............................................................................. 63
Figure 10 2006 Prosciutto di San Daniele stand ............................................................ 66
Figure 11 2006 Rosa handout; Image courtesy of Prosciutto Rosa ................................ 68
Figure 12 Aerial view of Spannocchia; Image courtesy of the Spannocchia

Foundation............................................................................................................ 76
Figure 13 Spannocchia's 12th Century tower ................................................................ 81
Figure 14 Delfino Cinelli and Frances Hartz; Image courtesy of the Spannocchia
Foundation............................................................................................................ 84
Figure 15 Young Loredana at Spannocchia, circa 1950; Image courtesy of the

Spannocchia Foundation ....................................................................................... 89
Figure 16 Graziella at work in the kitchen..................................................................... 92
Figure 17 Publicity photo with Slow Food Siena convivium leaders, Spannocchia
estate managers and workers. All of the foods pictured were produced on the
estate; Image courtesy of the Spannocchia Foundation. ......................................... 97
Figure 18 Unloading a slaughtered hog ....................................................................... 117
Figure 19 Making salame in the Transformation Kitchen ............................................ 123
Figure 20 Piero stirs the cauldron................................................................................ 129

Figure 21 Straining meat and bones from the brine in the cauldron ............................. 130
Figure 22 Slicing meat for sopressata.......................................................................... 130
vii
Figure 23 Putting the spiced meat mixture into casings ............................................... 131
Figure 24 Gelatin forms on the exterior of freshly packaged sopressata ...................... 131
Figure 25 Sliced buristo .............................................................................................. 132
Figure 26 Racks of curing salame in the Stagionatura, with more aged products
covered in the desirable white muffa hanging on the lower racks ........................ 133
Figure 27 Cinta Senese breeding sows ........................................................................ 138
Figure 28 Detail of Lorenzetti fresco; Image courtesy of

www.cintasenese.blogspot.com........................................................................... 141
Figure 29 The red Consortium labels contain serial numbers for traceability to the
point of origin. The brown paper labels from Spannocchia list the ingredients
and date of production, as well as contact information for the estate. ................... 148
Figure 30 Labeling for Presidia products .................................................................... 153
Figure 31 Cinta Senese producer at Salone del Gusto .................................................. 154
Figure 32 Cinta Senese statue in Sovicille ................................................................... 160
Figure 33 Riccio slicing salumi products at market ..................................................... 163
Figure 34 Delegate check-in ....................................................................................... 177
Figure 35 Peruvian delegates at Terra Madre .............................................................. 180
Figure 36 African delegate in "traditional" attire, Image courtesy of Slow Food

International........................................................................................................ 183
Figure 37 Terra Madre sign at Turin subway stop ....................................................... 185
viii
1
INTRODUCTION
Slow Food reconceptualizes everyday food choices as subversive political
actions—one does not simply eat Slow, he or she imbues food with meanings that
express resistance to “fast” food, life and culture. Founded in Italy in 1989, the Slow
Food Movement instigated a “case for taste”—a politically-aware reevaluation of the role
of food, conviviality, and localized culinary tradition—to a primarily Western European
audience concerned with increasing gustatory homogenization. Over the past two
decades, however, Slow Food’s message expanded to encompass a broad spectrum of
ecological, culinary, and social justice concerns surrounding food production and
consumption. Slow Food targets issues such as sustainability, loss of culinary tradition,
unethical rural development, and vanishing biodiversity.
Today, according to a prominent banner on the organization’s website, “Slow
food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots
association…that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the
environment.”1 With over 100,000 members in 153 countries, Slow Food emphasizes
the ethical and social dimensions of eating habits by creating a new kind of ecologically
aware consumerism. Such consumer-based political acts, or “reflexive consumption,”
literally embody the Slow Food ideology.
However, this heavy rhetorical emphasis on the agency of the consumer obscures
inquiry into the broad claims for social justice presented by the movement by
overlooking the parallel role of the food producer. In 2008, Slow Food introduced the
concept of a co-producer —a “responsible consumer who chooses to enjoy quality food
produced in harmony with the environment and local cultures.” The most recent Slow
Food Manifesto for Quality goes on to clarify:
1 Accessed online at www.slowfood.com on October 8, 2011.

2
[If] “eating is an agricultural act,” 2 it follows that producing food

must be considered a “gastronomic act.” The consumer orients the
market and production with his or her choices and, growing aware
of these processes, he or she assumes a new role. Consumption
becomes part of the productive act and the consumer thus becomes
a co-producer. The producer plays a key role in this process,
working to achieve quality, making his or her experience available
and welcoming the knowledge and knowhow of others. (Slow
Food International 2010)
Slow Food frames “co-producers” as potentially powerful political and social
actors in reformulating the marketplace. The producer, however, bears the responsibility
for making quality food available, with no explicit mechanism for creating social or
economic change beyond that of educating potential consumers. As such, the rhetoric of
“co-production” obscures the farmer’s position in the chain of Slow Food supply and
demand, and overlooks the myriad social, economic and political challenges faced by
small-scale food producers today.
This dissertation examines the tension between the ideologies and practices of
Slow Food and the locally-situated goals of small-scale food producers working to create
economic, ecologic and cultural sustainability on daily basis. To what extent does Slow
Food’s concept of a co-producer translate into actions that promote social justice for food
producers? Current scholarly work on the scope of alternative food networks emphasizes
the structural and economic processes that connect food producers to politically-
conscious consumers. I extend and elaborate this discussion through a critical analysis of
Slow Food’s rhetorical and discursive strategies, and link these findings to my
ethnographic study of small-scale, organic food producers (and co-producers) in Italy.
In the chapters that follow I present data gathered from two related but distinct
sites: 1) international, national, and regional Slow Food events and 2) everyday life and
work on a Tuscan agriturismo (farm-based tourism estate) called Spannocchia. These
sites provide multiple perspectives from which to examine the concept of co-production.
2 This phrase comes from the work of farmer/author Wendell Berry (1990).
3
Slow Food coordinates conferences, markets and other events to facilitate engagement
between food producers and consumers, in ways that highlight the movement’s
ideological investment in the power of socially-conscious capitalist consumers to institute
social change. At Spannocchia, links between food consumers and food producers
develop (both tacitly and overtly) through gastronomic tourism and onsite educational
programs based on agricultural and cultural sustainability. The directors of Spannocchia
actively engage with Slow Food ideologies and participate in activities sponsored by a
regional Slow Food chapter, or convivia. Food producers at the estate breed, raise, and
butcher Cinta Senese hogs, a heritage breed celebrated by regional authorities in Italy and
gastronomes alike. Additionally, the Cinta Senese is aboard Slow Food’s international
Ark of Taste, a project working to promote “forgotten” food products, endangered
livestock breeds, and plant varieties in danger of disappearing. Activities at both research
sites attempt to create channels through which individuals on each end of the production-
consumption continuum can work toward a mutually beneficial goal: delicious food that
is sustainably produced by fairly-paid farmers and artisans who take pride in their work.
But does the notion of transforming educated consumers into full-fledged co-
producers play out in meaningful ways? How do localized cultural practices, particularly
those enacted through the organizational conduits of social movements like Slow Food,
act as a force for political, social, and economic transformations? An emphasis on the
relationships between producers and consumers underscores the changing nature of
society’s relationship to food production and consumption, highlighting the reflexivity of
Slow Food in response to local, national, and global change. Multi-sited ethnographic
research conducted in Italy between 2006-2009 reveals that the relationship between
ideology and practice is often tenuous at best. Through an analysis of discursive
messages that consumers receive, on the one hand, and the experiences of food producers
on the other, I argue that Slow Food’s restructuring of the consumer/producer

4
relationship may play out on paper and at conferences—and sometimes even at the
table—but it does so less often and less obviously on fields and farms.
The Rise of Slow Food
The creation stories of a social movement operate as a common reference point
for those involved by forging a collective formative identity. Characterizing the rise of
the feminist health movement in the United States, Morgen states:
Once the ideas and actions behind a movement begin to stir, there
will at some point be a moment when it ‘begins’—this is where
historical construction begins—and the movement is now a
significant actor in the future. The foundational story is a
‘functional scaffold’ for remembered history and for the
articulation of shared goals. When they are told and retold, by
specific people at specific times, in the context of particular
agendas or political goals, these stories embody the discursive
process of movement making. (2002:14)
For Slow Food, the 1986 protest against a new McDonald’s restaurant at the foot
of the Roman Spanish Steps constitutes this “functional scaffold.” Rome holds a
reputation as an epicenter of Italian cuisine for locals and tourists alike. The presence of
the American fast food chain, synonymous with globalization and homogenized culinary
fare, alongside this historic al fresco staircase led to local outcry. It was not the first
McDonald’s in Europe, but the juxtaposition of the Golden Arches and one of Rome’s
most famous piazzas spawned an organized protest. A group of leftist wine and food
aficionados from Italy’s Piedmont region, led by a cult of personality wrapped up in the
form of Carlo Petrini, embodied the outrage many Italians felt. Armed only with bowls
of homemade pasta and slices of artisanal pizza, these food connoisseurs transformed into
activists as they converged around the McDonalds restaurant.3 These acts, and the
3 It is interesting to note that the most stereotypical “Italian” foods—pizza and pasta—are
specific to southern areas of Italy such as Rome, yet many consider these foods typical of the
entire country. Helstosky (2004) argues that this is largely due to the fact that most immigrants to
the U.S. hailed from southern Italy. Nevertheless, one can now enjoy a pizza Napolitano (Pizza
in the Naples style) anywhere in Italy, showing how food traditions created in a transnational
arena come full circle to shape the modern Italian palate—and politics—as well.
5
philosophies underlying them, spawned the Slow Food movement, which took its name
from the dialectical opposite of fast food.4 Slow Food emerged as a counter-initiative to
the “third world of taste” (Paolini 2003: 287) embodied by McDonalds and its globalized,
standardized fare.
In Italy and elsewhere, McDonalds has attracted rhetorical attention as a symbol
of industrialized, imperial food expansion (cf. Ritzer 1993), but the key to Slow Food's
success is not that it offers a nostalgic backward glance at a world of vanishing pleasures
or local identities tied to eating. Rather, emphasizing everyday cultural practices as a
force for political action, Slow Food creates a “politics of aesthetics” by linking the
pleasures of food with a neo-Marxist standpoint, examining the historical and social
implications of food production and consumption through a critical lens (Miele and
Murdoch 2002). As a social movement, Slow Food aims to restructure post-industrial
foodways by changing the ways in which co-producers think about consumption and
production. As Mintz characterizes these foodways:
The cumulative, selective process of modernity in action—whether

of food, cooking method, cooking medium, plant variety, animal
breed, or taste—has repeatedly picked as criteria such things as
standardization, efficiency, preservability, convenience of packing
and shipping, and underlying it all, the desire for profit. (2006:3)
Slow Food explicitly attacks these outcomes of globalized modernity, offering a
fundamental critique of what constitutes quality of life on both a personal and a societal
level. It is also a critique of unlimited growth, unrestricted consumption, and unrelenting
economic rationality. The first Slow Food Manifesto, penned by Carlo Petrini in 1989,
directly addresses these dimensions of “industrial civilization” in its opening statements:
Our Century, which began and has developed under the insignia of
industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it
as its life model.
4 Although the movement began in Italy, among Italian speakers, the name “Slow Food” has
appeared since the movement’s inception (Schneider 2008).
6
We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same

insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the
privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods.
To be worthy of the name, Homo Sapiens should rid himself of

speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction.
A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose

the universal folly of Fast Life. (2001:xxiii)
The early rhetoric of the movement works out a “politically-thick vision of taste
refinement: its idealized consumer is an ‘eco-gastronome,’ someone who adds ecological
concerns onto a continuously trained aesthetic appreciation of food” (Sassetti and
Davolio 2010:202). By understanding where food comes from, how it was produced and
by whom, individuals learn how to combine pleasure and responsibility in daily choices
and to appreciate the cultural and social importance of food. Petrini’s 1989 Manifesto
goes on to call for a Slow Food revolution, in which the value of taste and pleasure is
imbued with political and ethical significance:
May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-

lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude
who mistake frenzy for efficiency.
Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food. Let us
rediscover the flavors and savors of regional cooking and banish
the degrading effects of Fast Food.
In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of

being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow
Food is now the only truly progressive answer. (2001:xxiii-xxiv)
The manifesto encompasses environmentalism and the protection of gustatory
tradition and pleasure, while taking a conscious step away from the frenzied pace of the
modern world. It addresses both conservative desires to preserve “traditional” local
communities, as well as alternative, progressive solutions to industrialization (Andrews
2008). The unlikely connection between gustatory pleasure, social justice and
sustainability delivers a holistic critique that challenges many underlying philosophies
and outcomes of globalization. Slow Food moves within (and beyond) anti-neoliberal
epistemologies founded on critiques of industrial agriculture, nutritional science, or the
7
ethics of development to examine the placement of value as it is related to the production,
labor, and consumption of particularly marked types of “Slow” food.
The movement continued to grow in size and scope, but it was not until 2006 that
Slow Food publications intensified the rhetoric of social justice by coining the term co-
producer. Highlighting the power of the consumer to enact political change, a revised
mission statement clarifies and emphasizes a more comprehensive, cohesive movement:
We believe that everyone has a fundamental right to pleasure and

consequently the responsibility to protect the heritage of food,
tradition and culture that make this pleasure possible. Our
movement is founded upon this concept of eco-gastronomy – a
recognition of the strong connections between plate and planet.
Slow Food is good, clean and fair food. We believe that the food
we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way
that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health;
and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their
work.
We consider ourselves co-producers, not consumers, because by

being informed about how our food is produced and actively
supporting those who produce it, we become a part of and a partner
in the production process. (Slow Food International 2006)
The “firm defense of quiet material pleasure” and “guaranteed sensual pleasure”
offered by the 1989 Manifesto shift to clearly explicated goals of “Good, Clean and Fair.”
In Italy and abroad, Slow Food now operates in three central channels reflecting those
goals: taste education, defense of biodiversity and interaction between food consumers
and producers. This “eco-gastronomy” aims to preserve culinary traditions threatened
with extinction from mass production and globalization through in situ efforts, and
simultaneously works to educate consumers about the importance of “good, clean, and
fair” foods through widespread media and public relations campaigns. It is not simply a
matter of boycotting McDonalds. The articulation of shared goals shifted over time, but
the overarching paradigm of Slow Food—that a culture of biodiversity will in turn foster
human, civil, and demographic growth—continues to provide an umbrella over a

kaleidoscope of activities and goals addressed through practices of food and eating.
8
Situating Slow Food
The shared reference points outlined in the Slow Food creation story and
subsequent manifestos—all of which are available in some form on the internet— enable
followers to navigate the movement from multiple geographic spaces. Although Slow
Food operates on a global scale institutionally, the local, grassroots conviva (chapters) are
the true heart of the movement, problematizing clear local/global dichotomies. As the
movement spreads worldwide, its institutional discourses are translated through a milieu
of diverse local histories and locally defined values surrounding food. The array of
participants—both producers and consumers, food activists and culinary tourists—
spreads across multiple arenas, both public and private. In many cases it is difficult to
separate the goals of the movement from the goals of its participants, especially because
Slow Food is an amalgamation of private entrepreneurs, volunteers, activists, and
commercial sponsors, and these roles often overlap and change over time.
As described above, Slow Food offers a holistic critique of the industrialization of
food and develops new discourses surrounding food production and consumption.
However, some argue that Slow Food goes beyond this to present a critique of an entire
way of living, offering an alternative set of values that draw it into diverse political
avenues (c.f. Andrews 2008; Honore 2004; Parkins and Craig 2006). From this
perspective, Slow Food critically engages with the nature of globalization and cannot be
reduced to only one of its many programs, messages, or goals. Here, the “field” of the
Slow Food movement is unbounded and complex, presenting a challenge for traditional
ethnographic research. As Appadurai puts it, globalization issues a fundamental
challenge to “the mutually constitutive relationship between anthropology and locality”
(1996: 178). Slow Food eludes a conventional heuristic method of investigation, and its
analysis exemplifies the “awkward scale” of contemporary ethnography that attempts to
tap into local and global discursive flows while simultaneously tending to the empirical
phenomena of the material, lived world (Comaroff and Comaroff 2003). In globalized
9
social movements like Slow Food, local actions develop within transnational public
spheres through the relationships existing between members of multiple localities
(Guidry, et al. 2000; see also Hannerz 2003a). In other words, specific actions continue
to be realized in concrete locales, but the organization of these actions often occurs
within a transnational context.
Edelman (2001) argues that ethnographic analyses of social movements are most
successful when they examine the broad scope of political and social fields wherein
mobilizations occur. To study Slow Food, I conducted participant observation research
in two primary sites, one emphasizing the sweeping international character of the
movement and one pinpointing highly localized food production and consumption. In
this study, I attempt to rejoin the politics and ideologies of a globalized Slow Food with
the everyday lived experiences of food producers who (often subconsciously) embody
those ideologies. In so doing, I centrally rely on the research methods of discourse
analysis and participant observation.
Slow Food Ideology
In this dissertation I first attempt to pin down the roles of producers and co-
producers through discursive analysis of Slow Food events. In order to study the
evolution of Slow Food discourse it is useful to analyze the factors sustaining the unity of
this discourse. For example, although they were written almost twenty years apart, the
manifestos described above share rules about food consumption and production that form
the core of “Slow” ideology. Foods, foodways, and producers identified by Slow Food as
worthy of attention (and consumption) are part of a broad discourse that extensively
contextualizes the meanings and motivations that underlie these acts. Appadurai (1981)
argues that food itself is a powerful semiotic device and form of collective representation.
His model of Gastro-Politics refers to the “conflict or competition over specific cultural
or economic resources as it emerges in social transactions around food” (1981:495). For
10
Slow Food’s co-producer, food is the symbolic medium that regulates roles and signifies
privileges.
The evolving rhetoric of the Slow Food movement can likewise be read as part of
a larger discourse of changing ideologies about food. If we understand discourse as the
dialogical process through which social action, cultural knowledge, and social institutions
are achieved and enacted (Graham and Farnell 1996), it is possible to critically engage
with Slow Food discourse as a means of understanding the connections between social
structure and individual agency. Such an analysis encompasses both written and spoken
forms of discourse as well as other expressive signifying acts. In the case of Slow Food,
such signifying acts include quotidian practices of the “habitus” (everyday cooking, food
selection) and public performance (Slow Food events on local, regional, national and
international scales). The very practice of eating Slow, or purchasing Good, Clean and
Fair foods, embodies “in embryonic form the changes the movement seeks” (Edelman
2001:289), regardless of any variety of social or political motivations that underlie the
act. Here,
Slowness…becomes a metaphor for the politics of place: a

philosophy complexly concerned with the defense of local cultural
heritage, regional landscapes, and idiosyncratic material cultures of
production, as well as international biodiversity and
cosmopolitanism. (Leitch 2003: 454)
However, Leitch (2003) argues that the Slow Food movement is less about the
support of local traditions and foodways, and more about the commoditization of specific
places and producers. The cultural politics of “marketing nostalgia” to an audience eager
for foods considered traditional, rural, and Slow further problematizes notion of a co-
producer effacing social inequality. Do these politics promote “fetishizing cultural
diversity and sentimentalizing struggles for cultural or economic survival” (Donati 2005:
227)? My ethnographic findings about how consumers and producers actually interact in
different Slow Food settings highlight these tensions within Slow Food’s ideological
claims, expanding upon existing academic critiques.
11
Consumption and New Social Movements
A variety of scholars have offered critical analyses of Slow Food, most drawing
upon how Slow Food’s consumer-based “action at a distance” draws attention to
conventional divisions between individual agency and structure (Lockie 2002). As
economist Bruce Pietrykowsi puts it, the key issue here “is whether material pleasure and
the symbolic expression of identity through consumer goods is compatible with a more
politicized, socially conscious consumption ethos” (2004:309). The clearly defined
marketing orientation of the Slow Food movement, developed in response to consumer
demands, stands at odds with the movement’s broad agenda to challenge national and
international agricultural and industrial corporations (Jones, et al. 2003). As consumers
who operate as “international political activists by virtue of market choice” (Leitch 2003:
457) and effect “checkbook environmentalism” (McWilliams 2009), Slow Food co-
producers address social and political issues in highly circumspect ways. Yet to date,
such critiques have not directly examined the actual impact of participation in Slow Food
on small-scale producers.
By focusing on producers, my research illustrates the need for creative approaches
to the study of New Social Movements that operate on both local and global dimensions.
New Social Movements such as Slow Food focus on the struggle over symbolic,
informational, and cultural resources and rights, which produce new social subjects with
multiple identities existing in a range of social positions. There are usually multiple
points of contention that New Social Movements are working to address, often in a
seemingly diffuse manner (Edelman 2001). Bourdieu (2001) outlines the common
features shared by such movements. By rejecting the formulas of “traditional” union- or
class-based revolutions, New Social Movements emphasize self-management and the
direct participation of all members. Such a shift requires that goals are
Concretized in exemplary actions, directly linked to the particular

problem concerned and requiring a high level of personal
commitment on the part of activists and leaders, most of whom
12
have mastered the art of creating events, of dramatizing a condition

so as to focus media attention—and, consequently, political
attention—on them. (Bourdieu 2001:40)
For Slow Food, a redefinition of the consumer as co-producer fundamentally
alters the capitalist consumer/producer dyad. The movement encourages co-producers to
seek information about the food they purchase directly from the local farmers, fishermen,
and breeders themselves. For example, Slow Food views the connections forged through
farmers' markets, direct farm sales and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
schemes as the ideal medium in which to ask questions about the origin, cultivation and
production techniques that go into everyday food items. In other words, it is often not
enough to simply make informed purchases. There is an added responsibility to
physically and intellectually connect with the producers themselves. The socioeconomic
relations that people have to production in a specific time and place—Marx’s relations of
production—shift as people formally and informally reconfigure their roles in the realm
of food production. Unlike the stereotypical supermarket shopper, a slave to commodity
fetishism even on diet, the emancipated co-producer shows up at the farm doorstep with
questions about food production. Yet as I argue here, this imagery is underwritten by
unseen demands placed upon producers.
Chapter Outlines
This dissertation addresses the connections between Slow Food’s discursive
production of ideology and information for consumers, the subsequent consumption-
based activities that constitute co-production, and the ways in which these actions relate
to rural and agricultural sustainability in Italy. In chapter one I situate my research
methods and field sites within larger discussions of the Slow Food movement. The
official rhetoric of Slow Food underscores its emphasis on sensory pleasure and gustatory
license with a politically motivated critique of global inequality on sociocultural,
economic and ecological scales. Here, taste becomes inherently political due to the
effects of globalization and industrialization on the palates of ordinary people. In chapter
13
one I describe how the aesthetic considerations central to Slow Food tend to generate
critiques of the movement’s “‘Nostalgic’ view of the past, its ‘festishized’ view of
pleasure, its ‘paternalism,’ its ‘imperial encounters’ with ‘exoticized others’ (framed by
its own ‘heritage of privilege’), and its ‘culinary Luddism.’” (Andrews 2008:172). Yet
through the consumption of foods deemed Good, Clean and Fair by the movement, the
“reflexive” Slow Food consumer may transcend charges of elitism. While recognizing
that cultural diversity plays a role in determining taste preferences and choices, the
aesthetic considerations central to Slow Food are increasingly underscored by highly
politicized efforts to rejoin production and consumption in meaningful ways.
In chapter two I draw from my observations at a range of Slow Food events,
particularly the Salone del Gusto exhibitions of 2006 and 2008 held in Turin, Italy, to
explore the ways in which Slow Food functions as an “international actor for the global
promotion of the local” (Sassatelli 2007:183). Here, a critical examination of the
discourse presented by Slow Food at its defining events offers an analysis of the
dissemination of information, symbols, and food commodities among transnational
participants. My analysis of the 2006 and 2008 editions of Salone del Gusto reveals that
a singular objective of Slow Food is slippery to locate, and even its most representative
event is rife with complexity and, at times, contradiction. As the largest promotional and
educational event hosted by Slow Food, Salone del Gusto has the capacity and authority
to inspire a profound reflection on food and the global community it represents. The
official, evolving discourse produced by Slow Food for each Salone del Gusto reveals
scattershot efforts to reach the broadest audience possible. In some cases, these efforts
appear to directly undermine the stated goals of the movement. Here I describe the ways
in which Slow Food directly articulates its politics through food samplings, taste
education programs, and promotional materials, and also via thinly-veiled corporate
messages and commercial sponsorship. For example, Taste “re-education” prepares the
consumer palate and consciousness to sample a wide range of “Slow” food products
14
available at the event. Fetishized in Slow Food promotions, the producers of these foods
present at the event may or may not be able to fully engage with the dialogic processes
encouraged by the movement. Moreover, the simultaneous presence of small-scale
producers idealized and heralded by the movement and the rhetorically villianized
corporate entities that provide the bulk of finanical support for the event underscore
tensions about modern food production. While improving social justice is an explicit
goal in Slow Food rhetoric, what impact does participation in Slow Food have on actual
small-scale producers?
In chapter three I turn to ethnographic research conducted at the Tenuta di
Spannocchia, where I surveyed the ways in which the enactment of Slow Food’s current
focus on “co-production” of food is linked to invented traditions drawn from Tuscan
agricultural heritage on the estate. Drawing upon the historical elements emphasized by
the estate’s directors, I examine the role of “authenticity” related to food and rural life in
the production of agricultural tourism today. The commodification of recipes and
cooking styles, for example, offers guests the opportunity to very literally consume an
idealized version of Tuscany. Additionally, the ongoing presence of Americans and other
guests introduces new culinary conventions that coexist with “traditional” Italian foods.
More than a binary between global and local gastronomies, food-related activities at
Spannocchia are also variably interpreted by members of a local Slow Food convivium,
demonstrating that idealizations of tradition extend to multiple audiences. Here, Slow
Food’s concept of the co-producer plays out for tourists, residents, and producers in both
implicit and explicit ways. How do the efforts at the estate connect to larger socio-
economic issues related to food production and consumption in Italy today?
The nature of participant observation research led to my own involvement with
food production at Spannocchia, both in the fields and in seasonal butchering activities.
In chapter four I present data from my experiences working as a de facto farm volunteer
alongside full-time Italian food producers and seasonal interns. I describe the small
15
number of interns working to produce food at Spannocchia as Slow Food co-producers
par excellence. Acting neither as residents nor as tourists, the interns occupy a unique
position on the estate, where food remains at the center of the experience. Competitive
selection for internship positions reveals a widespread interest in sustainable agricultural
production in Italy, even when the realities of farm work prove to be labor intensive and
variably rewarding. Here I connect my own farm work experiences with those of
Spannocchia’s intern volunteers, with whom I wrangled and butchered pigs, prepared and
served meals, and experienced everyday life in rural Tuscany. How are the interns
construed as co-producers, and how do they differ from the other tourists visiting the
estate?
In chapter five I continue my discussion of food production at Spannocchia,
presenting detailed information about the Cinta Senese hog. The production and
consumption of this pig embodies the symbolic meaning of food and culture in Tuscany,
and its increasing popularity via Slow Food and other, more localized channels reflects
shifting patterns of consumption. Drawing from ethnographic data gathered while “co-
producing” Cinta Senese cured pork products, I argue that consumer demand for this
particular meat is based not only on political or economic conditions favorable to an
expanding “alternative” food market, but also on the pig’s symbolic ties to the region of
Tuscany. However, the economic viability of raising Cinta Senese pigs for artisanal
salumi products depends on the ability and capacity of various organizations to educate
potential consumers. Here I discuss the role of local efforts spearheaded by a Cinta
Senese breeding consortium, the EU-wide Denomination of Origin program, and the
globalized platforms of Slow Food’s Ark of Taste and Presidia programs. Producers of
Cinta Senese pigs navigate between the requirements and constraints of these various
programs, all of which on some level operate for the purpose of consumer education and
market expansion, rather than to support producers on an everyday basis.

16
In chapter six I examine the pressures placed on producers involved in Slow Food
through two examples that reconnect the Italian context with the global scope of the Slow
Food movement. First, I describe the challenges of marketing of Spannocchia’s salumi
products in local and national venues. I highlight my experiences with Spannocchia’s
farm manager, Riccio, whose everyday labor best demonstrates the numerous
expectations and tensions placed on Slow Food producers. His shifting performances in
both the marketplace and on the estate point to the challenges faced by food producers
obliged to operate not only as agriculturalists, but as educators and marketers. I then
connect his experiences with those of Slow Food’s Terra Madre delegates, who present
not only the foods they produce but perform various aspects of ethnicity and identity at
the Terra Madre event held concurrently with Salone del Gusto.
At Terra Madre, delegates from developing nations symbolically represent Slow
Food’s efforts at Virtuous Globalization. Although delegates’ performances of ethnicity
at Terra Madre may enhance their commercial success at the event, it is unclear if these
performances are voluntary or part of a larger marketing strategy coordinated by Slow
Food. As I describe in chapter six, the movement employs representations of producers
that are not necessarily based upon the lived daily realities and challenges of food
production, and these discrepancies are particularly problematic for producers in the
developing world. Nevertheless, Slow Food consumers adopt these representations, and
build them into the symbolic politics of the movement. Here, symbolic politics refer to
“ideas and images, not common identity or economic interests, [which] mobilize political
actions across wide gulfs of distance, language, and culture” (Conklin and Graham 1995:
696). As discussed above, these politics emerge in Slow Food’s concept of the co-
producer. Through the lens of Slow Food, the labor and social lives of food producers (or
at least the performances thereof) become visible to the engaged consumer. As such,
concerns with unequal relations of production are largely subsumed by an emphasis on

relations of consumption, despite the fact that massive inequalities persist in food
17
production, particularly between large scale corporate food producers and locally-based
small-scale producers.
In the concluding chapter, I consider the overarching question: Can the
connections forged at Slow Food events, or in agricultural settings like Spannocchia, with
their ideological emphasis on supporting small-scale food production, translate into real-
life changes in the daily lives of food producers around the world? I discuss the role of
anthropology within the larger arena of food studies, and address the discipline’s
potential contribution to studies of food production and consumption.

18
CHAPTER ONE: SITUATING SLOW FOOD
Portrait One: Sofia’s perspective on Slow Food
Sofia5 worked as an intern in the orto (vegetable garden) at Spannocchia. Her
family lives in Bangladesh, and she first heard about Spannocchia’s programs from a
visiting former intern there. Before arriving at Spannocchia, Sofia served as an
AmeriCorps volunteer for two years in Berkeley, California, where she helped to build
school gardens. I interviewed her about her experiences there, and whether or not they
coincided with Slow Food. Her job dovetailed on the success of the Edible Schoolyard
project spearheaded by Alice Waters, the founder of the highly regarded restaurant Chez
Panisse and then-president of Slow Food USA. The Edible Schoolyard is a one-acre
organic garden and kitchen classroom for urban public school students at Martin Luther
King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. In programs like this, students participate in all
aspects of growing, harvesting, and preparing nutritious, seasonal produce as a part of
regular curriculum. However, despite her regular, engaged involvement with the food
politics of the area, Sofia was not formally involved with Slow Food. As she put it:
I was really interested in Slow Food. It was weird, because when I

got out there [to San Francisco] I really wanted to be part of it.
And I thought I would somehow see information for it. You know,
I was on all these email list serves, and I’d find out about all this
stuff going on, but I never heard anything about Slow Food. So I
was kind of like, what is this “Slow Food”? (laughs) What are
they doing? Because I never heard about any events. And then I
had a friend that I met who was a member, and he said that you
have to be a Slow Food member to get emails about the events.
And he would just forward me the emails, and then if I ever
wanted to go, I could go. So then he was forwarding me these
emails and they were for all these dinners that were, like, $200. I
was making less than $200 a week! (laughs) So I actually never
5 Individuals quoted in this thesis received pseudonyms upon request. English language
pseudonyms come from the U.S. government’s 2010 list of the most popular baby names
(http://ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi). Italian pseudonyms come from a list of the most
popular baby names in Italy in the year 2008 (http://www.nomix.it/nomi-per-bambini-piu-usati-
in-italia.php).
19
went to a Slow Food event. My impression of it in California was

that it sounds cool, as an idea, but it’s very exclusive and kind of
secret society-ish.
This experience soured her to Slow Food, but her brief involvement in Slow Food
Nation, the inaugural U.S.-based version of Salone del Gusto, made things worse. Slow
Food Nation took place in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend 2008. Foodies across
the country deemed it the “debutante ball” of Slow Food in the United States, which,
after Italy, is the country with the most Slow Food members. Physically and
ideologically central to the event was the “Victory Garden,” a massive planting on the
lawn of the city courthouse building (see Figure 1).6 In addition to raising awareness
about how food is grown and how plants can possess both form and function, food banks
received all of the garden’s produce. Plopped down into the middle of a grimy area of
town, the Victory Garden was a green jewel that grew quite literally in the shadow of
City Hall. American civic life, government, and food symbolically united in this space.
Figure 1 San Francisco Victory Garden
6 Unless otherwise noted, all photographs in this thesis were taken by Rachel Horner Brackett.
20
Due to her boss’s connection with Alice Waters, Sofia and her coworkers helped
to install the plants. Shockingly, the entire garden was complete in a matter of hours.
Professional landscapers developed the layout—an artful mix of flowers, vegetables, and
herbs in raised beds—and volunteers placed large greenhouse transplants into the correct
spots. The mayor of the city was there, along with Alice Waters and other food
luminaries, to promote the garden. In Sofia’s words:
It was kind of silly. There were 500 volunteers for 200

plants…You put in your one plant, they make you pose for a lot of
pictures, and then you get fed this really amazing catered gourmet
meal.
That day a New York Times photographer took a picture of Sofia and a friend
moving a large potted plant. The next morning she woke up to find that her face was on
the cover of the Times, something that she was not at all comfortable with. After
working on community-based garden projects for two years with little to no recognition,
the massive publicity afforded to Slow Food Nation came as a shock. Worse, it
confirmed Sofia’s suspicions of Slow Food as an inaccessible group that is somewhat
insincere about its efforts to improve local communities.
Framing Consumer Distinction
Sofia’s experiences with Slow Food highlight an oft-repeated criticism of the
movement: that it is little more than an inefficient assembly of elitist gourmands.
Anthropologist Adrian Peace distills this viewpoint:
Bluntly expressed, Slow Food continues to be stereotyped as an

indulgence of the West’s middle classes as they seek out new
sources of postmodern identity. It is caricatured as a class strategy,
in line with Pierre Bourdieu’s approach, identifying the immediate
pleasures of high taste in the culinary sense with the steady
accumulation of taste in the cultural one. (2008:31)
Utilizing Bourdieu’s (1984) approach to taste, which describes aesthetics as
learned practices that serve to reinforce and “materialize” social structures, Slow Food
functions as yet another structure that naturalizes social inequality. Taste is “class culture
21
turned into nature” (Bourdieu 1984:190), and the food selections of the upper classes “are
the practical affirmation of an inevitable difference” (1984:56). Carefully refined
aesthetic preferences thus serve to bolster and reproduce social inequality. Thus,
Bourdieu shifts the focus of the body as a means of expression and source of symbolism
to the body as a locus of social practice (Csordas 2002). Following this, Watson and
Caldwell posit that the key to successful food politics “is the ability to transform private
worries about body and diet into an organized, worldwide movement—linked via the
internet to allied groups that promote organic foods and/or oppose fast foods” (2005:3)
Here, individual taste becomes a manifestation of culture and society on both
local and global sales. Pietrykowski states:
Slow Food has been able to take an attribute normally associated

with cultural capital—culinary taste—and insert it into a social
economy built around the preservation of unique food, local
cuisine, and cultural heritage. Cultural capital then comes to
encompass more than a signaling device for social status. The
Slow Food Movement seeks to transform cultural capital into a
form of social capital. (2004:317)
Slow Food claims to be democratic and based on the voluntary membership of
those with shared cultural and gastronomic interest. However, some argue that this
“consumer democracy” remains available only to those with the social and economic
capital to join in. The upper echelons of Slow Food are primarily composed of highly
educated idealists with ambitions beyond the local economy. Certain cultural phenomena
qualify as “good taste” not by random, but through dominant class functions that
legitimate their tastes as superior. In the case of Slow Food, do these classifications still
apply, or have traditional divides between high and low status foods—and their
consumers—eroded?
If “highbrow” tastes displayed an intellectualized appreciation pitted against the
seemingly unreflective consumption of the lower classes in the past, Peterson and Kern
(1996) argue that today the “cultural omnivore” marks a qualitative shift in the ways that
elite status is marked. Rather than display a snobbish exclusion, the cultural omnivore
22
claims to have an appreciation for all forms of culture, including those created by socially
marginal groups (e.g., isolated rural people, racial minorities, and youth). Whereas the
privileged classes of Bourdieu’s France would learn to appreciate caviar and champagne,
today’s omnivorous, socially-conscious eater seeks out authentic hand-rolled tortillas,
locally grown heirloom vegetables, or sausages made from sustainably raised, antibiotic-
free pigs. This “omnivorous cultural consumption strategy” includes multiple genres of
food and drink, but does not discriminate against those that may be considered high- or
low-class. This strategy does not discriminate against foods considered high- or low-
status; the discriminating omnivore appears to reject an elitist, ethnocentric form of
gastronomy for culinary cultural relativism (or faux populism, depending on one’s
perception). From this perspective, “alternative” food movements like Slow Food appear
to replace snobbery or exclusion with omnivorous appropriation and gentrification in a
quest for new forms of distinction. This begs the question: is Slow Food a
transformative social movement, or a new form of social capital for the affluent classes?
Anthropologist Janet Chrzan, who worked for the national board of Slow Food
USA for a several years, found that although many Slow Members in the U.S. are
“committed in principle to sustainability and food-production equity,” they are primarily
involved in “meeting other interesting food lovers, learning about the local area’s food
resources, and having really wonderful meals with congenial people” (2004:123). In
cases like Sofia’s, the “democratic” accessibility of Slow Food membership remains
clouded by a lack of economic or social capital. In the United States convivia, these
forms of capital map onto larger issues of race, gender and ethnicity. Hayes-Conroy and
Hayes-Conroy (2010) reveal the social indexing of Slow Food in the following quote:
Slow Food has spread in the US through a certain gastronomic

society, which is basically white. It has only spread in one
category, white and wealthy, and has done so through
volunteers…it was just whomever asked to be a part of the
movement, and so the message reached only those who were there
and ready to hear it. This [process] revealed the organization, and
[being] organized this way organically generates problems. It
23
doesn’t guarantee diversity. (interview with a Slow Food leader,

2010:2956)
The Hayes-Conroys’ research exposes not only an awareness of the primarily
white and middle-to-upper class basis of the Slow Food movement in the United States,
but suggests that embodied experiences of eating “Slow” foods are coded as white
practices that inhibit the participation of other groups. Yet despite the implications of the
research cited here, Slow Food founder and director Carlo Petrini maintains that Slow
Food is an “inclusive elite,” able to provide greater bargaining power for under-
developed markets, boosting knowledge and international contacts for these producers
(Van Der Meulen 2008:234).
Regardless of whether or not one views Slow Food as elitist or democratic,
underscoring debates about omnivorous consumption is a knot of discourse that continues
to define particular foods and consumers primarily through socioeconomic strictures and
Bourdieuian Distinction. Sociologists Johnston and Baumann (2010) present a
particularly useful means of untangling this rhetoric through their exploration of “foodie”
discourse (2010). Many of the individuals they interviewed expressed ambivalence
toward the term “foodie”—paradoxically, some argued that they couldn’t be foodies,
since they lacked any interest in gourmet food, while others self-identified as foodies, as
they were willing to try anything, even if it was not gourmet. The term nonetheless
operates as a powerful descriptor of gastronomic identity. Johnston and Baumann
identify the tension between two ideological poles that frame the activities of foodies: 1)
a democratic pole that eschews cultural elite standards by valorizing the cultural products
of “everyday” non-elite people, and 2), a pole that valorizes rare, difficult to access, and
often economically inaccessible foods that represent possession of high cultural capital.
In other words:
Foodies commonly seek out the food of the common people, at the
same time they frequently idealize foods, meals and
restaurants…that are inaccessible for the majority of the population
with less cultural and economic capital. (Johnston and Baumann
2010:61)
24
Using this framework, it is possible to think about Slow Food followers as “Slow
Foodies.” Here, participants emphasize the qualities of Good, Clean and Fair in assessing
the relative value of food and its production. Food “quality” is a multidimensional
concept—in addition to sensory valuations it encompasses attributes of morality and
aesthetics, as well as connotations with particular geographies, organizations and
institutions (Harvey, et al. 2004). However, until recently, most studies of consumer-
based social movements like Slow Food overlooked these non-sensory attributes,
focusing instead on the rhetorical juxtaposition of “Fast” and “Slow” elements.
False Dichotomies
Anthropologist Sidney Mintz argues that between “ideal” types of Fast food
(which unapologetically destroys the health of bodies and ecologies while simultaneously
extinguishing local food cultures) and Slow food (which only permits those with the
economic and cultural capital to enjoy gastronomic freedom), there is room for a
“Moderate” pace, where healthy and meaningful food is available to everyone (2006).
Wilk connects this concept to a larger discussion of food politics today:
The extremes of slow and fast, local and global, artisanal and
industrial, are ideal types; at some level they may be good
intellectual tools, but all the real action takes place in between, in
the complex and interconnected highways where Mintz’s ‘food of
moderate speed’ is traveling…From a global scale, what looks like
a linear long-term trend begins to resolve into processes that are
full of contradictions, the contingencies of culture and human
agency, and unexpected cycles, rehearsals, reversals, and reprises.
(Wilk 2006a:15-16)
Several anthropological examples of this trend discuss the variable incorporation
of McDonalds-style fast food chains in various cultural spaces, such as across Asia
(Watson 1998), Mexico (Pilcher 2006), and the city of Beijing (Yan 2000). Similarly, in
his discussion of fast food in France, sociologist Rick Fantasia shows that although
France possesses a culinary patrimony that would appear to diametrically oppose

restaurants like McDonalds, some middle-class French citizens eat there as a means of
25
“transgressing traditional cultural forms and embracing American cultural ideologies”
(1995:219). The franchise system reflects economic changes in France, embodying “a
timely ideological message of individualism, free enterprise, and entrepreneurial
capitalism” (Fantasia 1995:208). Moreover, Fantasia points out that so-called “pure”
French food is actually the result of several centuries of cultural change, appropriation,
expansion, and colonialism, a progression analogous to England’s “traditional”
consumption of tea and sugar (Mintz 1985). In each case, ethnographic inquiry illustrates
the ways in which consumers incorporate a seemingly overriding paradigm of “fast” food
into culturally situated and locally-based gastronomic structures.
The rhetorical extremes of Fast and Slow also apply to discussions of agricultural
production. Kloppenburg, et al. (2000) argue that the conceptual framings of alternative
food systems created by academics and policy specialists do not reflect the full range of
understandings (or agency) of producers and consumers. For example, organic food,
often rhetorically contrasted with the products of industrial agriculture, has expanded far
beyond what Belasco (1989) calls the “counter-cuisine.” This health-based approach to
food emerged out of 1960s counter culture movements, and emphasized unprocessed
foods and a connection to the agrarian environment. Today, it is easy to locate heavily
processed—yet organic—snack foods in most supermarkets, and as Guthman (2003;
2004) points out in her study of the organic food industry in California, organic food is
rarely produced by small-scale family farmers working in opposition to "industrial"
agriculture. This example reflects the capacity of capitalist enterprises to recognize
market shifts, and to co-opt or even subvert the original moral economies that underscore
them (see also DeLind 2000). At the same time, it is also possible for social movements
like Slow Food to borrow tactics from these enterprises in order to spread information
and ideologies about “alternative” food systems.
For Slow Food, the positioning of Slow Food branded Presidia products in the
ubiquitous COOP Italia supermarkets (Fonte 2006), and the presence of state agricultural
26
ministers and corporate agri-food giants at Salone del Gusto further supports the theory
of interpenetration. The concept of the co-producer is also a form of interpenetration
between categories, wherein even the production and subsequent purchase of food is
undivided in the purview of Slow Food.
Locating Slow Food
My first ethnographic “field” encompasses the ephemeral sites of Slow Food
events like Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre, where my role was as both a tourist and an
official academic “observer.” I researched Slow Food events longitudinally over three
years, beginning in October 2006 and continuing through April 2009. As Hannerz notes
in regards to studies of transnational organizations:
Conferences show up as important occasions in one study after the

other. Actually, it is often precisely these kinds of temporary
meeting places, where participants are only briefly present
together, which contribute critically to the formation and enduring
cohesion of translocal networks. (2003b:27-28)
During this period, the core ideology of Slow Food began to change in dramatic
ways, shifting its focus from that of a relatively elite gastronomic club to that of a
focused, highly-politicized food institution. My analysis derives from participant-
observation data collected during the 2006 and 2008 editions of Salone del Gusto and
Terra Madre, as well as from Slow Food Nation (held in San Franscisco, CA in 2008),
Terra Madre Toscana (Orbetello, Italy 2008), and Slow Fish (Genoa, Italy 2009).
At these events my presence was largely anonymous. I attended as many talks,
presentations, and colloquia as possible during each event, taking copious notes
throughout. I collected massive amounts of paper—leaflets, flyers, informational
brochures, newspaper articles, magazine clippings, and event programs. During these
Slow Food events I also took approximately 300 photographs. During my subsequent
examination of these images and clippings, I began to realize that some of the
27
information and sponsorship of major Slow Food events contradicted the stated ideology
of the movement in very significant ways.
In the fall of 2006, following a week at Salone del Gusto in Turin, I conducted
preliminary field research in the nearby small city of Bra, where the international
headquarters, communication offices, and publishing centers of Slow Food are located.
Here I attempted to “locate” Slow Food at the site of its institutional headquarters.
Pietrykowski (2004) argues that with its commercial publications, educational programs,
structured tourism, and formally affiliated University of Gastronomic Sciences, Slow
Food is not a “social movement” but rather an institution that formalizes the knowledge
of various other movements (e.g., anti-GMO/organic/Green movements). During this
time I collected sacks of printed materials, talked with administrators at the nearby
University of Gastronomic Sciences, and enjoyed numerous and extended conversations
with my roommate and neighbors, all of whom were employed by Slow Food.
Although I never saw him during my two months in Bra, Carlo Petrini also lives
in the city’s outskirts. The Slow Food employees I got to know talked excitedly about
rare sightings of Il Re (The King) in local restaurants and in the office. Petrini remains
steadfastly dedicated to this area of Italy, where his proto-Slow Food organization
Gambero Rosso, a group of local wine enthusiasts with communist affiliations, first
emerged (Parasecoli 2003). In the introduction to his 2005 book Buono, Pulito e Giusto,7
Petrini describes his disappointment upon discovering that the farmers who previously
raised a local variety of pepper in the outskirts of Bra had turned, for economic reasons,
to tulip bulb production. Soon after, he learned that the flavorless peppers served to him
a local restaurant were imported from the Netherlands, and his outrage launched a
renewed attack upon the illogical nature of neoliberal food production. The rhetorical
7 The title translates to Good, Clean and Fair, but was inexplicably changed to Slow Food Nation
for its 2006 translation and release in the United States.
28
and historical significance of Bra and the surrounding region seemed paramount to my
study of Slow Food. Initially, I had hoped to compare data gleaned from my fieldwork in
Bra and its surrounds with ethnographic data from Slow Food sites in the United States,
highlighting the international scope of the movement.
However, despite my best efforts to “situate” Slow Food in its hometown of Bra, I
repeatedly found that the data I collected did not answer my questions about the
relationship between Slow Food’s philosophies and the activities of its adherents.
Furthermore, preliminary data collection in the United States also failed to connect with
my core inquiries about the connection between Slow Food producers and consumers. At
this point, I chose to focus my attention on Italian food producers and the global Slow
Food consumers with whom they interact. The question was where to locate these food
producers. Prior to travelling to Turin for Salone del Gusto, I spent the summer months
of 2006 living in the medieval Tuscan city of Siena, where I took advanced Italian
language courses in preparation for my fieldwork. During that time, my language school
offered several field trips into the Tuscan countryside to visit wineries and estates
focusing on small-scale agriculture. I knew that several of these agritourism estates
offered lodging for tourists, and I began ask Italian friends in Bra and Siena if they knew
of a place that might host an anthropologist as well.
Spannocchia
In the end, I “discovered” my field site of Spannocchia through a Google search.
Spannocchia is a roughly 1000 acre estate located approximately 30 kilometers southwest
of Siena. With its 800-year old stone tower at the top of a forested hill, an active rare
breed animal husbandry program, and a range of tourist activities spanning from wild
herb collection to open-air painting, Spannocchia’s scope provided me with multiple
avenues of investigation. The estate is also unique in that it hosts three 3-month
competitive internship programs each year, attracting groups of primarily North
29
American young people to complete much of the unskilled labor required on the farm.
As such, my ideas about producers expanded to include highly localized actors as well as
international contributors. I initially arrived at Spannocchia as a tourist outsider and
gradually gained access to insider status through sustained daily work with the
individuals who live and work at the estate. Prior to my arrival at Spannocchia I worked
out an agreement with the foundation director in which I would pay a substantially
reduced rate for my room and board in exchange for work on the farm each week. At the
time I had no idea of what this work would entail. The directors at Spannocchia knew
about my interest in the Cinta Senese hog and in Slow Food, so I assumed that I would be
working outdoors with the pigs in some capacity.
After a few days of settling in and wandering the estate, I joined the interns first
thing in the morning to receive my first work assignment. I had already spent a few
afternoons that week informally picking olives with other visiting volunteers, and I
expected to continue with that task as long as the rain held off. Each group went off to a
respective job until only I remained, standing in front of the farm manager, Riccio. He
said, “Okay. You come with me.” Glancing down at my work boots, already caked with
reddish Tuscan mud, he added, “Put on clean shoes first.”
Riccio led me to the “transformation kitchen,” a space that I first encountered on a
tour of the estate few days prior. Unexpectedly, I quickly became a de facto butchering
intern at Spannocchia, carrying out all manner of tasks in the name of participant
observation. I describe my experiences in the transformation kitchen in Chapter 4. I also
took part in a wide variety of everyday tasks on the estate. Day-to-day operations at
Spannocchia focus on tourist education, food production in the garden and fields, and a
never-ending list of maintenance tasks on the vineyards, olive groves, fences, woodpiles,
stone walls and animal housing. In addition to providing relatively uninterrupted access
to the Italian food producers living and working on the estate, working at Spannocchia
allowed me to become a “co-producer” myself.
30
Spannocchia is moderately difficult to access. Even for those with a car, the
estate is located several kilometers up a steep hillside off of a winding, rural road. With
only one internet-accessible computer, a handful of telephones, and no television to speak
of, the Spannocchia “bubble” physically created a bounded anthropological fieldsite.
With the exception of going to market or tagging along on field trips into Siena, I was
literally “in the field” at all times. Unlike the anonymity I experienced at Slow Food
events, my time at Spannocchia was thickly woven with interactions with others. I spent
endless hours talking, eating, and working with not only with the estate owners and staff,
but with their families, the office secretary, program interns, visiting volunteers, and
many others. I was also able to spend a significant amount of time interacting with
guests visiting Spannocchia.
During my time at Spannocchia I conducted approximately 30 formal and
informal interviews with residents at Spannocchia in addition to dozens of extended
conversations with tourists, visiting volunteer workers, and other area food producers
during market events and farm visits. This research was approved by the University of
Iowa Institutional Review Board as “low risk.” I conducted interviews in English and
Italian; in some cases, it was possible to audio record these interviews, particularly those
conducted with the interns and staff. Each day I took detailed field notes on any
conversations and events that took place while working at the estate, and spent my
evenings typing up field notes. I carried an audio recorder on several of the Spannocchia
tours in order to capture the details of the farm’s education program, collected historical
information about the estate from the villa’s small library, sorted through current and past
promotional materials, and read intern newsletters and blogs.
Spannocchia’s involvement in the Slow Food movement emerged alongside its
revitalization as a destination for agritourism, which has in turn been bolstered by a
resurgence of interest in Tuscany. Of the roughly 1,300 Slow Food convivia worldwide,
287 are in Italy—and 37 Slow Food convivia operate in the region of Tuscany alone.
31
This concentration of activity in the region highlights it as a gastronomic destination, and
Spannocchia hosts numerous Slow Food events for Italian groups and visiting groups
alike. Its remote rural setting and agricultural emphasis align closely with the goals of
both agritourism and Slow Food.
Why Tuscany?
I first heard of agritourism while studying abroad as an undergraduate in
Florence, Italy in 2000. At the time I was amused by the concept—growing up on a
Midwestern hog and cattle farm, the notion of paying money to vacation with livestock
sounded less than appealing. Nevertheless, I was impressed by the innovation on the part
of the farmers themselves. What better way to capitalize on popular imaginations of the
rural countryside? Agritourism offers farmers opportunities to diversify and complement
traditional economic activities on individual farms. At the time, Frances Mayes’ 1997
book Under the Tuscan Sun, an autobiographical account of restoring a crumbling villa
and the sensual pleasures of life therein, seemed to be in the hands of every tourist in
Tuscany. The success of this book (and its adaptation to film several years later) opened
the gates for a flood of memoirs and novels—always peppered with recipes from the
region—related to discovering “authentic” life in rural Toscana (cf. de Blasi 2004; Elon
2009; Máté 1998; Tucker 2007). This literary trope continues to lay the foundation for
gastronomic tourism in the region. Unfortunately, such authors often present local Italian
inhabitants as cultural “Others” living, working and eating in a mythologized or
essentialized peasant past (Ross 2010). Such stereotyping results in an imprudent version
of the realities of rural Tuscan life.
Anthropologist Anne Meneley worked with olive producers in Tuscany, who
reported that they found Under the Tuscan Sun “often saccharine, inaccurate and boring,
[but] they argued that it had had a positive impact on the tourist trade” (2004:167).
Tuscany is a field where numerous outsiders—tourists, students, and researchers among
32
them—flock to participate in “authentic Italian culture” through consumption of the art,
architecture, local traditions and food of the region. Meneley posits that “the
commodification of Tuscany itself depends on foreign imaginings of it as a desirable
place” (2004:167). Here, political and economic interactions with a place are not
accidental, but shaped by various forms of discourse. Meneley describes this positive
discursive production as “reverse orientalism,” or the inverse of Said’s (1979)
formulation regarding the negative discursive productions and social stereotypes of the
Middle East. As such, Tuscany offers a rich context for the expression and pursuit of
cultural capital by outsiders, although local residents and producers may exists far outside
of the idealized mythology of the region. This is often the case for Slow Food producers
as well. For example, in his discussion of a Slow Food convivium, Peace describes the
idealization of an Australian wine region as follows:
[The convivium] promulgated the image that here was a discrete

physical region populated by an identifiable community committed
to a “whole food culture.” In reality, however, those involved in
mounting the occasion comprised a small and self-selected
network of residents, while the majority of the region’s population
remained uninvolved and, one suspects, for the most part
indifferent, precisely because this was a privileged—even elite—
event, in no sense a mass, popular one. (2006:57-58)
The situation of many Tuscans working outside of the tourist economy is similar.
As a case in point, the majority of residents in the village near Spannocchia are employed
at a small Bayer pharmaceutical factory, and few see agriculture as a wise career move.
For example, one of Spannocchia’s “neighbors,” a middle-aged couple raising sheep for
specialty cheeses, has several adult sons. To their parents’ despair, not one of these sons
wanted to carry on the family operation, or even to remain in the region. As Capo (1995)
points out, very few of the residents in rural areas of Italy continue to participate in
agriculture. At this time, less than 2% of the GDP in Tuscany comes from agriculture.
On the other hand, over 42 million visitors arrive in Tuscany each year, accounting for
about 12% of the area’s GDP, and the region boasts over 4,000 registered agritourism
33
sites (Regione Toscana 2011). However, not all farmers want to, or have the capacity to,
participate in agritourism. Sonnino (2004) argues that even for those who may succeed
financially through agritourism, the preservation of an agricultural lifestyle, with its
associated values of freedom and independence, is not addressed for most. The bucolic
rural society imagined by tourists is simply not populated by food producers.
Furthermore, as Sonnino (1999) points out, the majority of the tourists who
romanticize Tuscany have no idea that the “historic preservation” seen in rural towns is
directly linked to the collapse of local agricultural economies in the post war period.
Impoverished farmers and sharecroppers in the region abandoned many of the stone
houses (which are now remodeled as vacation homes) and migrated to urban areas during
the years of the Economic Miracle of industrialization. This rural outmigration left
behind several outbuildings that now serve as guesthouses at Spannocchia, at prices
upwards of 800 euros per week. These economic and social inequalities also play out in
Italian food histories.
Local Nostalgia, Global Identity
Throughout Italy, reification of an “authentic” agricultural past plays a central
role in the ideology of food. Yet this agricultural past, largely based on the mezzadria
sharecropping system, was marked by extremes in poverty. Many dishes formerly
associated with monotony and poor nutrition now form the basis for Italian cuisine.
Counihan’s (2004) work on food and memory in Tuscany reveals that the diet of these
sharecroppers was largely one of bread and thin minestrone soups, with very little meat,
cheese, or variety. The mezzadria system continued throughout the first half of the last
century, and a 1922 survey showed that Tuscan sharecroppers labored 300 days a year for
approximately 14 hours a day (Counihan 2004). Existing conditions of
undernourishment exacerbated by Fascist food policies and the World Wars led to
massive urban migration following WWII. This migration led to a reconceptualization of
34
the rural on multiple levels. Horn (1991) discusses the ways in which the Italian
government propagated the rural as a “natural” and “healthy” landscape in the face of
falling urban fertility. He points out that “the regime’s appeals to abstract rural values,
and its calls for the ‘ruralization’ of everyday life, were at odds with the values of a great
many Italians—that is, with their own constructions of the urban and the rural” (Horn
1991:590).
Nevertheless, this rural-urban migration, as well as the transatlantic emigration to
the Americas (Heltosky 2004), led to a re-imagining of food and “traditional” life for
subsequent generations. Coupled with the rise in American-style supermarkets, new
patterns of consumption and different relationships with food products emerged
(Scarpellini 2004). Counihan (2004) relates that her older Florentine informants focused
on three major changes in the Italian diet—food is now far more abundant, consumption
is taken for granted, and excess leads to a loss of “desire” for certain items. Whereas
people once had little to eat but focused on quality (“poco ma buono”), now there is
expansive quantity with dubious quality. This gastronomic shift is not unique to Italy. In
his discussion of food and memory in Greece, Sutton (2001) showed that an
understanding of people’s subjective perceptions of the “foods of the past” is central to
conceptualizing their modern identity politics.
The framing of food within an idealized past creates “structural nostalgia”
(Herzfeld 1997) that orients everyday social practices. For example, in 1891, Pellegrino
Artusi “codified, classified, and created a national cuisine” in the first pan-Italian
cookbook, La Scienza in Cucine e L’Arte di Mangiare Bene (Helstosky 2004:27).
Artusi’s book, directly primarily to a newly emerging middle class, emphasized
simplicity and attention to regional difference, linking the residents of disparate areas
35
together through the medium of food.8 Meanwhile, the majority of people living in Italy
during the 19th century existed under conditions of poverty and hunger. This kind of
idealization of the diet continues to mask social inequalities in Italian agriculture today.
Yet for Slow Food in Italy, the importance of “authenticity”—and the cultural politics of
identity encapsulated therein—remains intrinsically associated with food quality.
Idealized constructions of Italian-ness can also obscure the transnational pressures
that influence the structural position of contemporary agricultural producers in Italy, and
the ways in which social movements to restructure food production and consumption
affect them. Dalla Costa and De Bortoli point out that when compared to the political
movements related to agriculture in France:
In Italy the situation has been noticeably different, with scant

attention paid to farmers, little interest in their demands for a
dignified life, serious impoverishments of the countryside and a
strong tendency to use agricultural areas as a source of an emigrant
labour force. (2005: np)
In other words, blindness to the poverty of the sharecropping system in centuries
past extends to overlooking the reality of farming in Italy today. 9 Globalization
restructures the meaning of rural production and work, agriculturalists’ relationship to the
state and other domains of power, and the ways in which science and technology are
utilized (Long 1996), and peasant movements have restructured in kind. Global networks
of neo-peasant and small farmer organizations such as Via Campesina focus on mass
8 See also Appadurai for a discussion of the ways in which cookbooks transmit recipes, but also
serve as “representations not only of structures of production and distribution and of social and
cosmological schemes, but of class and hierarchy” (1988: 3). Cookbooks capture regional
inflection as well as national standardization, and serve as a lens through which to view larger
patterns of cultural formation.
9 Strong divisions continue to exist between the industrial northern and agricultural southern
regions of Italy, a concept that Schneider (1998) describes as the Italian version of Orientalism.
This division is further exacerbated by recent news revealing the abysmal working conditions and
violent racialized attacks on African migrant workers in southern Italy (cf. Human Rights Watch
2010). Such news further obfuscates the romanticized image of farming in Italy.
36
mobilization while simultaneously focusing on the local, national, or international
locations that will permit them to exert effective political pressure (Edelman 2005).
The Via Campesina promotes the concept of “food sovereignty,” or the right to
produce food on one’s own territory, and addresses threats to regional identity and
traditions associated with food and regional economy. Local issues and local activism
drive the Via Campesina’s global interventions, and Desmarais states that:
The ability of the Via Campesina to remain firmly grounded in the

local while being propelled into the global is perhaps one of the
most significant contributions to our understanding of the nature,
extent, and complexity of current agrarian activism. (2002:109)
This political positioning of agrarian activism reflects Beck’s (1998)
“Cosmopolitan Manifesto.” Moving beyond Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Beck posits
that the cosmopolitan world we live in today “is at once global, individualistic and more
moral than we suppose” (Beck 2002:41). As such, a new dialectic of global and local
questions, which do not ﬁt into national politics, must be addressed on a transnational
scale. Here, “Small-farmer opposition actions and transnational organizing flourished in
areas where regional economic integration and supranational governance were making
their weight felt on the local level” (Edelman 2001:304). In opposing neoliberal policies
and corporate agriculture, small farmers—formerly deemed peasants—are at the center of
a variety of movements to reclaim the authenticity of food and preserve local heritage.
Moreover, rather than serve as nostalgic remnants of an agriculturalist past, these
“peasants” maneuver in broad politico-economic arenas and play a dynamic role in
shaping food policies. Movements like the Via Campesina, and in some ways Slow
Food, offer a lens through which to examine this emergent dialogue. 10
10 In his discussion of neo-peasant movements in France, Lebovics (2005) argued that unlike the
Via Campesina, which takes a politically organized, confrontational stance against neoliberal
organizations such as the WTO, Slow Food is not a movement of social activists. Rather, he
described Slow Food as “a Marxist plot by Piedmont leftists” attempting to authenticate Italian
regionalism.
37
Neo-peasant movements elucidate the changing conceptions of what it means to
be agrarian, rural, and global. Slow Food producers are not “traditional” subsistence-
oriented peasants (Wolf 1969) or workers struggling to merge pre-capitalist and capitalist
modes of production (Painter 1984). Wolf (1969) described peasants as populations
existentially involved in, and making autonomous decisions about, cultivation—peasants
were primarily agriculturalists, held effective control of the land, and oriented their work
toward subsistence rather than reinvestment. Kearney (1995) argues that emergent
discourses of history, consciousness, society and self now supersede these anachronistic
images of the peasant. Rather than romanticize or essentialize peasants as a “social
category,” Kearney contends that anthropologists must understand the post-peasant
subject within transnational contexts of contemporary global processes of food
production. Today's producers are subjects within transnational contexts of
contemporary global processes of food production (Long 1996; Murcott 2001). Whereas
essentialized peasants occupy a “primordial connection to the land,” actual rural politics
are concerned with human rights, ecopolitics, and ethnicity (Kearney 1995:8). Following
this line of argument, Goodman (2004) posits that the emerging rural developments in
Europe encapsulate a process of “re-peasantisation,” wherein efforts to rebuild cultural-
territorial identity, rurality, and sustainability are central to development itself.
In the Italian context, wherein nostalgic longings for the “authentically rural”
shape the nationalist ideologies and cultural constructions described earlier,
agriculturalists remain in a less than ideal position. Krause argues,
Nostalgia covers up the hierarchical, asymmetrical peasant-patron

relationships under which sharecroppers, perhaps their
grandparents, labored, produced, consumed, and reproduce. This
romanticizing of the peasant past…produces a myth in which the
peasant status as debased internal Other is easily forgotten.
(2005:609)
In other words, social memory is selective. Although the mezzadria system is
long gone, Krause shows that Italians (and those seeking to define their culture) continue
38
to draw upon the peasant as a social category and as a representation for all that is “fresh
and healthy about the countryside” (2005:604). Foods that are culturally defined as
“Italian” operate as both material and symbolic products.
One example of this valorization of peasant images in the context of globalized
marketing structures is can be seen in with the Instituto Valorizzazione Salumi Italiani
(IVSI- Institute for the Promotion of Italian Salumi). The institute works with regional
development centers and the Italian Trade Commission to promote Italian agro-food
heritage worldwide via a campaign called “Made in Italy” (a tagline that remains in
English, rather than Italian). The IVSI also works with various Italian health offices on
food safety and nutrition initiatives. At Salone del Gusto, I picked up a promotional
postcard promoting the “gusto e cultura del Made in Italy” (taste and culture of Made in
Italy) at the IVSI stand (see Figure 2).
Figure 2 Postcard image; Image courtesy of Instituto Valorizzazione Salumi Italiani

39
Framed like artwork, the card depicts a “classic” image of an Italian peasant
woman wearing provocatively draped clothing while serving an enormous platter of
sliced salumi. On the back, the card encourages consumers to stop by the stand for daily
free tastings of several varieties of salumi products paired with Italian wines, where
Salone visitors can “incontri con gli scrittori del gusto” (meet with the writers of taste).
Presumably, these writers of taste are the producers themselves, although this is not
specified; even less clear is the role of the woman depicted.
Harper and Faccioli call the utilization of nostalgia a “commodification of cultural
memory” (2009:157). Here, commodity fetishism may be viewed as a kind of purposeful
forgetting of the pasts that went into the making of the present. Italian foods have
become global commodities that operate as cultural signs as well as products in their own
right. The question is who gets to control the symbolic dimension of Italian food, as well
as the commodities that they represent. In most cases producers remain deeply
ensconced in a rural reality dominated by industrial agriculture. Slow Food appears to
operate in opposition to conventional agriculture, but as Lotti (2010) argues, it utilizes the
means of industrial agriculture (e.g., standardization of products, labeling) in order to
create consumer support. The context in which these individuals labor may be at odds
with many aspect of the alternative frameworks highlighted by Slow Food and others. As
such, producers are caught in a binary wherein “it takes modern means to do things in a
traditional way” (Hirtz 2003:889). Large scale Slow Food events constitute one arena in
which these tensions become apparent. One way to think about these events is through
the concept of a middle ground. This concept draws upon historian Richard White, who
argues:
Diverse peoples adjust their differences through what amounts to a

process of creative, and often expedient, misunderstandings.
People try to persuade others who are different from themselves by
appealing to what they perceive to be the values and practices of
those others. They often misinterpret and distort both the values
and practices of those they deal with, but from these
misunderstandings arise new meanings and through them new
40
practices—the shared meanings and practices of the middle

ground. (2001:x)
The events of Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre serve as a rich middle ground, an
environment that allows for creative constructions of mutual understanding between
producers and consumers. Here, an army of individuals dedicated to the creation of
Good, Clean and Fair foods constitute an imagined community on a global scale, wherein
all participants hold images and ideas of other group members that connect them to one
another (Anderson 1983). The core values of Slow Food’s imagined community are
embodied by producers, who perform these values at middle ground events like Salone
del Gusto or Slow Food Nation.

41
CHAPTER TWO: INFORMING TASTE
Salone del Gusto
Every two years, Slow Food and the city of Turin host Salone del Gusto (Halls of
Taste), an exposition of specialty Slow Food products and producers geared toward
educating consumers, and Terra Madre (Mother Earth), a conference made up of rural
agriculturalists, chefs, and educators striving to restructure the current agricultural
system. These concurrent “world meetings of food communities” take place over five
days in October, and continue to grow in size and scope with every edition. Hosted in a
complex of stadiums constructed for the 2006 Winter Olympics, the eighth biennial
meetings in 2010 counted over 200,000 people in attendance. The two events represent
two very different angles of Slow Food International. While Terra Madre works to
connect small-scale food producers from around the globe, Salone del Gusto highlights
Slow Food ideology and consumer practices, drawing gastronomic tourists to the
Piedmont for a crash course in “taste education.” Attendees, 70% of whom hail from
Italy, can sample hundreds of food and drink items, meet farmers, and purchase artisanal
products not readily available elsewhere. Since 1996, the Salone del Gusto food festival
has showcased quality, small-scale producers from around the world. Moreover, from its
inception, the Salone del Gusto served as the primary locale for promoting the official
agenda of the movement. As the largest promotional and educational event hosted by
Slow Food, Salone del Gusto aims to inspire a profound reflection on food and the global
community it represents.
The organizers and participants at events like Salone del Gusto encapsulate the
direction and shape of Slow Food as a global movement. At these culinary and cultural
showcases, Slow Food actively produces discourse encouraging consumers to connect
taste and gustatory pleasure with the preservation of cultural and biological diversity
offered by small producers worldwide. For example, the “Good, Clean & Fair” campaign
42
introduced in Turin in 2006, based on charismatic Slow Food founder Petrini’s 2005
eponymous book, provides a cohesive framework in which consumers can make
everyday food selections. However, my ethnographic data reveal economic and political
tensions underwriting the organization’s broad endeavor to connect producers and
consumers in meaningful ways. How does Salone del Gusto encourage producer and
consumer interaction on a daily basis, outside of the pomp and circumstance of the
carefully constructed atmosphere of conviviality in Turin and other venues? Can
connections forged at Slow Food events, and their ideological emphasis on supporting
small-scale food production, translate into real-life changes in the daily lives of food
producers around the world?
In this chapter I primarily draw from participant-observation data collected during
the 2006 and 2008 editions of Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre, and also from a range
of related international events: Slow Food Nation (held in San Franscisco, CA in 2008),
Terra Madre Toscana (Orbetello, Italy 2008), and Slow Fish (Genoa, Italy 2009). My
analysis here is based on personal experiences attending these events, as well as the many
conversations (both extended and ephemeral) I shared with fellow attendees, delegates
and Slow Food employees. Additionally, I was able to collect Slow Food publications,
attendance data, and Presidia pamphlets from the Slow Food Communications office in
Bra, Italy during my stay there in October-November 2006. The quotations used in this
chapter come from Slow Food press releases, producer brochures, event fliers, magazine
and newspaper articles, and the translation services made available to Terra Madre
delegates and lecture attendees.
A Brief History of Salone del Gusto
The first Salone, held in 1996, occurred in a space of only 5,000 square meters.
Thirty-two thousand food aficionados and Slow Food members, primarily from Italy,
gathered to sample valorized products and network with food producers and other
43
gastronomes. Although Slow Food was already seven years old at this point, it was
viewed simply as one of many extant Italian food and wine organization, albeit one
renowned for the excellent Italian wine and restaurant guides that it published annually.
The political and cultural underpinnings of the movement were not central to its public
growth. The first Salone del Gusto, however, represented a much larger shift in the
political strategy of the Slow Food Movement. In addition to growing in scope, the first
Salone marked the increasingly global nature of the movement. According to founder
Carlo Petrini:
The main theme of the new cultural policy was the training of
individual taste, mainly through the ‘taste workshops’ that had
already appeared at previous events and were here the featured
attraction, with places booked well in advance. Essentially the
‘workshop’ consisted of the supervised tasting of wines and food
products, with the aim of learning how these commodities were
produced and how to analyze their flavor profiles. The main ideas
of the movement were also presented and debated, and the
campaign for an Ark was launched: for the first time, Slow Food
had the chance to speak, from an important media platform, about
protecting local products, and to make its position official through
an ambitious project intended to open new pathways of production,
marketing, and consumption. (2001:60)
Two years later, in 1998, the Salone del Gusto incorporated a food market and
attracted 120,000 visitors to Turin. To quote a 2008 Slow Food pamphlet, “[This event]
turned the elitist approach to quality gastronomy upside down. It transformed into
pleasure and rights and interest that until then had been the preserve of an elect few.” By
2000, ninety Presidia projects from Italy were introduced to the public. The Presidia
constitute a network of small-scale artisanal producers who share the same environmental
and cultural project—to recover and protect “tradition.” With the economic and
organizational assistance of Slow Food, Presidia producers, who often live in
marginalized communities, are connected to niche markets interested in purchasing their
goods.
The Presidia project spread worldwide and now includes over 300 food
communities in fifty nations. These communities include Tibetan yak cheese makers,
44
Anishinaabeg wild rice producers from the American Great Lakes, sea salt collectors near
Ravenna, Italy, and many others. The Presidia are coordinated by the Slow Food
Foundation for Biodiversity, a non-profit organization which coordinates numerous
projects in support of Terra Madre communities, providing them with technical and
financial assistance. Operating worldwide, it develops projects to “defend local food
traditions, protect local biodiversity and promote small-scale quality products, with an
increasing focus on investments in countries of the Global South” (Slow Food
Foundation for Biodiversity 2011). By 2002 the Foundation for Biodiversity was a fully
operative arm of the Slow Food movement. The Foundation developed clear guidelines
for an Ark of Taste at this time, in which “endangered” foods and their producers were
defined and supported by the organization. In 2004 the first Terra Madre meeting
brought Presidia and Ark producers together in Turin. As the Salone grew increasingly
commercial, seeing upwards of 140,000 visitors, Terra Madre focused entirely on the
political implications of maintaining cultural traditions surrounding food. By 2006, over
5000 farmers, breeders, fishers, and food artisans from 150 nations, 1000 cooks, 500
teachers and representatives from 225 universities, 2300 observers and guests, and 800
volunteers attended Terra Madre (Terra Madre Foundation 2011). The event moved to
the Lingotto’s Oval building, a space originally built for the ice skating rinks of the 2006
Olympic Winter Games. In 2008 the numbers jumped to 7,000 small-scale food
producers, and the event does not appear to be losing momentum.
These events serve as key sites for illuminating how the Slow Food movement
makes claims about linking consumption and production in new ways. The sheer volume
of attendees at Salone del Gusto—many of whom are not official Slow Food members—
presents an unmatched opportunity for the movement to accomplish its goal of educating
consumers. In addition to the direct links forged between producers and a captive
audience of consumers, Slow Food uses this venue to present key information about the
ideology of the movement.
45
Navigating the Slow network
Framed as a showcase for the Slow Food Foundation’s projects, particularly the
Presidia and Ark of Taste, events like Salone del Gusto attempt to connect the multiple
arms of the Slow Food movement as a whole. At the 2009 Slow Fish event in Genoa, a
wall-sized diagram mimicking a subway map depicted the momentum and intersection of
Slow Food projects along the central tracks of Buono, Pulito and Giusto (Good, Clean
and Fair) (Figure 3).
Figure 3 "Map" of the Slow Food network
The Slow Food Network image, which covered most of a wall and served
primarily as a design feature, was largely ignored by passersby at Slow Fish. It is
difficult for a casual observer to navigate this complex network, and it is unlikely that
most attendees at Slow Food events fully grasp—or perhaps even want to grasp— the
entire scope of the movement. In any case, I was the only person photographing the map;
46
the other attendees were far more interested in the enormous sculptures of shimmering
fish, artfully curated arrangements of seafood, and informational booths operated by
fishermen. Images like this one show efforts made by Slow Food to convey the multiple
layers of the organization to consumers, but upon closer examination there are few clear
connections to be drawn from this “map.” The yellow line highlights Slow Food
Promuove (Promotions), the blue Educa (Education), and the red Tutela (Protection).
While all routes eventually intersect with Good, Clean and Fair, and with one another, the
“stops” along the tracks do not necessarily correlate to a specific position on the map or
within the movement. (Although, for the purposes of this dissertation, it is perhaps
telling that Giusto (Fair), the Slow Food line most clearly connected to food producers, is
also the farthest away from the majority of other intersections!) Instead, this map
presents a laundry list of Slow Food programs and guiding themes, and highlights the
movement’s efforts to pull together a disparate range of ideologies and activities.
This type of intentional ambiguity reflects the ability of New Social Movements
like Slow Food to present a range of issues to a loosely organized social network of
supporters traveling on its various lines. Rather than address a singular social or political
issue, New Social Movements have the capacity to traverse multiple agendas. In some
cases this approach appears to be, as Byrne (1997) argues, relatively disorganized. While
the Slow Food map may not reflect an overarching structural framework for the
movement, it encourages Slow Food participants to climb “aboard” the movement at
places that hold personal significance. However, as the movement continues to expand,
communicating its ever-growing political endeavors becomes both more difficult and
more critical. For example, connecting consumers to the international development goals
of the Foundation for Biodiversity and the national agendas of Slow Food branches
remains a central challenge for the movement. While a diffuse and personalized basis for
participation typical of New Social Movements attracts Slow Food members, it does not
always ensure meaningful connections with core ideologies.
47
Figure 4 Buono, Pulito e Guisto: Good, Clean and Fair
In response, enormous efforts are made at Salone del Gusto to educate visitors
about the central tenets of Slow Food. The entrance to the stadium is decorated with
colossal banners encouraging visitors to join the Slow Food Movement. Inside, displays
and abundant printed materials educate consumers about the significance of Good, Clean
& Fair, the Foundation for Biodiversity, Presidia, and the Terra Madre network. In 2008,
a walkway through the Lingotto dubbed the “The Virtuous Way” meandered through the
Taste Pavilion marketplace. Flanked with massive displays such as the Buono, Pulito &
Giusto triad surrounding a copy of Petrini’s eponymous book (Figure 4), the Virtuous
Way provided detailed visual reinforcements for the movement’s central ideologies.
However, although Slow Food takes enormous creative effort to concoct displays
educating consumers about its missives, most visitors bypass them quickly on their way
to the main event—the food.
The Halls of Taste
The Taste Pavilion marketplaces are the highlight of Salone del Gusto. Each
pavilion is made up of dozens of booths containing foods endorsed by Slow Food.
Staffed primarily by the producers themselves, these stands are pivotal to the Salone
experience. In 2008 there were 620 booths; by 2010 this number expanded to 910. The
48
booths flank relatively narrow walking spaces in which throngs of visitors wrangle for
space. Wandering through the “halls of taste” is an exercise in navigating a crowd of
thousands—baby strollers compete for space with wide-eyed tourists, school groups
elbow a path to the free samples, and families jostle to stay together. A majority of the
stands offer their products for sale, and the spaces are crammed with merchandise,
decorative objects, and glossy informational brochures printed by Slow Food. Many of
the producers offer free samples of their wares; many more offer a sample platter for a
few euros.
In the popular meat and cheese aisles sampling is relatively straightforward. A
toothpick pierced morsel is easy to enjoy on the go. Other products present more of a
challenge. For example, when a Sicilian salt producer offered me a pinch of his sea salt I
was unsure of the protocol—should I put it all in my mouth? Sample a few grains? A
Moroccan saffron producer cleverly constructed a system in which Salone del Gusto
attendees could smell his product. An olfactory sample of the exotic herb enticed some
individuals to purchase a small jar. Meandering through the Halls of Taste can be an
overwhelming sensory experience.
In 2006 Slow Food devoted an entire section of the exhibition to Presidia products
and the Foundation for Biodiversity for the first time. By 2008, around one third of the
stalls were allocated to 182 Italian and 106 international Slow Food Presidia. Each stall
is staffed by at least one representative from the Presidia community who is able to speak
about production methods. In many cases the representative is a producer, although
language barriers and time constrains often prevent in-depth communications. To
assuage this issue, all Presidia products have glossy trifold brochures with photographs
and descriptive text developed by Slow Food’s communication offices in Bra, Italy.
Always available in Italian, these brochures are sometimes also printed in another major
language (English, Spanish, French, etc.), particularly if the producers hail from a region
speaking that tongue. Importantly, the brochures list phone numbers and addresses for
49
individual producers of the Presidia product, as well as contact information for the
Presidia coordinator. If applicable, icons depicting the major financial and organizational
supporters of the project are also listed.
I collected dozens of these brochures at Salone del Gusto in 2006 and 2008, and
the communications offices in Bra stored boxes of brochures dating back to 2000.
Consumers can receive a great deal of information about a particular product from these
handouts. For example, the brochure for the Salame delle Valli Tortonesi, a specialty
cured meat product from the easternmost tip of the Piedmont region of Italy, describes
the production process in detail. An image of a butcher separating lean meats from fattier
cuts corresponds to textual descriptions of the constitution of the product. The brochure
also reveals that “Il segreto ѐ la stagionatura”(the secret is the aging process). What
makes this product unique, and worthy of safeguarding with a Presidia status, is the fact
that it is cured by a small number of butchers utilizing completely natural aging
processes. The microclimate of the region allows them to age their meat products
without the use of any refrigeration or artificial preservatives, a process that lasts
anywhere from 3-18 months. At Salone del Gusto, consumers can meet with the
producers described in the brochure, sample their wares, learn more about the production
process, and access information about how to purchase the salame. One of the seven
producers featured on the brochure is part of an agritourism estate, so it may even be
possible to stay at the farm where the pigs are raised, adding another link to the chain of
consumer-producer relations.
It is unlikely that a product like the Salame delle Valli Tortonesi would ever
receive this volume of market exposure without the aid of Slow Food. And, indeed, this
is one of the central goals of the Presidia program—to organize producer groups in order
to seek out new markets for their products. Through the “promotion and valorization” of
flavors unique to a particular locality, the Salone del Gusto provides attendees with
50
access to hundreds of rare products. Yet in some cases, this may lead to unintended
results for producers themselves.
The Case of Lardo
In 2006 I found myself squeezed into a large crowd surrounding a stall offering
samples of Lardo di Colonnata. Lardo is produced by salting slabs of pork fat which are
then pressed between slabs of marble from the mines of Colonnata, where they cure for
several months. Lardo is exactly what it sounds like—the fat that is typically rendered
into lard is instead cured and salted. In the past, Lardo was deemed unhygienic,
unhealthy, and symbolic of backwards thinking in the face of modernization. It was
primarily the foodstuff of impoverished marble miners, who would eat the creamy, salty
product between slices of thick bread for lunch. Unable to afford choice cuts of meat, the
miners ate this small bit of protein created from the cheapest remnants of a hog. Those
who consumed lardo were both united through its consumption and distinguished from
those who did not; as Gewertz and Errington point out, eaters of undesirable cuts of meat
“know that they are eating what others reject because they have decidedly less efficacy in
the world” (2010: 26).
In a stunning reversal of market position, the lardo once utilized as a proletarian
hunger-killer is currently marketed to gourmands as an exotic delicacy. Utterly
reinvented, lardo is no longer a stigmatized “peasant” food—rather, a producer of lardo is
now viewed as the “quintessential modern subject, a holder par excellence of national
heritage” (Leitch 2003: 447). Branded as a Presidia specialty product, lardo experienced
a surge in popularity that actually made it difficult for small-scale producers to meet
consumer demand. The Presidia project’s commercial and media success also led to
another unintended consequence: Presidia producers began to see competition from fakes
(similar products using the same name) or products presented as Presidia which had
nothing to do with the Slow Food project. There is a definite “brand recognition” for
51
Presidia products in Italy that I witnessed during my own research (e.g., while vending
Cinta Senese pork products with the Tuscan agritourismo that I will describe in Chapter
Three, I was regularly asked if our lardo was Lardo di Colonnata). As such, the
commodification of this particular regional product boosted the popularity of all types of
lardo, whether or not they were produced using the artisanal methods developed and
valorized in Colonnata (e.g., seasonal processing, the area’s microclimate, the marble of
the aging tanks, and the extensive variety of local aromatic herbs and spices). Despite the
fact that Colonnata is located in an entirely different region of Italy, consumers at our
Tuscan market knew about lardo primarily in the context of Slow Food or other specialty
food advertising. For producers across Tuscany, the market valorization of a traditional
pork product translated into increased sales of an otherwise difficult to sell item. Prior to
the revaluation of lardo as a unique product symbolic of local heritage, it was indexical of
poverty or the health risks associated with consumption of saturated fats—neither of
which are particularly good for sales. In a marketplace where all sorts of meat products
jostle for attention and acceptance, lardo is a Slow Food success story.
The Lardo stand was just one of many in the Halls of Taste. When I searched
through my photographs for an image of the stand, I found only one. Blurred with people
in motion, the view of the Lardo itself is almost entirely blocked off by a crowd of people
waiting for a sample. In all honesty, this is a very representative image of what the Slow
Food consumer experiences at Salone del Gusto. Embarking upon a day of food
education and sampling is both enjoyable and exhausting for the culinary tourist.
Wandering from space to space, jostling with the crowds, it is easy to feel overwhelmed
by people, information, smells, and tastes. It is simply not possible to have in-depth,
detailed conversations with food producers from around the world in this context. From
the perspective of the producers, who arrive early in the day to prepare their booths and
then work through the long hours of the event, sometimes with very little assistance, it is
obviously an exhausting venture. It bears repeating that food producers are typically not
52
professional marketers, and the demands of the Salone are very different from those of a
typical farmer’s market or local food fair.
I recall watching a physically tiny Sicilian woman and her son running a salami
stall (see Figure 5). In addition to selling various types of salami, the booth offered
simple panini (sandwiches) made with hard white rolls and slices of their meat. The
woman rushed about taking money, cutting meat, and taking orders from customers, but
saying very little. When I purchased a panino I attempted to ask her a few questions
about their products, which were delicious.
Figure 5 Selling salumi products from Sicily
She smiled when I asked which type of salami was her favorite, revealing several
missing teeth. I had difficulty understanding her response, and it took me a moment to
realize that she was speaking in a Sicilian dialect that, particularly to my non-native ears,
53
was almost incomprehensible. She tried to direct me to her son, who spoke standard
Italian, but I began to feel as though I was imposing on them when they were obviously
very busy. Faced with thousands of visitors who are literally and figuratively hungry for
Slow Food, the demands of maintaining a stall for five days must be intense.
While Slow Food rhetorically emphasizes the importance of producers at Salone
del Gusto (and throughout the Slow Food system), producers and consumers clearly
experience the event in vastly different ways. In the staged social interactions at Taste
Pavilions, producers “perform” face-to-face interactions with consumers thousands of
times per day, with limited control over the setting, appearance and manner of the
interaction (cf. Goffman 1959). Producers must remain “on stage” during Salone,
continuously projecting a positive image of an authentic food producer. In addition to the
sheer volume of consumers present at the event, this framing does not provide spaces for
meaningful discussions about the everyday challenges of food production or the
underlying strategies of producers’ participation at Salone. At the end of each Salone, I
left wondering what the producers in the Halls of Taste gained from their experiences.
What “ideas and images” (Conklin & Graham 1995) had these producers portrayed to
consumers at the event, and in what situations and to what ends did producers creatively
perform their roles?
Taste Re-education
If the Taste Pavillions are the heart of Salone, numerous other agendas complete
the body of the experience. For example, various Italian regions individually support an
“Island of Taste,” which offers renowned foods and other specialty products from that
area. In addition to regional fare, La Banca del Vino (The Wine Bank) offers workshops
and tastings to present 2,500 different wine labels from around the world. Workshops
organized by students from Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Science cover a

range of topics, and the Theatre of Taste—a 60-seat auditorium with a kitchen and big
54
screen projector—exhibits Italian and foreign chefs as they make their trademark dishes.
Add in twenty different “dinner dates” organized in upscale restaurants and castles in the
region, scholarly lectures on biodiversity and food security, and a Slow Food on Film
festival, and the range of potential Slow Food activities during this five-day festival
rapidly expands. In terms of consumer education, however, the hundreds of Taste
Workshops that run continuously during Salone del Gusto are of particular interest.
According to a 2008 Salone pamphlet, taste education is based on “reawakening
and training of the senses and the study of food production techniques.” In an effort to
formalize its goal of Taste Education, Slow Food hosts numerous Taste Workshops that
highlight specific wines and food products during Salone del Gusto. Redefining how
value is placed on consumer goods and distinguishing the difference between quality and
luxury are recurring themes in Taste Workshops. Typically, several food producers in a
specific “genre” (cured meats, chocolate, distilled liquors, etc.) present their goods, and a
moderator directs the tasting experience. The 2006 Salone del Gusto program notes that:
To fully appreciate a quality food product, it’s not enough just to

taste it. You have to find out about its geographic context,
production phases and ingredients. This way you can give due
recognition to environmental sustainability and cultural and social
significance – inseparable basics for protecting biodiversity.
Taste workshops constitute one arena of Slow Food’s explicit attempts to connect
producers and consumers. In 2006 and 2008 workshops ranged in price from €12 for a
session on various Arabic-style coffees to €45 for a tasting of Rhone Valley wines. Seats
could be reserved online with the purchase of Salone tickets or at a special booking area
at the event. There are nearly 200 workshops to choose from; those featuring popular
food items or producers are booked months in advance. Workshops are held in the
language of the producers or moderators leading the discussion, and simultaneous
translation is available in English and Italian via UN-style headsets.

55
Retraining the Senses: Biodynamic Wine
The difficulties that accompany efforts to connect ideologies with the aesthetics
of taste were especially evident in an October 2008 workshop I attended entitled La
Natura del Vino (The Nature of Wine). It was organized by students from Slow Food’s
Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche (University of Gastronomic Sciences, or
UNISG) in Pollenzo. To earn a master’s degree at the institution, students take graduate-
level courses on topics such as biodiversity, environmentally sustainable food production,
food ethics, cultural geography, food technology, and sensory analysis. Drawing from
this formalized training, the organizers paired six wines (3 red, 3 white) from
conventional, biodynamic or organic vineyards in Italy and presented the wines as a
“flight” of tastings. Rather than rank the wines according to a predefined set of gustatory
principles, workshop attendees were encouraged to examine the unique, localized flavor
(terroir) of the different wines. The workshop began with a discussion of the differences
in conventional, organic, and biodynamic wine production. 11 The use of industrial
nitrogen in the production of conventional wines was contrasted with organic methods,
which bypass chemical fertilizers and pesticides in favor of building healthy soil. The
moderators referred to conventional vineyards as “production machines” that “go against
the common sense of agriculture.” Each workshop participant received photocopies of
the microscopic crystallization testing conducted by UNISG students on each wine.
According to biodynamic theory, crystallization analysis reveals the vitality of the soil in
which the grapes are grown—it illustrates an “ethereal” quality of plants, and the
11 Biodynamic agriculture was developed in the 1930s by Rudolf Steiner, who argued that plants
mirror the environmental macrocosm. This macrocosm is made up of air, water, soil, and astral
elements, all of which affect the “vibrations” and flavors in food. Biodynamic agriculture attracts
a fair amount of attention in Italy, where producers that follow the method plant and harvest
according to astrological schedules, carefully select companion plants, and feed the soil in
specific ways at specific times.
56
difference between conventional and biodynamic wines in the photographs was clearly
discernible.
Following the presentation on wine production methods, workshop attendees
tasted each wine and many made notes on the paper provided. Rather than conform to a
standard 100-point objective scale of wine tasting, the workshop re-educated our tongues
and noses to seek out the “soul” and “energy” of each wine. I know relatively little about
wine, and after sipping from each glass I was rather embarrassed to admit that I found the
organic and biodynamic white wines to be less than stellar. Initially I chalked my
opinion up to a naive palate, but many of the other workshop participants confessed that
they preferred the conventional wines, calling them more “balanced” and “exact.”
The biodynamic wine producers at the workshop responded to this critique with
an interesting tactic. One producer countered that most consumers taste wine in a very
specific way, seeking out particular flavor sensations and aromatic notes that are shaped
by our culture. He described a “strong version” of gastronomic determinism (albeit not
in those terms), arguing that culture shapes the physiology of taste, or at least our
perceptions of it. Taste, however, can be transformed: for example, he argued that
consumers gradually adjusted to the flavor and texture of free-range chickens. Originally
considered somewhat unpalatable, free-range chickens are now esteemed for their
complex taste. Similarly, biodynamic wines possess a unique flavor and “energy” that
most consumers are not yet accustomed to. As our culture shifts to appreciate different
dimensions of terroir, he argued, our taste buds will respond in kind.
This reconfiguration of taste, and the cultural politics involved in the sensory
perceptions of Slow products, highlights some interesting tensions that can accompany
the creation of co-producers. At Taste Workshops Slow Food consumers gain insider
knowledge about specific products, but what happens in cases where certain “Clean and
Fair” foods do not necessarily taste very “Good”? In this case, the biodynamic wine
producers framed gastronomic pleasure as something that can be directly shaped by the
57
political and economic structures of food and beverage markets. Augmenting the
UNISG students’ attack on industrial agriculture with a critique of the limited palates it
subsequently creates, the producers challenged participants’ subjective experiences of the
wine. While the microscopic crystallization photographs lent a degree of scientific
credibility to the purity of the wine and the biodynamic process, the producers dictated
what “Good” entails in this context. Here, the Slow Food version of gustatory pleasure is
dictated through the education of taste, wherein particular social values are attached to
sensory perceptions, as well as the creation of a desire for that taste.
Rethinking Terroir via Prosciutto
Other taste workshops I attended in 2006 and 2008 revealed additional discursive
tactics of taste “re-education” within Slow Food. Workshop organizers and food
producers at Taste Education events I attended consistently highlighted terroir, or the
relationship between food, taste, and place, as a form of cultural knowledge. According
to Trubek (2009), this “taste of place” holds a set of values, practices, and aspirations that
offer consumers a way to navigate agriculture, cooking, and eating in the 21 st century.
Food is localized for economic, political, and aesthetic reasons. For Slow Food, the
alternative set of cultural values outlined by the concept of terroir builds upon the
framework of Good, Clean and Fair. Framing food through these channels offers co-
producers “a response to the unknowns of the interdependent global food system”
(Trubek 2009: 12).
In 2008 I attended a workshop at Slow Food Nation in San Francisco, CA entitled
“The Apple in the Pig’s Mouth.” Held at the seaside Fort Mason Center, this tasting
focused on artisanal ciders and prosciutto from the organic, critically acclaimed La
Quercia charcuterie in Iowa. Participants were provided with a printed sheet of tasting
notes. To properly taste each of the three dry-cured prosciutto samples, the sheet asked
us to undertake four steps: Know it, Look at it, Smell it, and Taste it. Slow eaters are
58
first encouraged to Know the product— what kind of hog did the pork come from? How
was it raised, slaughtered, and cured? The workshop brought several important features
of the pork from La Quercia to consumers’ attention. First, none of the pigs come from
CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or confinement “factory” farms), the
meat is antibiotic free, and all of the animals had access to pasture. Participants learned
about the various breeds of pigs used, and the production systems utilized by Iowa
farmers to raise them. A spokesman from La Quercia mentioned that the pigs feed
primarily on corn and soybeans, as these are “part of the Iowa terroir.” A French
expression used to denote a “sense of place,” terroir references the ways that the
geography, geology and climate of a certain area bestow unique flavors on its food
products. Although Iowa is certainly known for mass industrial production of corn and
soy, it is not typically referenced in terms of terroir (see also Qazi and Selfa 2005 for a
discussion of alternative production in regions of Washington dominated by conventional
industrial farming). Here, corn and soy regain a local identity outside of corporate
manufacturing. Normally, the highly commercialized Big Ag companies and associated
corporate farms are depicted as villains who destroy the local ecosystem, push patented
genetically modified seeds, and crush small family farm operations (cf. Simon 2006,
Patel 2007).
It is interesting that the producer references terrior here, when La Quercia’s
products derive from an agricultural and culinary history far-removed from the Midwest.
Hinrichs (2003) argues that the emergent and inclusive definitions of “local” food,
especially in areas dominated by conventional agriculture like Iowa, challenge the
meaning of concepts like terroir. La Quercia is owned and operated by Americans (and,
in some areas of production, Mexican immigrants), and the curing process involves sea
salt and temperature controlled buildings (neither of which are mentioned as a component
of the unique flavor of the pork). Yet in a reification of locality, or perhaps the
application of a gastronomic buzzword, terrior is employed in “Knowing” the prosciutto.
59
Indeed, this taste workshop centered on understanding the production of the pigs. The
sensory aspects of consumption (looking, smelling, and tasting) occupied considerably
less of the workshop’s time.
Slow Food posits that increased knowledge about modes of food production
underscore the pleasure in physical acts of eating. Highlighting the philosophy and labor
involved in the production of food helps the consumer to index the unique qualities of a
product as well as the identity of the producer. Reconceptualizing the locality of food
production further emphasizes Slow Food’s attempts to overcome what Marx described
as the severance of the connection between producer and consumer, which he argued was
characteristic of capitalist production. Taste workshop activities explicitly aim to
highlight the relations of production, further enriching the notion of a “co-producer.”
However, while my observations at Taste Workshops suggest that important ambiguities
underlie Slow Food’s claims to restructure relationships between consumers and
producers, the contradictions at hand in the movement’s efforts to construct “co-
producers” were even more visible in the presence and activities of corporate capitalist
producers at Salone del Gusto.
Corporate Co-Producers?
In addition to the Taste Pavillions and Taste Workshop spaces described above,
the Salone del Gusto includes sizable kiosks where it is possible to purchase an array of
books published by the Slow Food Editore, Slow Food apparel demarcated with the snail
symbol, and other goods branded by the organization (see Figure 6). Slow Food
International publishes a number of well- regarded books, pamphlets, and websites that
are widely distributed and influential among Slow Food members and related
organizations. In addition to the epistemological tomes written and edited by Carlo
Petrini, the Slow Food Editore releases annual guides for wine, food, and tourism. These
books are prominently stamped with the snail logo, which bestows symbolic capital and a
60
certain cultural authority to the information within. This immediately recognizable
symbol also demarcates particular foods and beverages in grocery stores, and is seen in
the windows of restaurants and cafes bestowed with positive Slow Food reviews. The
overt marketing of the organization is powerfully expressed in these spaces.
Figure 6 Slow Food branded items for sale at Salone del Gusto 2004; Image courtesy of
Slow Food International
However, sales of mugs emblazoned with snails and regional restaurant guides
cannot financially shoulder the cost of Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre. At a cost of
€20 for a daily entrance ticket—not including admission fees for the numerous Taste
Workshops, organized dinners, or wine tastings—attending the Salone can become
expensive. Although ticket sales offset some of the expense of the event, a large portion
of the bill is subsidized by several major corporate sponsors, the largest including Lurisa
bottled water, San Daniele prosciutto, Lavazza espresso, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese,

Asti D.O.C.G. wines, the bank of Intesa San Paolo, and the COOP Italia grocery chain.
61
These companies have much to gain from creating positive affiliations with the Slow
Food Movement. Their role in funding Salone del Gusto goes beyond the prominent
advertising that they receive at the event. With the exception of the banking chain, all of
these corporations could be defined as industrial food producers—and at the Salone, they
situate their products down the hall from small-scale artisans. Indeed, one of the busiest
vendors at Salone del Gusto was Lurisa, which sold bottled water (complete with a
specially designed label showing the Salone insignia) for €.50 apiece. 12 In sharp contrast
to the individualized focus and tiny booths of the producers in the Taste Pavilions, the
sponsoring corporations create enormous, technologically-savvy stations clearly
developed by professional marketers.
Corporate Sponsors
The position of corporate sponsors at Salone del Gusto reflects incongruity in
Slow Food’s rhetoric against large-scale, industrial food producers. As a case in point,
several major food corporations erected booths at Salone, offering food tastings and
gastronomic workshops focused on their products. In 2006, the Parmigiano-Reggiano
Cheese Consortium space constructed a seating area built to resemble a wheel of the
company’s legendary cheese. By 2008 the space transformed into a wall of cheese,
occupied by corporate representatives wearing designer suits (see Figures 7 and 8).
In addition to daily tastings and workshops, the Parmigiano-Reggiano consortium
offered free, glossy recipe books and beautifully photographed booklets describing the
cheese production process. Emphasizing the regionalism and history of the product,
12 A bottled water company would not have found support at the U.S. based event “Slow Food
Nation,” held in San Francisco, CA over the Labor Day weekend of 2008. At that event, large
signs declaring “Take Back the Tap!” surrounded huge water urns providing free canteen refills.
Slow Food USA urged attendees to the event to avoid creating plastic bottle waste, and even
offered low cost refillable metal canteens. Clearly, the politics of corporate sponsorship differed
at the two events.
62
which is often mistakenly synonymous with parmesan cheese made anywhere, the
consortium promoted the brand itself as opposed to individual milk producers. Although
the raw milk for “true” Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese must come from the Emilia-
Romagna region, the agricultural traditions and current conditions faced by dairy
producers are barely mentioned. When they are, it is largely in the context of what the
cattle are fed.
Figure 7 2006 Parmigiano-Reggiano booth
Figure 8 2008 Parmigiano-Reggiano booth

63
Another sponsor, Lavazza coffee, is a major retailer of coffee served in cafes and
homes throughout Italy. Linking producers and consumers through a brand name,
Lavazza coffee created a wall of screens flashing exotic images of coffee producers from
around the world (Figure 9). In lieu of bringing actual coffee farmers to the event,
Lavazza virtually (re)presented the labor involved in creating the prefect espresso.
Coffee consumers were digitally connected to idealized producers.
Figure 9 2006 Lavazza coffee booth
In a 2008 press release, Lavazza stated: “In tandem with the Slow Food
movement and its founder Carlo Petrini, the Turin-based company is championing the
shared idea that is accomplished by safeguarding cultural identities related to food and
culinary traditions.” However, it is unclear if the cultural identities and traditions
mentioned here are those of Italian espresso drinkers or those of the primarily Latin
America and African coffee producers. By artificially linking the two disparate groups,
Lavazza claims to shape a new kind of coffee “co-producer,” presumably one who
64
supported fair trade. At their 2008 café stand, Lavazza proudly promoted “Good Karma,
Great Coffee,” and encouraged the consumer to “espress yourself.” However, when
“consumers are envisaged as international political activists by virtue of market choice”
(Leitch 2003:457), there can be no guaranteed ideological outcome.
According to the rhetoric of Slow Food, when co-producers learn about the lives
and challenges faced by food producers, this information will lead to new relations of
production that encompass an obligation to “Fair” production. Similarly, Fisher (2007)
notes that Fair Trade appears to combat commodity fetishization within the market
system by revealing the human relationships involved in commodity production and
exchange. On the other hand, she points out that “Rather than seeing this as the
decommodification of commerce, we could just as easily see this mediation of personal
connection as a strong increase in commodification” (Fisher 2007: 81). From this
perspective, morality itself is commodified through co-production.
What remains overlooked is the substantial power gap that continues to exist
between northern and southern participants in Lavazza’s “Fair” exchange. Friedberg
(2003) argues that the fetishism of ethical standards obscures extraordinarily uneven
supply chain power relations, and worse, the fetishism of such standards means imposing
them on far away producers who may or may not be capable of carrying them out. She
states that “Fair trade began as a market-based political movement that, to the extent that
it raised consumer consciousness, paved the way for ethical trade to become a politically
savvy marketing strategy” (Friedberg 2003:7). The consumer is sold by the idea of
freedom to choose an ethical product, but as Roseberry (2005) argues, consumer agency
is little more than an illusion within this kind of marketing strategy. Could the same be
said of Slow Food’s connections with industrial food retailers?
Although Lavazza creates a “relationship” between its virtual producers and the
gastronomic tourists at Salone, I believe that Lavazza’s stand offers little more than a
symbolic appeal to the conscience of co-producers. Its presence is neither fully
65
oppositional nor alternative, but it raises important questions about Slow Food’s
ideological claims against neoliberal economies. From this perspective it appears that
Slow Food’s focus is not on the establishment of a new structural configuration of the
dominant system, but on the more modest goal of eroding the edges of that system
through consumer-based initiatives.
Negotiating Sponsorship
Although it apparently does not closely regulate corporate activities at Salone del
Gusto, Slow Food does produce explicit critiques about industrial-scale corporate
producers. For example, in his 2001 book, Carlo Petrini bemoans the loss of gastronomic
roots that define a place, and disparages advertisers who “foist industrial products on to
the public with messages evoking naturalness, genuineness, the link with tradition, and
local specificity” (2001:28). Yet in many ways, this is exactly what these corporate
sponsors do at Salone del Gusto, and hardly in a subtle fashion. The Slow Food consumer
may or may not be fully cognizant of the contradictions at hand in the underlying
structures that enable Slow Food to herald small producers.
In order to better understand the tensions between corporate funding, regionalism,
and small producers, I return my focus to another Italian pork product showcased at
Salone del Gusto: Prosciutto di San Daniele. Unlike the small-scale of Lardo or Salame
delle Valli Tortonesi, Prosciutto di San Daniele is well known throughout Europe and
beyond. It holds DOP status (Denominazione d’Origine Protetta, Protected Designations
of Origin), a European Union designation of geographical origin for traditional
specialties. The San Daniele consortium oversees the production of over 3,000,000
prosciutto hams per year, or about 14% of the total production of Italy. 13 There are 29
Italian charcuterie products that have either the DOP or IGP recognition, and these
13 http://www.prosciuttosandaniele.it/home_prosciuttosandaniele.php?
66
constitute roughly 45% of all European meat products certified as such. In her work with
northern Italian salumi makers, Cavanaugh (2007) found that many producers believe
these labels end up homogenizing and commodifying the foods. In the promotion of a
regional typicality, the DOP labels demand standardized production, something that only
a handful of producers—especially large ones like Prosciutto di San Daniele—are
financially capable of doing. Moreover, small producers believe that this standardization
negates the unique characteristics that define local meats.
Reflecting this, the Prosciutto di San Daniele showcase at Salone del Gusto 2006
maneuvered in stark contrast to the pork producers in the Taste Pavillions (Figure 10).
Here, homogenous legs of prosciutto dangled from antiseptic wooden racks. Samples
were not taken from the display prosciutti, which were for visual rather than gustatory
consumption. Rather, organized tastings were arranged at specific times under the
guidance of trained representatives.
Figure 10 2006 Prosciutto di San Daniele stand

67
Information about the production of the meat, which comes primarily from
industrially-raised hogs fed a standardized diet to ensure uniformity, hung on a podium at
the center of the space. Despite the fact that the creation of indistinguishable legs of
prosciutto is a key to the brand’s success, information about the highly regulated,
technological procedures used to create this prosciutto remained invisible. Moreover,
producers themselves were utterly absent from the presentation.
In a carefully phrased publicity statement released by the Slow Food Movement,
the President of the San Daniele Prosciutto Consortium explained the philosophy behind
the association’s participation at the 2008 edition as follows:
For the Consortium, supporting the Salone is a concrete way to

offer its experience in protecting and safeguarding a food identity
par excellence. Despite having attained worldwide fame, San
Daniele Prosciutto has in fact managed to preserve its own high-
quality production features, which Slow Food is responsible for
protecting and preserving as a symbol of our [Italian] cultural
heritage. (Slow Food press release 2008).
Here, links to cultural identity and the Italian foodscape override concerns about
industrial production. The link forged between the San Daniele consortium and Slow
Food is hardly hidden—along with the other major corporate sponsors, the consortium
has a full-page advertisement in the Salone del Gusto guidebook. The ad states: “When
the prosciutto is San Daniele, you don’t need anything else.”
Making a Pig Smell Like a Rose
One display at the 2006 Salone incorporated a particularly striking way of
omitting the producer from its promotional materials. At this stand, I picked up a strange
postcard depicting a rose with delicate petals formed from cooked, thinly sliced ham.
The postcard asks, “Perchѐ accontentarsi? Scegli Rosa: Il prosciutto cotto di alta
qualità.” (“Why settle? Chose Rosa: The high quality cooked prosciutto.”)
Unbelievably, the postcard asks the bearer to “Scratch here and discover the scent of
68
Rosa” (Figure 11). While I was hesitant to scratch-and-sniff a meat flower, I was even
more surprised when the circle revealed a floral rose scent.
Figure 11 2006 Rosa handout; Image courtesy of Prosciutto Rosa
Juxtaposed with the Slow Food taste training that emphasizes the appearance,
smell, and taste of a quality product, the Rosa company completely removes any trace of
the origins of its product. Even the smell of prosciutto, an essential point of its valuation,
is replaced by floral perfumes. Rosa meat is available at supermarkets, where it is

hermetically sealed in colorful packaging and cannot be assessed via any of the sensory
69
frameworks promoted by Slow Food. Here, the pig, the hog producer, and the butcher
are removed from the picture entirely.
However, Rosa “the Flower of Salumi” is produced outside of Turin, in a factory
that “utilizes advanced technologies …to maintain the traditional characteristics of
Piedmontese salumi makers.”14 The city of Turin provides an incredible amount of
support (financial and otherwise) for the Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre events. Even
though Rosa salumi is not a product that would otherwise qualify for inclusion in this
event, and even appears to go against many of its central tenets, Rosa’s locality brings it
to the Halls of Taste. Moreover, Rosa documents its partnership with Slow Food on the
company website, and states that it has operated a stand at the Salone since the first
edition of the event. Does a regional food corporation supporting the goals of a
gastronomic social movement born in the same region have a place at events like Salone
del Gusto?
Beyond “Greenwashing:” Alternative Explanations
The presence of industrial producers like Lavazza and Prosciutto di Rosa may
raise critical hackles and lead to accusations of corporate “greenwashing.” After all, at
events like Salone del Gusto most consumers anticipate foods stamped with a “Good,
Clean & Fair” seal of approval. Signifiers such as local, organic, sustainable,
environmentally-conscious, natural, and the like resonate throughout the event,
permeating the humblest of foodstuffs. Salone provides alternative producers operating
at the margins of the mainstream industrial food circuits access to an international market
of consumers. Slow Food adherents do not flock to Turin for the Lurisa bottled water—
they come to meet small-scale, artisanal, “quality” producers. Does the presence of
14 Accessed online at www.prosciuttoirosa.it on May 25, 2011.

70
corporate sponsorship or less-than-“artisanal” quality products (whatever that may mean)
diminish Slow Food’s mission to create Good, Clean and Fair co-producers?
Critical examinations of Salone del Gusto reveal unequal power relationships
between consumers, producers, and global markets. However, such a critique may be an
artifice of scholarly literature. Goodman (2002) posits that scholars in the United States
tend to take a markedly different approach than Europeans when attempting to decipher
the growth, development, and applications of alternative food networks such as Slow
Food. In the U.S., research focuses primarily on the capacity of alternative networks to
take control of food production away from the hegemonic techo-scientific complex that
currently dominates American agriculture. The “quality turn” of small scale production
is seen as a material and symbolic expression of “eco-social imaginaries” that attempt to
create a domestic, sustainable, and egalitarian food system (Goodman 2002:271).
However, these alternative production methods are hardly monolithic; in most cases,
there are multiple layers of unique elements, meanings, and politics operating at once.
Goodman argues that European researchers, on the other hand, view alternative
networks largely as a dynamic, innovative expression of rural development and as
sources of resistance to globalization. By embedding food in regional eco-social
relations, alternative food networks are oriented in research pertaining to policy debates,
particularly those related to European CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) issues.
Changing notions of rurality and food “quality” mark a major shift in the ways Europeans
as a whole consider food. These notions are closely tied to production methods and the
perceived safety of consumable items, particularly in light of concerns about Mad Cow
disease, Foot and Mouth disease, and the biological effects of transgenic agriculture
(Ferriѐres 2006). European research on the quality turn thus tends to focus on public
debates about food safety, agricultural policy reform, and the contested trajectories of
rural economy and society. Are Europeans and American studying empirically different
71
things? Or is this broad differentiation by Goodman a residual byproduct of research
traditions on the two continents?
It is beyond my scope to resolve such debates here, but my observations at Salone
del Gusto illuminate how Slow Food engages conventional technologies and institutions
at events that aim to promote its forms of consumption to a global audience, even though
its rhetoric criticizes these same elements of globalization in other forums. Do similar
contradictions and ambivalences also appear in how Slow Food operates in localized
contexts?
72
CHAPTER THREE: CREATING FOOD IN TUSCANY
Portrait Two: Brynn
Brynn arrived at Spannocchia in the spring of 2009 to assume the position of the
Intern Program Director. Originally from New York, she completed her master’s degree
at Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNISG) the year before. Brynn
learned about the Spannocchia position—which required her to live on site and work with
the interns and farm volunteers on a daily basis—from a colleague at UNISG. Slow Food
created the university, located outside of Bra, Italy, to offer a multidisciplinary academic
program in the science and culture of food. According to the Slow Food website, UNISG
is another way in which Slow Food “brings together the innovations and research of the
academic and scientific world and the traditional knowledge of farmers and food
producers.”15 Her degree, formally titled “Food Culture: Communicating Quality
Products,” included coursework in the anthropology, geography, journalism, and
communication of food. Students at UNISG also take part in numerous guided tastings
and field trips across Italy and the EU to gain knowledge of both high-quality artisanal
and industrial food products.
During my preliminary fieldwork in Bra I met several UNISG students, and I was
curious about the ways in which the university connects ideologically with the movement
as a whole. During our interview, I asked Brynn more about her experiences at the
school. Her interests in food production and marketing connected neatly to the
curriculum, but she explained that not all students shared this experience:
If you read a lot about the school, on the website, it’s pretty clear
about what you’re getting into. I think some people were, I don’t
know how they did it, but they came with very different
15 Accessed online at www.slowfood.com on March 1, 2010.

73
expectations. There was one girl who was really interested in

international development and policy. And like, UNISG, not so
much. We definitely discussed it, and it is political at a certain
level, but UNISG is not putting out people who are going to
change the world. At all.
I told her that I was surprised by this, given Slow Food’s emphasis on political
organization and social justice for agriculturalists. She replied,
You can’t talk about food without talking about food politics. But
a lot of the food issues that we talked about were focused small-
scale. Like, nobody wants to farm anymore, and distribution is a
problem and that kind of thing, rather than large-scale issues…It’s
something that is very present, but it’s not something that is
focused on so much.
She described UNISG as “the brain child of Carlo Petrini.” Although the school
is technically a separate entity, it is inextricably linked to Slow Food. She continued,
“Carlo Petrini is the president, the trustees are people who are involved with Slow Food.
Alice Waters, Vandana Shiva. We go to all the Slow Food events.” The social networks
forged between Slow Food staff and UNISG students also provided an opportunity to
work at Salone del Gusto. In the fall of 2008, Brynn was in charge of the international
(i.e., non-Italian) exhibitors from Western Europe. She described the experience to me in
detail:
It was a lot of logistical organization. It was for Salone, so it was

all [small scale] commercial producers… They had to get there,
and there was all this set up work with their stands. You had to
rent the stand and then you had to outfit it. I got there two months
before Salone, and nothing had been disseminated to these people.
Nothing. They didn’t know that they had to order water
connections, they had to order refrigerators if they needed them.
They had to do sanitation paperwork, bureaucratic, classic Italian
red-tape paperwork stuff. All of this stuff had to be done for
Pavilion One. It was so classic Slow Food. I needed to be there
six months earlier. If I had been there earlier, I could have gotten
so many more exhibitors. In addition to check-in, I was the point
person for all of the international exhibitors. Well, obviously
nothing worked when they got there. They ordered a fridge—no
fridge. There was no parking. They load in everything the day
before [Salone] at 7:00 a.m., so there was a line of trucks.
Apparently the organization was one of the worst for Salone ever.
I don’t think I’ve ever been under more stress in my life.
74
This backstage view of Salone del Gusto further speaks to the challenges faced by
vendors in the Taste Pavilions. Although the booths in the Halls of Taste appear to be
meticulously produced, Brynn’s revelation of incomplete paperwork, traffic jams, and
mad dashes to locate power cords and other necessary items spoke to the contrary. This
“classic Italian” model of bureaucratic disorganization—wherein multiple zones of
responsibility are mutually dependent but unable to communicate efficiently—crept into
Slow Food’s premier event. Despite the stresses of working at Salone, she enjoyed the
experience of working with food producers one-on-one. “I loved my job, because a lot of
what I did, once it calmed down, was just walking around and hanging out with the
producers. I talked with them, ate with them, drank with them. I loved it.”
Her experiences with producers further shaped her interest in European small-
scale agriculture. The job at Spannocchia, with its emphasis on organizing schedules,
developing educational tours, and living in a rural space, seemed tailor-made for her.
When I asked Brynn if she thought her education at UNISG prepared her for this job, she
laughed and replied “I feel like it prepared me for almost nothing else!” She continued:
The thing you learn about the most, you spend a lot of time with
small food producers. And you understand food production on a
small-scale in Europe. So coming here, I was really familiar with
the model. It’s a different community, but the model of small-
scale food production is very familiar and I know a lot about how
it generally works. I feel like it was good, coming in with a
base…I don’t ever see myself being a full-time farmer, I don’t
think. But I like being near it. I like being this close to food
production. It’s really important to me. Slow Food is about
enjoying what you eat, and enjoying what you eat is about
understanding why you’re eating it. And understanding why
you’re eating it is understanding the process [of food production],
that, you know, your food isn’t from a feedlot. Part of Slow Food
is that so many people now are interested in the process.
Locating Slow Food Producers
In many of Slow Food’s discussions regarding the transformative capacity of co-
producers, the voices of food producers are largely silent. In order for the system to work
in the way that official Slow Food rhetoric describes, all farmers, fishermen, cheese
75
makers and herders must take on new roles as educators. If the consumer is willing to
make the effort, the producer must at least tacitly concur. While co-production holds the
potential to increase economic returns for small-scale food producers, such a system
demands new forms of labor from those producers, primarily in the form of marketing
and education. The experience of food producers at Salone del Gusto described above by
Brynn speaks to the challenges of this undertaking at major Slow Food events. But what
kinds of challenges do these Slow producers face on a quotidian level? Does the
ideology of the movement, particularly in the context of “co-producer” relationships, play
out for the people Slow Food claims to support? In order to more fully conceptualize the
challenges and potential benefits afforded to producers working with Slow Food—either
directly through its food-based initiatives or tacitly through shared ideology with
consumers—I conducted ethnographic fieldwork at the Tenuta di Spannocchia
(Spannocchia Estate) from October 2008 through May 2009.
Through farm-based education, sustainable agriculture and forestry, and an
emphasis on traditional local cultures, the estate seeks “to encourage global dialogue
about sustaining cultural landscapes for future generations through the example of the
Tenuta di Spannocchia.”16 Comprised of 435 hectares (about 1,100 acres) in the
Montagnola Senese area of Tuscany, the estate is located approximately 20 kilometers
(12.4 miles) west of Siena. As part of the Tuscan Riserva Naturale Alto Merse (Natural
Reserve of the High Merse River), Spannocchia’s land contains 925 acres of woodlands
that provide refuge for many species of wildlife, including the iconic cinghiale (wild
boar). Certified organic farmland, including 14.5 acres of olive groves, vineyards, and
orchards and 113 acres of cultivated fields, gardens, and animal pasture, comprise the rest
of the land. The Spannocchia mission statement emphasizes that agriculture and
16 Accessed online at http://www.spannocchia.com/ on September 12, 2011.

76
ecological sustainability are key means to preserve the architectural and cultural integrity
of the estate. Although agriculture and forestry traditionally supported the estate, today
the primary financial support comes from agritourism. Hundreds of people visit
Spannocchia each year, with the expectation of an “authentic” experience of rural
Tuscany. A central component of this experience is food and agriculture. Hence, food
producers at Spannocchia must attend not only to locally situated economic and ecologic
concerns, but also to the expectations and demands of an increasingly international
audience.
Figure 12 Aerial view of Spannocchia; Image courtesy of the Spannocchia Foundation
At Spannocchia I encountered an extensive range of food producers—cooks,
butchers, gardeners, bakers, bee-keepers, animal husbandry experts, hired farm hands,
viticulturists, wild game sharpshooters, and more. Roughly one dozen permanent
77
residents, including both native Italians and the Italian-American owners of the estate,
oversee daily operations on the farm. Much of the manual labor, however, comes from
participants in Spannocchia’s thriving internship program, a competitive three-month
curriculum that includes room, board, and educational programming in exchange for
approximately thirty hours of work per week under Italian supervisors. Numerous
itinerant WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) 17 workers also labor at
Spannocchia in exchange for room and board. The interns and the “WWOOFers,” as
they are called, are primarily highly-educated, well-traveled young Americans and
Canadians with a vested interest in sustainable agriculture and organic food production.
Ironically, at Spannocchia the individuals who carry out much of the “peasant labor” of
Italian food production—the endless weeding of gardens, feeding animals, mending
fences, trimming grape vines, and so on—are not venerable Italians, but enthusiastic and
idealistic young people from North America.
Adding to this complexity, Spannocchia generates a sensuous portrait of
“authentic” Tuscan rural life for its tourists. This perception of authenticity is central to
Spannocchia’s success as an agritourism estate. For example, the tower that overlooks
the property, originally built in the late 1200s, provides an unmatched panorama of the
Tuscan countryside. However, from the backstage standpoint, the fairytale image of
Spannocchia is hardly accidental or effortless. Here I am reminded of one intern, who
17 WWOOF is a 35 year old international organization that coordinates about 35,000-40,000

volunteer farm workers each year. The founders of WWOOF, whom I met in at Spannocchia in
February 2009, view the organization as a means to promote cultural exchange. They believe that
“the organic mindset” fosters activities ranging from organic farming to other sustainable
enterprises. It’s not a program to “teach” people how to farm, per se, but rather to encourage the
sharing of knowledge and cross-cultural communication. The founders believe that the reason
WWOOF continues to enjoy success is because it gives people a sense of real fulfillment—unlike
the sedentary work of many modern, urban jobs, the physical labor and psychological benefits
derived from working toward a tangible, physical objective become key.
78
repeated to himself “I am the unseen hand of fairy magic” while scraping a seemingly
endless mountain of pigeon scat from the sloped roof of the villa under the tower. In all
respects, it requires an enormous amount of labor to maintain the estate, and even more
effort to create a financially solvent agritourism business based on idealizations of rural
life and cuisine in Tuscany.
Agriculture currently accounts for less than 2% of Italy’s GDP and 4% of its
workforce (CIA World Factbook 2011), figures that may come as a surprise to those who
equate the country with quality food production. Of that percentage, a sizeable portion
derives from industrial wine and olive oil giants. Agriculture in and of itself would never
be lucrative enough to keep Spannocchia in operation. Tourism, however, constitutes
over one third of the Italian GDP, and constitutes Italy’s largest industry—and the
majority of Spannocchia’s income. According to Emma, the foundation’s executive
director, there is a shift in environmental awareness among the people visiting
Spannocchia. “Ten years ago, visitors came to Tuscany to see art,” she says. “Now they
want to understand what’s going on with agriculture and the environment.” Guests must
join the Spannocchia Foundation prior to arrival, at a minimum cost of $45 for
individuals. Richard, the American-born husband of the estate’s owner, explained to me
that this process weeds out many of those who want to “drink red wine by the pool under
the Tuscan Sun.” He went on to explain that the systems and amenities in most of
Spannocchia's buildings were upgraded during the last twenty years, but care is always
taken to change the appearance of the property as little as possible, avoiding the all too
typical "gentrification" sweeping through much of rural Tuscany. 18 Visitors are
18 See also Herzfeld (2009) for a discussion of urban gentrification and the transplanting of local
populations in the Roman working class Monti district.
79
forewarned on the website that Spannocchia is “truly rural and not a vacation resort;
rather it is an historic working farm, a wildlife preserve, and an educational center.”19
Connecting an interest in food eco-systems to local culture highlights what Miele
and Murdoch call the “practical aesthetics” of typical cuisines (2002). They borrow the
concept of practical aesthetics from Gagnier (2001), who defines it as the aesthetic
component of everyday activity operating outside of purely economic modes of
calculation or evaluation—in other words, it retains an intrinsic value of its own. Miele
and Murdoch argue that practical aesthetics combine “the social and the natural in the
very taste of the foods themselves…this combination points to an ethical element in the
products and cuisines proposed by Slow Food” (2002:323). At Spannocchia, Tuscan
food culture, environmental sustainability and local economy interconnect in a series of
linkages across the gastronomic landscape. These connections rejoin elements of life at
Spannocchia to broader discussions of Slow Food ideology. Although the mission of the
estate is not explicitly linked to Slow Food, the food-related activities and enterprises at
Spannocchia actively function within a network of individuals and organizations
endeavoring to create social and economic change through the medium of food
production and consumption.
The breadth of this network meant that uncovering data about the “practical
aesthetics” of food and life at Spannocchia was not always a straightforward task. For
example, I began to drop in to visit with Graziella, the head cook who grew up at
Spannocchia, in the late afternoons after I finished work outdoors or in the transformation
kitchen. From an anthropological perspective, I hoped to build rapport and use this
valuable time with her to glean stories about the history of the estate and her experiences
growing up there. But Graziella had other plans. She loved to hear about the antics of
19 Accessed online at http://www.spannocchia.com/rental-information/information.cfm on

September 12, 2011.
80
the other interns and guests, and always urged me to sample the dessert for the evening
meal so that “she wouldn’t have to.” Most of all, she wanted to know what I cooked at
home for my family, and what my mother and grandmothers served. What animals did
we keep on our farm, she asked, and what grew in our gardens? Graziella, perhaps more
than anyone else I worked with in Italy, never understood why I wanted to leave my
family and friends for months at a time in order to work with pigs and talk about food.
The topic came up regularly, and she often shook her head and asked, again, what my
poor husband was eating in my absence. In the end I learned more about Graziella’s
background from the Spannocchia cookbook, a product created for a tourist audience,
which I describe later in this chapter. My everyday interactions with Graziella and other
food producers at Spannocchia revealed a much more complex portrait of Tuscan
“practical aesthetics,” in which outsiders’ expectations—including those of Slow Food—
play a central role in dictating the presentation of Tuscan food and life.
The History of Spannocchia
The political, economic, and cultural history of Tuscany can be read in the walls
of Spannocchia. Every Tuesday afternoon during the tourist season, Richard gives an
historical tour of the estate for visitors. He holds an encyclopedic knowledge of the area,
and he begins by explaining that it is an “historical” tour only because there is so much
history involved in explaining how this place came to be. He believes that to lack a deep
understanding of the systems that previously shaped the estate undermines the lives and
cultural structures of those who existed upon it. Moreover, the organization and goals of
present day Spannocchia are based upon the historical evolution of agricultural and rural
landscapes in this region.
In order to better understand this perspective, I attended the historical tour
multiple times during my stay at the farm and tape recorded Richard’s narrative, which
varied according to the interests of his audience. Each tour begins at the original entrance
81
of the villa, overlooking the surrounding fields and forests. Richard begins by explaining
that no written records exist for the estate prior to its acquisition in the High Middle
Ages. The original tower (Figure 13) was built for defensive purposes during the 12 th
century, when the feudal system began to collapse in the region and the land estates of a
few noble Sienese families were broken up into multiple autonomous regions, which
replaced the earlier aristocratic government. The nobles of the period typically lived in
fortified castles to protect their estates from neighboring competitors. Richard points out
the original crest of the Spannocchi family painted above the doorway; very little is
known about this family prior to 1225, when the name becomes increasingly prevalent in
Sienese records.
Figure 13 Spannocchia's 12th Century tower
By that time the family was well-established in the area and acted as a major
player in the nascent banking industry of Siena, where it is still possible to see the family
82
crest on several medieval buildings. The way in which the Spannocchi family came into
political and economic power is unique. In most cases, wealthy merchants and bankers
from the city expanded their landholdings into the surrounding countryside over time.
However, the Spannocchi family lived on this estate prior to becoming major players in
the economic system of Siena. At its height, the estate covered 2,500 acres of land,
although this was considered a small landholding in comparison to its neighbors.
At this point Richard turns to the history of agriculture in the area. He describes
the way in which the fall of the feudal system gave way to the mezzadria, or
sharecropping system, which tied peasant farmers to wealthy landowners. Under this
system, the landowner provided a house and land to a peasant and his family in exchange
for a portion of the harvest. Unlike the preceding feudal system, people were no longer
tied to the land permanently or born into a life of agricultural labor. However, economic
and social constraints limited the actual freedom of the contadine (peasants). One could
move from farm to farm in search of better conditions, but farmers remained at the mercy
of aristocratic landowners. Peasant families did not grow cash crops, but subsistence
foods such as wheat, grapes, chestnuts, farro (a form of spelt), and so on. Half (or mezza)
of whatever was produced went to the owner, who maintained the infrastructure, roads,
houses, water wells, etc. Typically, landowners lived in an urban area, geographically
and socially separate from the contadine, and the system moved food from the rural
periphery of the political and economic landscape to its urban core in the cities.
Remarkably, the mezzadria system continued throughout the first half of the 20th
century. Visitors to Spannocchia often question Richard about the treatment of peasants
on this estate, a question which is difficult to answer. There are no existing records that
would outline the social equity or lack thereof during the centuries of sharecropping at
Spannocchia.
According to Richard, between 1800 and 1850 the Spannocchi family gradually
disappeared and died out, with some family members abandoning the estate to emigrate
83
to Austria or the U.S.20 By 1918 the land was overrun, and the several dozen
farmworkers still remaining on the land were able to do less and less to keep the grounds
intact. A lumber company bought the estate at this point, and cleared a majority of the
timber in the area. The property was repossessed by the bank several years later, and
then purchased by Delfino Cinelli, the grandfather of Richard’s wife Federica. Cinelli
was a Florentine businessman who owned a successful hat-making industry. An aspiring
author, Cinelli bought the estate as a writing retreat, and penned his semi-
autobiographical novel Il Castiglione che Dio Sol Sa (The Castle that Only God Knows)
based on his experiences revitalizing the estate. He met his wife, Francis Hartz, on a
trans-Atlantic ship voyage, where she was beginning her European Grand Tour under the
watchful eye of her grandmother (Figure 14).
The young couple married and lived in Italy for several years, but when
Mussolini’s fascist regime began to rise to power Francis took their children to stay with
family in the United States. Delfino stayed on at Spannocchia, and once the war began
Francis was unable to return. The couple never reunited, as Delfino died at an early age
on the estate soon after. Francis and her children lived in Grosse Point, MI for many
years. At this point, Richard’s historical tours wind their way into a sitting room filled
with antique furnishings and family portraits, where he uses the story of Federica’s
family to richly detail the changes on the estate over the past century.
Following the war, Spannocchia became increasingly overgrown as more and
more people moved away from the countryside to work in Italian industries. The overt
hardship of the fascist years and the promises of the Economic Miracle of the 1960s
20 The country’s Risorgimento, or Unification, took place in 1861 when Piedmontese diplomats
from the north attempted to merge over a dozen city-states and regions into a collective whole.
Leaders attempted to rally nationalism around the myth of Rome, while largely ignoring the
development of a true collective consciousness (Brierley and Giacometti 1996). Restructuring of
the country led to massive waves of emigration; by 1920, one fourth of Italians lived abroad.
84
resulted in a mass exodus to urban areas, and the majority of peasant farmhouses were
simply abandoned. In 1958, Federica’s father visited the estate and decried the state of
the land. Gathering money from Italian and American friends, he started a U.S.-based
nonprofit for archeology in the region. After hiring a local archeologist and team of
workers, the group unearthed Etruscan artifacts dating over 2000 years old on the site,
and Paleolithic remains were also discovered nearby. In 1964, Cinelli began to host
American archeologists and groups of students at Spannocchia, renovating the central
buildings as boarding houses. This marked the beginning of the estate’s utilization for
educational purposes directed to a U.S. audience.
Figure 14 Delfino Cinelli and Frances Hartz; Image courtesy of the Spannocchia
Foundation
85
Spannocchia operated as an archeological base for decades, and although Cinelli
continued to employ a farm estate manager very little agriculture took place on the land
during this period. Around WWII there were 40 tenant farmers living and working at
Spannocchia; by 1981 there were 6, and in 1986 there were none. Cinelli’s daughter,
Federica, studied architecture in Florence, where she and Richard met. They shared an
interest in historical preservation, and in the early 1990s the couple moved their family
from the U.S. onto the estate in order to take over daily operations. The irony is that
although Federica and Richard created a space for Tuscan cultural identity, landscapes,
and traditional foods to flourish, they are technically Americans. The Italians on the
estate refer to Federica as la padrona, a term from the mezzadria years that indicates the
landowner or “boss.”
Translating Tradition: The Cookbook
The revival of the agricultural economy and inclusion of farm work at
Spannocchia brought the estate back to life—or, rather, a new life, based on the economic
viability of tourist interest in these sectors. Located under the tower, the Spannocchia
guest services office holds a small assortment of gifts available for purchase: items
include pen and ink drawings of the property, jars of honey from the Spannocchia
beehives, and bundles of lavender harvested on site. By far the most popular item,
however, is the Spannocchia cookbook. The slim paperback volume is made up of
recipes for dishes that guests enjoy in the dining room, and allows visitors to recreate
these meals at home. Analysis of the Spannocchia cookbook highlights the ways in
which “traditional” food is central to the creation and maintenance of the estate.
MacClancy describes cookbooks as “both essential and profoundly
misleading…[they] may tell us less about culinary conditions than about collective
imaginations, present-day values, and popular dreams, hopes and aims. They have to be
seen not as descriptive documents but as prescriptive ones, giving us an inkling of the
86
culinary worlds their authors would like to see.” (2004:66). How does Spannocchia
present a culinary world to its guests? The Spannocchia cookbook, available only in
English, feeds into the ideation of the site as authentically Tuscan while simultaneously
promoting gustatory conviviality. The introduction to the Spannocchia cookbook reflects
this:
By creating traditional dishes, made from products grown on the

property, by hands who have created these dishes for decades, we
forge a connection to the past and keep knowledge and taste
alive…The Tuscan cuisine is simple. Every dish is made from just
a few ingredients. The secret behind the taste is the high quality
and freshness of the ingredients and the care with which each dish
is prepared. If you come to dinner at Spannocchia, you will most
likely sit at the same table with an intern (or maybe the whole
crew). This intern may have fed the pigs in the morning, helped
slaughter in the afternoon, and now you are eating the sausages he
helped to make for dinner. Or maybe the intern worked in the
garden, and she spent the morning harvesting the green beans for
the side dish.
Here, the cookbook focuses on the role that interns play in food production at
Spannocchia. The resident Italian farm directors receive little attention here; likewise,
they are unlikely to be present in the dining room most evenings, preferring to eat in the
privacy of their homes. Rather it is the interns, who do not present cultural or linguistic
communication barriers to English-speaking guests, who serve as a primary locus of
“insider” knowledge about food production on the estate at meals. On many occasions I
watched tourists engaging the interns in conversations about their work on the farm,
something that several of the interns told me they tired of after several weeks.
Particularly after long days of heavy labor—the very work that enabled food to appear on
the table—they were not always interested in engaging in “yet another” series of
questions about farm work or their philosophies on agriculture with strangers. Other
interns, however, enjoyed these interactions with aspiring “co-producers” at Spannocchia
and reveled in the role of educators.
The primary way in which guests at Spannocchia learn about the mission of the
estate is through food. Resonant with the ideals of Slow Food, meals at Spannocchia
87
connect sensory pleasure with social activity, and the cookbook encourages readers to
continue this pattern at home:
Whenever possible at Spannocchia we use our own ingredients

harvested and produced on our farm: wine, olive oil, fresh pork,
lamb, beef, venison, wild boar, salt-cured meats, vegetables and
grains. While you may not have a farm of your own, when creating
the dishes in this cookbook, we encourage you to buy local meats,
shop your farmers market or grow something in your own garden.
Fresh, organic products will make each dish taste even better.
Another aspect that makes food taste good is eating it in good
company! Meals at Spannocchia are a moment of conviviality in
which staff, residents, interns, volunteers, and guests sit down
together to enjoy a moment of relaxation and discourse and of
course good food.
The cookbook emphasizes dishes made with seasonal, locally available
ingredients, and provides a version of “authentic” Tuscan cooking that is palatable to the
outside world. The recipes included in the cookbook highlight a particular set of flavors
and experiences. The cookbook provides roughly a dozen recipes for each course in a
full Italian meal: antipasti (appetizers), Primi and Secondi Piatti (first and second
courses), Contorni (sides), and Dolci e Liquori (Sweets and Liquers). Some recipes
require ingredients that are plentiful on the farm but may be difficult to access outside of
Tuscany (e.g., borage leaves, farro, cardoons, and wild boar meat). Since returning to the
United States I have searched for a source of chestnut flour, a key ingredient in a pear and
chocolate torte I learned to make at Spannocchia. Chestnut flour, a staple of pre-
industrial peasant diets, is typical in Tuscan grocery stores but rare beyond the borders of
the region. Other recipes and ingredients are more well known (e.g., lasagne or tiramisu),
but the majority of the dishes are distinctive to the area. This sets the Spannocchia
cookbook apart from the sea of generalized Italian cookbooks available for purchase.
Appaduri points out that specialized cookbooks like this one capture a particular
moment in time and space, where they categorically “define, codify, and publicize”
regional and ethnic cuisines (1988:15). This particular version of Tuscan cuisine
emerges from the history of the mezzadria sharecropping system at Spannocchia, but
88
incorporates modern ideas about terroir and gastronomic landscapes. It provides a
memento of an authentic Italian experience than can later be recreated at home.
Moreover, the cookbook forges connection between meals and the food producers and
cultural histories that surround them.
Cooking with Loredana
The current edition of the Spannocchia cookbook was written by Giada, the
director of guest services, along with a former intern director, specifically for the tourist
audience at the estate. As of 2011, Giada is working on a third edition of the cookbook,
featuring an entirely new set of recipes. The first edition of the Spannocchia cookbook
was written by a professionally-trained American chef who worked at the estate for
several years. She worked alongside Loredana, Spannocchia’s resident cook for over
twenty years, to develop the book. About half of the recipes from that first volume were
repeated in the second. This American chef originally taught cooking classes at
Spannocchia, but the program was not particularly successful. The owners gradually
realized that most tourists vastly preferred to take a class with a “real” Italian cook, rather
than with an American—even an American who had lived in the area for many years and
worked alongside the venerable Loredana. When Loredana retired from her post as the
head cook, she shifted from cooking at the estate five nights a week to teaching Italian
cooking classes. It was at this point that the program skyrocketed. Loredana does not
speak English, and either Giada or Federica serves as a translator during the class.
Cooking classes are held once a week during the high season at Spannocchia, and
typically sell out quickly.
Along with Graziella, Loredana is one of the last individuals who remember the
mezzadria years at Spannocchia. Her family, tenant farmers, lived in Spannocchia’s Casa
Capannone, a building currently used as a guest house. In her mid-20’s she married
Enzo, the son of another Spannocchia tenant farm family, who is currently a Spannocchia
89
woodsman. Shortly thereafter they moved into Rosia and began a family, although both
Loredana and Enzo continued to work at the estate over the years.
Blurred black and white photographs of children at Spannocchia in the 1950s
include a young Loredana attending school at the estate’s one-room schoolhouse. These
photos hang in a sitting room outside of the dining room, visual reminders of the
continuity between past and present. A close-up of one of these images is also printed in
the flyer for Loredana’s weekly cooking classes (see Figure 15). The fact that she was
born and raised on the property, to tenant farmers, provides a degree of unmatched
authenticity—Loredana literally embodies the cooking traditions of the region. The flyer
also mentions that she retired “in order to spend more time with her three grandchildren,”
further supporting an image of a nurturing Italian nonna willing to share her
knowledge—at a cost of 80 euros per person.
Figure 15 Young Loredana at Spannocchia, circa 1950; Image courtesy of the

Spannocchia Foundation
90
The introduction to the Spannocchia cookbook mentions that Graziella and
Loredana were:
…Not as specific as we would have liked them to be when

dictating recipes. To them “a pinch”, “a little” and “some” should
be self-evident and cooking “for a while” in the oven should be
specific enough for a roast. But these types of instructions only
work for them because they are just that, masters, and know the
kitchen by instinct and not through books.
This mastery in the kitchen is achieved not through academic learning or culinary
school, but a lifetime of repeated movements. The “native” practices of such women
must be translated by cookbook writers for consumption by an outside audience (Heldke
2001). Hernandez and Sutton (2003) examine the role of this type of embodied
knowledge in everyday cooking, and question whether the objectification of “tradition”
as an aspect of modern life affects the ways in which individuals self-consciously adopt
(or reject) modern recipes, gadgets, and cooking styles. When guests at Spannocchia take
a class with Loredana, they learn to roll out and cut tagliatelle pasta by hand and to shape
potato gnocchi with a fork. Although these procedures can be (and are) mechanized by
many home cooks, the “traditional” methods and the associated sensory processes of
tasting, touching, smelling, and looking are reified over careful measuring. 21 This
sensory dimension comes to the forefront, and Spannocchia actively draws upon these
aesthetics when creating an image of the estate as an ideal destination for gastronomic
tourism.
21 This is true not only of Americans or other guests at Spannocchia, but Italians as well.
Counihan (2004) shows that young women today are less likely to prepare elaborate meals, as
their work schedules make this difficult. Women continue to do the majority of food preparation
in Italian homes, and Counihan shows that although women expressed pleasure in being able to
provide for their families, they simultaneously felt unappreciated in a society that continues to
undervalue women’s work in the home. Utilizing pre-prepared food items is simultaneously
viewed as a liberating time-saver and a distressing loss of tradition and food quality.
91
Saperi e Sapori (Knowledge and Taste)
Dinner at Spannocchia is held five nights a week in the dining room, or, in good
weather, on an adjacent outdoor patio. At 7:00 people begin to trickle in for “Wine on
the Terrace,” a pre-dinner glass of wine made from grapes grown and fermented on site.
This half hour is a good opportunity to chat with interesting visitors or recount the events
of the day. The evening meal is integral to cementing conviviality between the
individuals on the farm and forging a physiological link to the foods that are grown and
produced there. While guests are always welcome to use a small communal kitchen to
independently cook their own meals, the majority take advantage of the five-course meals
offered every weeknight. The gustatory pleasures of a large meal served with wine,
peppered with interesting conversation, and laced with the laughter of guests serves to
create an atmosphere often associated with the iconographic mealtimes of the “big Italian
family,” complete with a loving nonna in the kitchen (cf. Chadwell 2002).
The menu is composed of traditional Tuscan fare that utilizes the seasonal
produce available on the farm and is fixed in advance by Graziella and Giada. Each
dinner begins with the primo piatto (first course), a pasta, soup or risotto made with
seasonal vegetables. The secondo piatto (main course) is a meat—usually pork, beef,
venison, or chicken, served with a contorno (side dish) of seasonal vegetables from the
Spannocchia vegetable garden and insalata (green salad) that can be dressed to taste with
Spannocchia-produced olive oil and vinegar. Dolce (dessert)—panna cotta, tiramisu,
traditional Sienese cantucci biscuits with vin santo, or crostate for example—is served at
the end of the meal. Bread, wine, and water are included in the meal, and it is essentially
impossible to leave hungry. During the tourist high season Graziella has a part-time
Italian assistant in the kitchen, and one of the guest services interns typically helps with
prep work as well. Each day the menu is posted on a wall directly opposite the front door
92
of the Castello, quite literally the first thing seen upon entering. Food items that are
grown on the farm are marked with an asterisk.22
Figure 16 Graziella at work in the kitchen
Graziella creates a five course meal for 30-80 people every weeknight. She
typically arrives at Spannocchia from her home in the nearby village around one or two
in the afternoon and works until around 8:30, when the first several courses are on the
table. In my fieldnotes I describe Graziella as the “archetypical Italian grandmother
cook, straight out of central casting” (see Figure 16). With her round face, sturdy arms
22 While much of the produce from Spannocchia’s gardens and fields is consumed fresh, large
portions are also canned, frozen, and dried for later consumption. This allows Spannocchia to
utilize its own produce in meals year round. A system of cold frames and unheated greenhouses
in the organic gardens further extend the growing season.
93
and physical ease in the kitchen, Graziella embodies the stereotypical image of a Tuscan
grandmother-cook.
Many people first saw Graziella not at Spannocchia, but on a page of Bon Apetit
magazine. In February 2008 the periodical devoted a full 10-page spread to Spannocchia,
as part of their “Green Issue.” Emphasizing the connection between local production,
regional traditions, and gastronomic tourism, the article contains dozens of gorgeous
photographs of the estate. An entire page is dedicated to a glossy color photograph of
Graziella standing in the kitchen. I asked her about how she felt about being featured in a
famous magazine, and she sighed, saying “Oh, that picture, it is just a big woman with a
big pan.” Ever-humble, Graziella was far more concerned with her weight in the photo
than the fact that she was being heralded for her skills in the kitchen.
Guests in the dining hall regularly erupted in applause when Graziella emerged
from the kitchen to head home for the night. She would modestly thank everyone and
head out the door. There were periods in which her skills as a cook were challenged,
particularly in cases of vegetarians. One week, when the estate was hosting a group of
yoga enthusiasts, there were several vegetarians and three raw vegans to feed. In a
kitchen where eggs, cheese, and meats are central ingredients, Graziella had to find
creative solutions. When I asked her how she managed that particular group her mouth
was a straight, hard line, with just a little curl on one end of her lip. She just said, “Well,
we had a challenge,” and left it at that. This response highlights her position relative to
Spannocchia’s guests—above all she is accountable for creating meals that emphasize
Tuscan cuisine, and she must modify certain dishes to accommodate a range of
individuals. Even guests who eschew many of the “traditional” ingredients central to
Tuscan food hold expectations of authenticity in regards to their gastronomic experience
at Spannocchia. Graziella is responsible for making these expectations a reality, and
incorporates a range of creative tweaks in the kitchen to do so.

94
Nostra Cena (Our Dinner)
Wednesday night meals are Spannocchia-wide events that include houseguests,
program groups, residents, interns and family members. Every other Wednesday night is
“pizza night” at Spannocchia, when the interns all work outside preparing a huge variety
of pizza for all of the guests. A wood burning stone oven constructed in a narrow crevice
between two of the main buildings contains a fire made up of oak and corbezzolo
wood.23 The fire is started hours before cooking time, and one of the interns is
responsible for tending the fire throughout the afternoon. Another intern is responsible
for assisting Graziella with dough preparation. By the evening, all of the interns take
turns putting on toppings, rolling the crusts, and delivering pizza to the dining room.
This is a festive atmosphere, and everyone seems to really enjoy taking part in it. The
pizza arrives to the dining room as it is cooked—you can pick and choose which kinds
you want, and it’s never the same twice. Toppings range from pear and gorgonzola
cheese to fresh salsiccie (sweet Italian pork sausage). Guests are invited to go outside
and watch the cooking process. Pizza night can last until late in the evening, as the fire
burns down and guests top off their meals with small glasses of limoncello liqueur.
On alternating Wednesdays, Spannocchia hosts a special meal called Nostra
Cena. This dinner is created entirely from foods sourced from the estate itself. Most
evenings, meals at Spannocchia include some items that come prepackaged. Pasta, for
example, is not normally made fresh daily on site, although the sauces that accompany it
are. On a Nostra Cena night, however, all the components of the meal come from the
farm. Following wine on the terrace, the meal might begin with antipasti of bruschetta,
figs and prosciutto, fried polenta, or roasted walnuts and parmigiano, depending on the
23The corbezzolo tree, or “strawberry tree” is an evergreen bush that produces small, reddish
fruits that are sometimes made into jam. These trees voluntarily grew all over the Spannocchia
property, and most of the wood used for the pizza oven came from trimmings and brush removal.
The smoke from corbezzolo wood imparts a unique flavor.
95
season. The primo piatto is often homemade or specialty pasta, or a soup—ravioli,
tagliolini with ragu, or wild mushroom soup, in season. Meat raised and butchered on site
is used for the secondo piatto, which may include lamb, venison, beef, wild boar or Cinta
Senese pork, served with a contorno of vegetables from Spannocchia’s garden. Dinner
concludes with dessert, coffee and after dinner digestivo drinks—limoncello, crema di
limoncello, nocino (walnut liqueur) or mirto (liqueur made with myrtle berries and
honey), pan-Italian favorites that are also made on site.
Nostra Cena is also notable in that it is a more formal version of normal meals in
the dining room. Everyone is encouraged to dress up, white tablecloths cover the rustic
wooden benches, and the guest interns create seasonal centerpieces to arrange alongside
candles. This atmosphere is particularly conducive to drawn-out meals that occasionally
last until well past ten in the evening. Interactionally speaking, a good deal of pleasure
comes from mingling with other like-minded guests and residents. The nature of the
meals allows a degree of comfortable interaction between strangers that is not typically
seen in restaurant dining rooms. At Spannocchia, guests become “like family” during
meals. Because meals are paid for in advance, there is no bill waiting at the end of the
evening, further adding to the illusion of familiarity. As Janet Chrzan writes, “What
would normally be considered the back stage area from a tourist perspective dissolves
into the foreground, creating authentic experiences for Spannocchia’s guests” (2008:26).
To be honest, these meals were among the best I had at the estate. Showcasing the high
quality of the farm’s produce, Nostra Cena best represents what Brynn referred to above
when she said “Slow Food is about enjoying what you eat, and enjoying what you eat is
about understanding why you’re eating it.” Here, the mutually constitutive cultural
connections between history, agricultural production and Italian cuisine emerge for
guests and locals alike.

96
Slow Food at Spannocchia
Members of the local Slow Food Siena convivium also frequent Nosta Cena, and
educational events geared toward the group occurred several times during my stay at
Spannocchia. Invariably, these events included a tour of the gardens or Cinta Senese
pastures, and well-dressed urbanites arrived on the farm to navigate muddy paths and
fields. Although the Slow Food Siena convivium was a regular guest at the estate, and
certainly supported the endeavors of Cinta Senese production both on site and at the local
market, the group’s primary activities consisted of expensive meals presented in elaborate
settings. In other words, they appeared to be most invested in the “good” part of “good,
clean and fair.”
At one event, Spannocchia hosted Slow Food Siena on a hike through the
property, a reading from Delfino Cinelli’s 1928 book, Castiglione Che Dio Sol Sa,
followed by a tasting of Cinta Senese salumi products at the Castello. Mutiple
photographs from the event can still be viewed on the Slow Food Siena website. 24 Large
platters of Cinta Senese salumi products, salads made from Spannocchia’s organic farro
(a variety of spelt), wine, and cheeses from a neighboring farm are all photographed in
careful detail. Images of cheerful Sienese diners mingle with photos from the hike.
Notably, there are no pictures of the farmers or workers, although a shot of a cute Cinta
Senese piglet makes it into the mix. The evening ended with traditional music performed
by Riccio’s folk group, Maggiaioli, which “hanno suonato nell'aia insegnando a chi
voleva il ‘Trescone’ e altre antiche danze tradizionali contadine” (played in the farmyard
to those who wanted to learn the "Trescone" and other old traditional peasant dances).
What is interesting here is that these Slow Food convivium members, most of
whom live in the area around Siena, experience Spannocchia in the same way that
24 http://www.slowfoodsiena.it/slowsi_before/spannocchia_before.html
97
tourists from anywhere else do. Most did not previously know about the endangered
Tuscan pig, nor had they ever learned the traditional peasant dances of the area. Indeed,
the heading on the webpage reads “Escursione guidata ...tra boschi e cultura” (A guided
excursion…through forest and culture). Combining activities in a rural landscape with
“traditional” peasant culture and food culminated in an enjoyable event for the local
convivium members in the same ways it is for international guests. Likewise, Slow Food
Siena showcased Spannocchia’s artisanal products and producers in a “typical rural
setting” in its local promotional materials, using the same tactics that Slow Food
International employed when creating publicity materials for the global audience of
Salone del Gusto (see Figure 17). Here, a cornucopia of Spannocchia’s food covers a
table in front of the villa and tower, with the convivium leader at the center of the image
holding a glass of wine. The estate owners and several producers flank him, and the
attention of all is on the leg of prosciutto being carved by hand.
Figure 17 Publicity photo with Slow Food Siena convivium leaders, Spannocchia estate
managers and workers. All of the foods pictured were produced on the estate;
Image courtesy of the Spannocchia Foundation.
98
Slow Food Siena’s ties to Spannocchia also reflect the politics of the movement
on a local level. While Spannocchia maintained a positive relationship with the group,
during my interview with Brynn she mentioned that she viewed the convivium as
“definitely ‘Old School’ Slow Food. It’s all about more formal events; what an old
man’s club.” She argued that “Old School” Slow Food emphasized local connections of
friendship that were not always amenable to outsiders, and which certainly did not
encapsulate any political goals related to working with a range of local producers. For
example, when Brynn tried to line up a cheesemaking tour for the interns, she contacted
the head of Slow Food Siena to get an idea of what producers in the area may be
interested in hosting a tour.
As part of this job, I want to get to know as many producers in this

area as possible. And it was almost like [the convivium leader]
asked, “Why are you doing that? We already have a pecorino
producer.” And I thought, that’s ONE producer. I’d love to know
forty pecorino producers in the area! I feel like Old School Slow
Food does that—this is our pecorino producer, and this is our
restaurant, this is our example. And it’s because they’re friends.
They support each other. They’re friends with the producer, and
they’re friends with the restaurant. And I do think that is
important—having a personal relationship with your food
producer, and considering that person a friend, and I think that’s
really cool. But I don’t think it should dictate who Slow Food
supports and who it doesn’t.
Although the connection with Slow Food Siena benefitted Spannocchia, the
degree to which it helped the numerous other food producers in the area remained
unclear. Brynn explained that this “Old School” perspective extended to the numerous
restaurant guides published by Slow Food, wherein the organization highlights particular
locales based on the friendships of the editors. Lotti (2010) found a similar pattern when
Slow Food selected representative producers for their Presidia products. How do these
patterns frame Slow Food’s presentation of producers/consumer relationships on the local
level and beyond?

99
The Most Italian of Meals
During my final week of fieldwork, I enjoyed what many would view as the most
“authentic” meal of my journey. Hosted by the son of the estate manager, the guests at
what became known as the Cena di Caccia (Game Dinner) included all of the interns, the
intern director, a visiting chef, several of the Italian staff members at Spannocchia, about
ten Italian men that either hunt on the estate or are friends with/related to someone who
does, and me. Angelino, an aging man with worn down teeth who formerly worked as a
woodsman at the estate, arrived wearing a matching vinyl tracksuit and carrying his
homemade cinghiale (wild boar) prosciutto. In addition to this Tuscan specialty, the
meal consisted of a cinghiale trapped and killed at the estate that week, roasted over a
wood fire. There were two stews made with deer meat—one of cervo, the larger variety
of deer (resembling the American white-tailed deer) common on the estate, and one
capriolo, a smaller Roe deer also living at Spannocchia. There were fried polenta cakes,
kabobs made with uccelletti (“little birds,” whole baby birds speared and eaten whole),
and salad made from wild herbs and early garden greens. Someone’s wife sent along a
crostata (fruit pastry) for dessert, and I brought my own specialty, a chocolate olive oil
cake.
We gathered at one of the old farmhouses, about a kilometer away from the main
villa. An intern and I decorated a table outside under the veranda. It appeared
ridiculously, stereotypically “Tuscan” with very little effort—we pushed together two old
tables and covered them with white sheets as tablecloths, shoved lilacs and wildflowers
into glass milk bottles, stuck candles into old wine bottles, and placed baskets of sliced
bread and jugs of wine throughout. The tables groaned under the weight of so much
food. Surrounded by olive groves, green hills dotted with sheep, and blossoming flowers,
showing up to this table was like a gift from some long-forgotten Tuscan god. The
springtime weather collaborated with good food and excellent company, creating an ideal
send-off for my time at the estate.
100
Interestingly enough, the meal that I shared with many of the same individuals on
a different evening highlighted similar components of conviviality and local ingredients,
but in an entirely different manner. In this case, the interns invited me to a special
Saturday evening meal, at which they would cook and serve a feast to say “thank you” to
the staff at Spannocchia. They decided that their special meal would consist of local
products (mainly from Spannocchia) prepared in a “Mexican” fashion. In Italy it is
nearly impossible to find as much as a can of refried beans, so if you want Mexican food
(or the American interpretation thereof) you have to make it from scratch. 25
In reality, the role of globalized cuisine was omnipresent at Spannocchia. Not
only were some of the Spannocchia residents adventurous foodies in their own right, the
company of so many international guests and interns shaped everyday food consumption
in unlikely ways. The interns planned this meal carefully, and it involved hand-rolling
tortillas, collecting enough avocados (a difficult-to-find fruit) to make guacamole, and
attempting to make a mole sauce that would accompany the venison that they were
allotted to use for this meal. When purchasing the avocados at the local grocery store,
two of the interns ran into Chiara, the head gardener at Spannocchia. As an invitee to the
meal, she asked about what the interns were concocting, meanwhile eyeing the avocados
in their cart. She frowned, and asked what they were planning to do with them. They
tried to explain guacamole, something that Chiara had never eaten before, using their
limited Italian language skills. She shook her head and laughed, promising that she
would “try it,” but warned that the Italians may not be excited about it. This reaction
25When I returned to Spannocchia after going home for Christmas, I brought jars of salsa,
seasoning packets for fajitas, and packages of tortillas as gifts for the Americans working at the
farm during the off-season. For my Italian friends, however, I brought jars of rhubarb-strawberry
jam made locally in Iowa and packages of bison jerky. These thank-you gifts also reflected
“foreign” ingredients not found in Italy, but they were warmly received. Friendship aside, this
may be due to the fact that they were similar to products available in Italy but made with slightly
different ingredients.
101
typifies the conservative approach many Italians take to foreign foods. According to a
news article quoting a 2011 survey released by Coldiretti, the national agricultural
association, more than 40% of Italians have never eaten foreign offerings such as sushi,
curries or kebabs, and only 5% eat regularly in foreign restaurants (Squires 2011).
Tensions between the local and global nature of Spannocchia emerged regularly through
food in scenarios like this.
New culinary conventions introduced by Americans and other guests exist
alongside “traditional” Italian foods. At the same time, Spannocchia successfully
presents localized food traditions to tourists and locals alike. Framing these
transformations as a polarity between global and local cuisines is not really enough to
explain what really goes on at Spannocchia. To add to this point, in his discussion of
globalization and Belizean food, Wilk asks if local food culture persists despite
globalization, or if there is something about globalization itself that produces local
culture and “promotes the constant formation of new forms of local identity, dress,
cuisine, music, dance and language?” (2006b:11). Do acts of “co-production” at
Spannocchia stimulate a range of potential local cultures within a globalized milieu of
characters?
102
CHAPTER FOUR: (CO-) PRODUCTION AT SPANNOCCHIA
Portrait Three: Gavin the Intern
Prior to coming to Spannocchia, Gavin worked in the U.S. wine industry. After
spending several years working in wine shops on the east coast, he moved to California to
work with a well-known wine producer. He led professional wine tastings and worked
toward certification as a sommelier. Gavin applied to the Spannocchia internship
program with hopes of working with the animals and learning about agricultural
production through hands-on, manual work. However, during his first telephone
interview, the intern director approached him with the idea of working as a guest intern.
While most interns at Spannocchia work in with the animals, vineyards, or vegetable
gardens, one or two interns work indoors with the hospitality staff instead. In 2008
Spannocchia saw an increased demand for food and wine tours on the estate, and the
director saw an opportunity in accepting someone with Gavin’s experience.
I was hesitant to come, actually. I was thinking that I wouldn’t get

to do all of the things that I wanted to do if I was stuck in an office,
which is kind of what I was doing at home. I wanted to take this
time to do something else. Most of the work that I do at home is
talking to people, selling wine, wine tasting…a lot of really non-
physical things.
Despite these reservations, Gavin accepted the opportunity. The tourist “high
season” at Spannocchia extends from late May to mid-September. With seven guest
houses that can hold anywhere from 4-9 people and sixteen guest rooms in the central
Villa, it is possible for dozens of visitors to be on the estate at any given time. When
Gavin and the other Fall Term interns arrived in August 2008, Spannocchia was in the
middle of its busiest tourist season ever. As a guest intern, Gavin assisted with breakfast
preparation and serving, guest check-in and check-out at the Spannocchia front desk/gift
shop, and other hospitality duties. However, he found that on most days he could finish
his “office work” by lunchtime, leaving his afternoons open to volunteer for other kinds
of work on the farm.
103
It’s been really great because it’s been so fluid. I’ve been able to
do so many things. I’ve been able to do a little bit of butchering
with Riccio, feeding the animals, working on random jobs.
Making stuff around the villa, stacking wood…a lot of physical
work.
However, when I asked him what he liked the most about his internship, Gavin
talked about his role creating a Spannocchia wine tour and tasting. Although he had not
anticipated enjoying this part of the job as much as he did, the task allowed him to apply
his knowledge of the wine industry while simultaneously working closely with
Spannocchia’s guests, administrators, and producers. He developed an informational
flyer about Spannocchia’s grapes and wine making process and built a tour around it.
It was a great time of year to do it, in the fall when the grapes were
ripening. We were able to walk down to the vineyards and do a
vineyard tour, which almost nobody in America does. Usually it’s
a winery tour, and then a tasting. You don’t see what the grapes
actually look like. So we decided to make a two hour block of
time, where we meet in front of the villa and then walk all the way
down to the vineyards. It’s kind of a long walk, about twenty
minutes, and while we’re walking I’ll talk about the history of
grape growing here, the cultural aspects of grape growing and
winemaking here, how important it is to the food culture here.
This is one of the few places where wine consumption is still a
huge part of daily life. 95% of what the wine business is about is
bringing this snob appeal and pretension to [drinking wine]. One
of the things that I really wanted to do here is make it accessible to
people, and make them understand that here—not so much in
America, but here—this is a part of daily life.
Gavin also led Cinta Senese tasting tours at Spannocchia. These tours, which
were always full, introduce tourists to the rare breeds program at Spannocchia, and are
offered weekly during the high tourist season. According to the official flyer, the tour
includes a walk to the fields and forests where the hogs live, a visit to the curing room
where butchering and preserving take place, a climb up the 12th century tower, a visit to
the small cantina where organic red and white wine and vin santo are made, and a grand
finale wine and salumi tasting on the villa terrace. Gavin led the first Cinta Senese tour I
went on at Spannocchia, and his natural presentation style and skill at guiding a food and
wine tasting were immediately evident. Unlike the taste education workshops I attended
at Slow Food events, the food and wine tours at Spannocchia emphasized sustainable,
104
artisanal production methods above all else. It was common to see employees and interns
out at work during the tours, further adding to the sense of authenticity and connection to
the landscape. In our interview, Gavin discussed his feelings about food, agriculture, and
becoming involved in Slow Food at some length.
I was conscious before of farming, a bit, and I knew there were

people doing really wonderful things with food. I was conscious
of the local foods movement, and I’d met Carlo Petrini at a local
farm to table restaurant I worked at [in my hometown]. I knew
about Slow Food. But it wasn’t really something that I was
interested in doing myself. It was something that I saw as
important, and important to me, and important to talk about and to
practice. But I didn’t think that it was something that I actually
wanted to put my hands into the soil and create.
I was working really hard [in the wine industry], doing something
that I really loved, but not taking enough time to understand what
things were really, really important. And how important food
actually was to me… I think about my life before, and it was like,
I’d come home from the office, grab something to eat, watch CNN,
go online for an hour, go to bed, and get up the next day and do it
all again. I think now, was that really my life? Is that what I was
living?
Halfway through the internship program, Gavin quit his job in California. He
decided to continue his practical education in agriculture through the WWOOF program
in Italy for another six months. Many of the interns I talked to described their experience
at Spannocchia as similarly “life-changing.”
In my reading, Gavin’s experiences and those of other interns suggest that this
very small segment of the movement’s participants best embody Slow Food’s idea of a
co-producer. The stated goal of the internship program is to familiarize people with
Spannocchia’s core objectives and values, which include sustainable agriculture, Italian
culture, cultural exchange, and place-based learning. Food production is central to
interns’ everyday experiences at Spannocchia, but the structure of the program ensures
that they simultaneously remain consumers of Italian food and culture as long-term quasi-
tourists. For example, while room and board is provided, each individual must pay a
$250 Education Fee to participate in the program in addition to the cost of airfare and
105
other travel expenses. The program itself also includes several field trips to well-known
tourist attractions such as the medieval village of San Gimingiano, the Palio horse race of
Siena in the summer, and the thermal springs of Bagno Vignoni in addition to regular
excursions to other Tuscan farms and wineries. On the weekends, the interns often take
overnight trips to Florence, Lucca, or other nearby cities, and pay for these additional
“cultural experiences” themselves. Furthermore, while interns must have the ability to
speak English to gain acceptance into the program, knowledge of Italian is not necessary.
In fact, the interns take part in twice weekly Italian lessons during their stay.
On the other hand, the interns spend about thirty hours each week doing rigorous,
filthy, and often exhausting food production-related work on the estate. For example,
they feed the livestock, clean out the chicken house, mow the grass, herd sheep, and serve
meals in the evenings. The opportunity to work with agriculture at close range enables
the interns to become producers, even if for only a few months. As mentioned in the
previous chapter, the interns also serve as the “face” of food production for many of
Spannocchia’s guests. Operating neither fully as residents nor as tourists, they occupy a
unique, liminal space on the estate, where food remains at the center of the experience.
As Gavin pointed out:
Here, it’s like you can’t escape [food]. Even if you wanted to!
Somebody’s always like, “Oh, isn’t that lettuce great? That’s from
the front garden, we picked that today.” It puts it in your face.
In this chapter, I present an ethnographic overview of the everyday, omnipresent
food production work at Spannocchia. I outline the role of the interns, and provide
several detailed examples of labor on the estate. How do they view this work, and how
does it fit into the operation of Spannocchia as a whole? I then turn to my own work as a
“co-producer” at Spannocchia and describe working with artisanal Italian butchers during
the fall and winter months. In both scenarios, experiences of co-production at
Spannocchia are not explicitly connected to the rhetoric of Slow Food by the interns or
by the estate. However, these work experiences tacitly reflect the ideologies of the
106
movement’s emphasis on sustainable, artisanal methods of food production. Close
attention to daily life at Spannocchia specifically highlights how the experience and
knowledge rhetorically associated with co-production is best realized by only a small
segment of participants in Slow Food. Moreover, daily rhythms of work reveal that the
labor involved in associated modes of food production can involve extensive self-
education on the part of producers, who also must operate within the constraints of
increasing regional and national regulations.
Internships at Spannocchia
In the same way that Spannocchia’s website warns tourists that the estate is “truly
rural” and rustic, information presented to potential internship applicants on the
Spannocchia website stresses the demanding nature of the program:
Interns at Spannocchia spend 30 + hours each week involved in

manual labor of some sort, so be aware that you may spend days or
weeks on the same monotonous tasks like digging ditches, stacking
wood, sweeping, hoeing, shoveling manure, doing animal feeding
rounds, mowing lawns, pruning vines or trees, clearing stone walls,
or plastering and painting. Be honest with yourself and with us
about your ability, motivation, and desire to do hard, monotonous,
manual labor and your interest in learning skills through hands-on
experience… The idea of working on a farm in Tuscany can be
very easily romanticized and may seem like a great opportunity
when one is daydreaming in class or at work. Be forewarned:
Farming and maintenance work is chaotic, messy, unpredictable,
laborious, monotonous, tiring, frustrating, and challenging in ways
that probably go beyond one’s normal understanding of these
words. (Spannocchia Foundation 2011)
The application information packet goes on to remind potential interns that the
nearest town is approximately 6 km away, down a long and winding dirt road, and that
access to transportation during the workweek is limited. All interns share a single
telephone, there are no televisions, and internet access is extremely limited. Interns live
in shared double rooms in Casa Pulcinelli, one of the buildings connected to the central
villa on the estate, where they sleep on glorified cots and share two bathrooms. Privacy
107
is difficult to come by, and life inside Casa Pulcinelli typically reminded me of a coed
college dormitory.
Despite these strong cautions, the internship program at Spannocchia currently
receives between 40-80 applications for the eight positions available in each program
cycle. Application materials include an in-depth questionnaire, several personal essays,
three letters of recommendation, and, if one makes it through to the “final cut,” several
telephone interviews. The intern director is responsible for the final selections. During
my time at Spannocchia I interviewed three individuals who held or had held this position
at some point. All emphasized that the selection of interns is not about choosing the
individuals with the “best” qualities or previous experiences, but rather how the director
believes that individual will fit into the overall group dynamic.
One of the items on the application is to "List 3 interesting things about yourself."
Brynn particularly liked this section in her selection process, and found that it revealed a
great deal about the different applicants. Some of the people wrote things like "I am an
accomplished swing dancer," or "I have visited x number of countries," although
responses ranged to "I recently switched from briefs to boxers." Here, Brynn actively
sought out a sense of humor and a somewhat lighthearted attitude. For her, this portion
of the application was the one place where individual personality could really shine
through, and when applicants listed "interesting" personal traits such as "I am committed
to a green lifestyle,” they were unlikely to be selected. Although many of the interns I
worked with expressed exactly such an interest to me during interviews, this was not in
and of itself viewed as a sufficient reason for wanting to work at Spannocchia.
A solid, interactive group of workers is critical to the success of the program and
of the farm, and each intern receives a specific assignment upon arrival. Assignments
include work with the animals, the vineyards, the gardens, or with guest services, and
although the application process allows each person to state their preferences, the final
decision is up to the director. Very few of the interns have previous experience farming;
108
rather, the interns I knew worked as bakers, waited tables in high end "foodie"
restaurants, spent time on professional fishing boats, spent years in the Peace Corps, and
worked on public health projects in China, just to name a few. 26 Interns ranged from age
18 to 28, although most of the interns I worked with at Spannocchia were relatively
recent college graduates and two had just finished high school. Many of the interns I
interviewed mentioned that an experience of working in Italy was a big part of their
decision to apply to the program at Spannocchia. Others emphasized the appeal of
working in agriculture, or viewed the estate as a means to support a personal ideology of
living sustainably. Here, interns directly addressed issues about what it means to live a
“green” lifestyle (or Slow, organic, sustainable, rural, etc.), as opposed to supporting it
via other channels, such as serving organic food in a restaurant or volunteering in
community gardens. I wonder, however, if the draw of agricultural work in less
romanticized areas in the United States, rather than Tuscany, would capture similar
symbolic appeal on an ideological level.
Organizing Labor
On my first full day at Spannocchia, Brian, the intern director at that time,
introduced me to the interns and then he and I went to his office to arrange my work
schedule for the next few weeks. The interns have a set schedule that is produced
weekly, and although it appears to be very complex Brian made the comment that “The
people change, but the positions do not.” In other words, the work that has to be done
remains constant, but the people filling the various roles change from season to season.
The intern director creates a rotating schedule that dictates who is in charge of making
26 During the period of my fieldwork, the U.S. entered a prolonged period of financial crisis and
economic collapse. Several residents at Spannocchia theorized that the number of intern
applications would increase in response to this, as the appeal of working abroad in an
unconventional field like agriculture seems to become more appealing when it is more difficult to
find a well-paid position.
109
lunch for the group, and who is in charge of bussing tables at dinner each evening in the
Villa. Someone else is in charge of keeping the fire going in the caldaia (wood furnace)
that heats the water and the houses, and another individual holds cleaning duties in Casa
Pulcinelli. Work hours typically extend from 8:00-1:00, and from 2:00-5:00 on days
when there are no educational activities planned. However, every Friday the interns have
a field trip, and they have Italian language courses on Monday and Thursday afternoons.
On Thursdays, outside experts come to Spannocchia to present topics ranging from
beekeeping to olive oil tasting to biodynamic farming. The entire internship program
operates on a rotating schedule, and requires a lot of organization to keep everyone on
time and on task. Despite organizational complexities and the rapid three-month turnover
of labor, the flexibility demanded of the interns permits them to navigate this new system
rapidly. As another former intern director stated, “Within a week, the place is theirs.” It
is important for the interns to maintain a sense of ownership over their labor at
Spannocchia.
Day-to-day operations at the estate focus on tourist education, food production in
the garden and fields, and a never-ending list of maintenance tasks on the vineyards, olive
groves, fences, woodpiles, stone walls and animal housing. On weekday mornings
everyone doing farm work convenes at “The Wall” at 8:00 a.m., where all interns and
volunteers receive the day’s work assignment from the Italian staff. Most mornings, the
interns stood shivering in coats, filthy jeans, and tall rubber boots, holding buckets of
slop (food refuse) from the dining room for the pigs or sharpening hand tools. The Wall
tended to be a confused space, with everyone talking at once in both English and Italian
trying to figure out which tasks were most urgent. It was also one of the rare times that
all of the farm staff could be found in one place, so in addition to directives,
conversations about the state of the farm and ongoing planning could take up to half an
hour.
110
During the months when I was not helping with butchering work at Spannocchia,
I waited for work assignments at the Wall with the other volunteers. In this way, I spent
several months learning about the ins and outs of growing food in Tuscany through very
literal field work. As promised by the internship application, some of the work was
monotonous, such as milling grain or mending fences. At other times my jobs were
decidedly unpredictable, such as the day I spent almost two rainy hours attempting to
coax a (non-food motivated) mother pig into a new pen apart from her weaning piglets.
As mentioned previously, I grew up on a farm, and my experiences with chasing escaped
pigs and confronting enraged boars differed from those of the interns who had literally
never seen a pig up close before. Nevertheless, the shared frustrations and exhilarations
of farm work at Spannocchia forged connections not only among the interns, but between
interns and their Italian supervisors.
Everyday Work
Of the tasks I took part in during my time at Spannocchia, two in particular
highlight the physical demands of everyday intern labor: milling grain and clearing
bramble in the vineyard. Both jobs are monotonous (or perhaps meditative, depending on
one’s perspective), and both are indirectly vital to the success of food and wine
production on the estate. Each case presents a portrait of the everyday realities of
creating food on a “fairytale” estate, and the struggles to maintain an ethos of
sustainability while simultaneously striving for economic success.
Milling grain for animal feed was easily the dustiest job at Spannocchia, and the
interns who completed this task arrived at lunch covered in a powdery white veil. The
animals at Spannocchia eat a locally sourced diet of organic grains and legumes, which
must be ground in various combinations at least twice a week. Beans, barley, corn and
other components are stored in small grain bins outside of a small mill shed located at the
top of “Pig Hill,” where the breeding, gestating, and nursing sows live. The shed holds a
111
mechanical mill, a sturdy but persnickety thing that possesses a strong tendency to short
out the electricity across the entire estate. Woven plastic bags attach to one side of the
mill, where each one is carefully “folded” on and then secured with a metal clasp and a
thick black rubber band. The bags rarely fill evenly, and if the bag has a hole or is not
perfectly sealed around the chute, showers of milled grain will shoot up and create a
cloud of dust. If the front basin holding unground grains goes empty (perhaps while you
race about trying to seal off a leak in the bag), the grinder will “spit” pieces of grain at
you at high velocity, which ping painfully off the side of your face. When the bags are
full, they are removed from the machine, tied with a piece of twine and stacked in the
mill house. On a good morning I could grind 12-15 large bags of grain, which would
feed the pigs for three or four days. I could barely move the larger bags, which weighed
upwards of 80 pounds. The mill was also incredibly loud, and I began to wear protective
hearing equipment after an intern pointed out that “I figure that if I’m going to do this at
least once a week for 3 months I should probably look out for my ears.” Finally, and
perhaps most insultingly, all of this work could be undone by the foraging of hungry wild
boars during the night. On several occasions I trekked up Pig Hill to feed sows in the
morning, only to discover the telltale indentations of small hoof prints and torn bags of
grain dragged through the mud. Despite the tactical applications of metal fencing and
strategically placed rocks and boards, the boars managed to break into the aging wooden
mill shed multiple times.
Handwritten instructions located on the wall of the mill’s interior outline the grain
compositions and dietary requirements of the various animals. Feeding schedules are
determined by age, weight, and motherhood, with pregnant and nursing sows receiving
the largest quantity of food per head. The interns feed the pigs living directly by the mill
from a storage bin inside the mill house, hauling a few buckets of food at a time. In other
areas, the interns empty bags of feed in large plastic bins that resemble trash cans, to be
measured out at feeding time. In distant fields, pigs eating from automatic cone-shaped
112
feeders receive a bag or two at a time poured directly into the feeder. These feeders must
be refilled within a day or so, depending on the size of the group. To be honest, it is not
the most efficient system, as it is dependent not only on unreliable machinery but on
“unpaid” manual labor to grind and distribute grain. Before the fall of 2008 things were
even worse, as there were no automatic feeders and interns hauled food to each individual
pen of pigs twice a day. This feeding cycle could demand half a day of work.
In 2009, residents at Spannocchia suggested several potential remedies to the
problem of the mill sapping too much electricity. At one point the staff considered
purchasing a combination tractor/portable miller that could be driven directly to the pig
pens. There, the feed would be dispensed with an auger, running off of the truck’s
battery. Unfortunately, Pig Hill is unbelievably steep, and to drive a piece of machinery
that heavy up and down would be dangerous. Another idea, stemming from the solar
panel systems at one of the Italian resident’s house, was to use the excess energy
produced by the panels in the summer to create a steam generator. But it is unclear how
this would work in the winter months. Eventually, in 2010 I learned that Spannocchia
purchased a new grain mill, a programmable machine that mixes and mills on its own.
Presumably, the interns now have more time to dedicate to other work.
There is no technological fix for clearing bramble, however. In Spannocchia’s
vineyards and orchards blackberry brambles threaten to overrun the terraced walls. On
several occasions I worked with the vineyard interns to wage battle against these thorny
branches. Wielding a crescent-shaped sickle, a small pair of pruning shears, and a wider
sickle called a pennato that resembles a blunt machete with a hook at the end, I
discovered how difficult vineyard maintenance can be. Work gloves could not prevent
the sharp thorns from puncturing my hands and wrists, and I discovered small, blood-
stained rips across my work clothes. “Cleaning the walls,” as the vineyard manager,
Alessio, calls it, is hard work. It’s not difficult in the same way that animal work is
113
difficult—those jobs require sudden spurts of energy and strength (e.g., tossing a hay bale
or bag of grain), whereas this work is slow, steady labor that burns energy over time.
The vines and trees make up Alessio’s domain at Spannocchia. He is known to
sing and talk to himself and the vines. One day in March, when he was busy trimming
the olive trees and mulching the branches, he stopped to tell me about how tired he felt,
and how the spring makes him exhausted more than any other season. I asked him,
“What about vedemmia (the grape harvest)?” to which he responded that although yes,
that is a lot of work, there is only one task to complete—picking grapes. In the spring, all
kinds of tasks competed for his attention. The grapevines needed to be pruned, tied, and
trained (comprising the bulk of vineyard interns’ work), the olive trees needed to be
pruned, and the numerous general maintenance activities such as clearing the walls and
fixing terraces still loomed. Alessio looked overwhelmed, and his expression was one of
a man who with too many tasks and not enough workers.
Realities of Co-Production
The resident Italians hold various opinions of the interns. On the day that the fall
interns departed Spannocchia, I asked the farm manager Riccio what everyone would do
now that the work force was gone. He laughed and said, “Now we dance.” Although his
statement was tongue-in-cheek, the effort taken to train a new set of workers every three
months is immense. Although the interns’ labor is critical to ensuring the farm’s success,
the permanent workers at Spannocchia hold very different perspectives on the goals of
the farm as a whole. For example, Alessio received accusations of sexism from several
of the interns, due to his alleged preference for male workers. At the time, one of his
interns was a tall, 23-year old man and the other a younger, very petite woman. My
experiences working in the vineyard revealed the physiological demands of the work, and
the reality of the situation was that the male intern could work more quickly and
effectively than his female counterpart in many situations. It was not that she was a bad
114
worker by any means, and in some situations (such as tying vines) she may have been
more effective. Likewise, throwing hay bales and piles of wood could be done by any of
the interns, but a strong back sure didn’t hurt. One weekend, while awaiting the arrival
of a new WWOOF volunteer, a male intern kidded that he hoped her medical form read
“6 foot 4, 190 pounds.” When she turned out to be over age 60 and in relatively poor
shape, several individuals (staff and intern alike) heaved barely concealed sighs of
disappointment. On a farm with so many possible tasks, there will always be work for
people of all genders, fitness levels, and so on. Not everyone should toss hay bales.
However, a smaller farm may not be able to accommodate a range of volunteers, and
there is no way to pick and choose volunteers based on physical size or strength.
These examples demonstrate not only the arduous realities of an intern’s daily
labor, but also reveal the pressure on Spannocchia’s staff members to structure the
production process. Economically, it would not be feasible for smaller estates without
“free” labor from interns and volunteers to maintain organic production on this scale. At
the same time, in order for Spannocchia to begin to turn a profit from its food production,
some of the processes will need to become more efficient. The tension between
maintaining “traditional” or low-impact agriculture and achieving monetary profit comes
to the fore in situations like these.
Portrait Four: Giuseppe, the farmhand
Giuseppe is the head of day-to-day animal operations at Spannocchia. In many
ways Giuseppe is a typical Italian man in his early 20s—he can frequently be seen
holding cell-phone conversations with his girlfriend (a regularly rotating position of area
ladies), he spends weekends socializing at the local discoteca, and he wears trendy jeans
and shoes when not in his work uniform of camouflage prints and mud-covered work
boots. Giuseppe is entirely atypical, however, in that he has remained in his rural
hometown and pursued agricultural work. Similar to the rural-flight that occurs in my
115
home state of Iowa, Italians who grow up in rural areas rarely stick around, preferring to
find more lucrative work in larger cities and industries.
Giuseppe came to work at Spannocchia in 2006, and his contract is renewed on an
annual basis. There is a real concern that he will decide not to renew again, choosing
instead to focus on the small acreage he owns nearby. Riccio, the farm manager, turns
over most of the day-to-day operations to Giuseppe. Riccio has become increasingly
dependent on Giuseppe’s detailed knowledge of the animals at Spannocchia, as well as
his skill in dealing with the interns who work with the sheep, pigs, horses and cows.
Many of the young American interns have never worked on a farm before, and even
fewer have experience with large farm animals. Here Giuseppe’s patience is more than a
virtue. Although he speaks very little English, and his thick Tuscan accent 27 can make it
difficult for foreigners to understand his Italian, he is always easygoing and willing to
explain things multiple times.
On the morning the spring group of interns arrived, Chiara had been battling a
porcupine in the garden. The porcupines are common offenders in Tuscany (much like
raccoons in Iowa), and had decimated a number of her crops. Although Spannocchia is
located on a natural reserve area, rules about hunting are loosely interpreted in cases like
this. Giuseppe snuck past the interns with a long, forked metal prong, and several
minutes later he returned, carrying something in a large, lumpy sack. I followed close on
his heels as he carried the package to his truck and dumped it in the back. It was the
offending porcupine, now dead, which Giuseppe took home for his mother to clean and
prepare. Many rural Tuscans consider porcupine to be a delicious treat, and Giuseppe's
27 While the Tuscan dialect of Dante was the antecedent of the standardized Italian language, the
“accentless” Italian spoken on the news today derives from Milanese pronunciation. In rural
Tuscany, the accent of locals is marked by an aspirated “c”, which transforms words like
“Americana” into “Amerihana.” In my experience, the further south one travels from Florence,
the thicker this accent becomes. Some Italians I met believe this linguistic trait is a relic of the
Etruscan language spoken in the region centuries before.
116
mother is an infamous cook. Like the majority of young unmarried Italian men,
Giuseppe still lived with his parents.28 Every day, he arrived at the lunch table with an
enormous, enviable paper bag filled with pasta dishes, sliced meats and a loaf of bread,
vegetable sides, fruit, and often a delectable looking dessert.
Giuseppe was happy to let me tag along during the day in one of the farm trucks,
but it wasn’t until the spring, when I impressed him with my ability to catch piglets—a
skill gained during my own agricultural childhood—that he gave me “real” jobs to do.
Giuseppe was curious about my family's land in the American Midwest, where my
father’s family holds just under a thousand acres. This amount of farmland for was
unfathomable to most of the Italian farmers I met, and Giuseppe was one of several who
jokingly proposed marriage to me when he realized what I stand to inherit. He often
asked about what kinds of pigs my father raised, what kind of tractors he used, and what
kinds of crops were in the fields. On the few occasions that I tried to explain my
academic works to Giuseppe, he responded in the same puzzled way that the farmers
back home did: Why would you go all the way to Italy to chase pigs, when you could
just as easily do it at home?
The Anthropologist as Co-Producer
Spannocchia is open for guest visits from March 1 - December 1, the same dates
during which the intern program runs. During the winter months, the estate hibernates.
The pool is covered, the guest houses are sealed up, and many of the estate’s employees
28 Young Italians are considerably more likely to live with their parents than their Northern
European or U.S. counterparts. Data from the European Community Household Panel Study
(ECHPS) in 1996 showed that 82% of Italian men aged 18-30 lived with their parents.
Manacorda and Moretti (2006) argue that such findings rationalize some of the incongruities of
Italian society today (i.e., low rates of youth employment, deferred marriage, and decreased
fertility rates). Giuliano (2006) further posits that for young adults in Italy, for whom the social
norm is to live with their parents until marriage, larger social changes such as changing sexual
norms, increased work outside of the home, and an overall rise in housing costs also play a role.
117
are released until the next spring. Three long-term winter volunteers arrive, but they do
not enjoy evening meals cooked by Graziella or the educational programs. With this
pared down staff, I discovered there were more opportunities for me to participate in the
everyday operations of the farm alongside the Italian residents. Most importantly, it was
during this period that I was able to gather the bulk of my information regarding hog
production and meat processing at Spannocchia.
Spannocchia’s “transformation kitchen,” where all of the meat processing occurs,
occupies a small corner room adjacent to the Fattoria. On my first day at the estate,
hauling luggage to my room in the Villa, I happened to glance out of a second story
window. Expecting a view of the Villa courtyard surrounded by Tuscan flora, I was
instead greeted by three men unloading a hog carcass from a refrigerated truck (see
Figure 18).
Figure 18 Unloading a slaughtered hog

118
I rushed to take a photo, unaware of how familiar this scene would become during
the many hours I would spend processing Cinta Senese meat in the coming months. My
work assignment was born out of necessity: the full time farm hand, Giuseppe, was too
busy with the rapidly expanding herds to help out, and the fall interns would leave in
several weeks. Despite the fact that I knew nothing about meat processing, I was
equipped to complete unskilled but necessary labor in the transformation kitchen. Late
fall and early winter are historically the times when most butchering takes place in
Tuscany. For practical reasons—including lowered temperatures, a relative lack of
insects, and a decreased availability of wild foods for the pigs to forage—farmers
traditionally slaughter animals around this time of year. The same considerations applied
at Spannocchia. Riccio needed seasonal help in the transformation kitchen, and I arrived
in the fall of 2008 with an interest in Cinta Senese pigs. I never expected to learn the
details of Italian meat processing in such a visceral way, but I consider it a massive stroke
of good fortune that I arrived on the estate when I did. The bulk of my fieldwork from
October to February took place inside the transformation kitchen.
Smashed into a field notebook, I discovered a crumpled “to do” list from my time
in the transformation kitchen. This seemingly unimportant piece of paper, which has
“real” fieldnotes scribbled on the front, provides an accurate glimpse into my daily work:
 Boil salted water for the pig heads
 Clear off the salt in the salatura (salting cabinet), place the lardo on the shelf
 Clean the corner with the steamer
 Dispose of animal parts
 Mop the cella (refrigerator) floor again
 Clean the floor of the ascigatura (drying room)
 Make cervo (venison) sausage labels
 Take the recycling and trash out

 Clean the bathroom
119
Although most participant-observation research does not include mopping up hog
blood on a daily basis, my work in the Lab allowed me to access the everyday
conversations, challenges and rhythms associated with salumi production.
A Word of Warning
Riccio never made the assumption that I might be squeamish. Fortunately, he was
correct: growing up on a hog farm, I was familiar with the life cycle of pigs destined to
become pork. However, it became rapidly apparent that not everyone shared my matter-
of-fact attitude toward butchering. Even the most carnivorous individuals sometimes
looked nauseous when glancing into the transformation kitchen, and the handful of
vegetarians I met at Spannocchia avoided it altogether. One evening I made the mistake
of talking about a day’s work during dinner, when several individuals sitting near me
became visibly uncomfortable with my descriptions. (In my defense, they were
consuming and enjoying a fresh pork loin that came from that work, but I did apologize
for causing discomfort.) Much to everyone’s relief, I ceased my descriptions of
butchering during dinnertime, and once I left Spannocchia I only talked about my work
with a few individuals. 29 Not everyone who eats meat wants to closely consider the
source of that meat, or experience the reality of the slaughter and butchering cycle.
The ethics and politics of eating animals are not my focus here. Publications from
other academics (cf. Fiddes 1991; Sapontzis 2004) and popular authors (cf. Foer 2009;
Schlosser 2001) discuss the subject in detail. From my perspective, the Cinta Senese at
Spannocchia are among the healthiest and well cared for pigs that I have ever seen.
29 In one particularly painful reflection of the psychological intensity of the politics that surround
meat, I met a woman who does incredible work with her local food system. We enjoyed a lively
conversation about food, politics, and eating that lasted for several hours. Basking in this
newfound camaraderie, I mentioned that I participated in small-scale pork processing during my
dissertation fieldwork. Her face paled, and she mumbled something about the intelligence level
of pigs, and how humans should not consume them. Her expression was horrified. Our
conversation ended abruptly and I never heard from her again.
120
There is literally no comparison between the horrors of industrial pork production and
hogs that enjoy outdoor foraging and roaming, natural husbandry, and a diet based on
organic, suitable ingredients. However, the reality of meat production means that while
these animals live a good life, it includes a bad moment at the very end.30 My personal
food politics dictate a desire to know as much as possible about the meat I am
consuming, but I recognize that the images and descriptions of butchering I share in this
chapter have the potential to create discomfort among some.
The Transformation Kitchen
In the late 1990s, Riccio and Richard began to experiment with curing meat in the
old wine cellars below the Fattoria using only “traditional” methods. The Cinta Senese
pig possesses a uniquely high fat content, making it a challenging meat to cure. While
factory-farmed pork is bred to produce extremely lean meat, heritage breeds like the
Cinta Senese have fat streaked throughout the muscle. Lean meat loses water much more
quickly than fat, allowing the salt to soak quickly into the meat and harden. With more
fat the process takes longer, but the quality is arguably worth it. Riccio described
industrial prosciutto to me as “dried” rather than “aged.” A standard leg of prosciutto
takes about nine months to cure. At Spannocchia, the prosciutto cure for a minimum of
eighteen months.
30 I never had the opportunity to go to the slaughterhouse, but I watched the process on film shot
by one of the winter interns. One at a time, the pigs are stunned unconscious with an electric jolt,
and then immediately killed with a metal bolt to the forehead. The entire process takes only
seconds. Riccio is one of many who believe that excessive fear and confusion at the moment of
death affect the taste of meat negatively, and that all possible care should be taken to make the
slaughter process as stress free as possible. One on occasion we noticed bruising on the side of a
hog returned from the slaughterhouse, indicating thrashing near the time of death. Riccio
demanded that I get my camera, and took photographs of blood clots he found in the lungs and
purplish marks on the legs, both of which indicated further struggle. Steaming with anger, he took
his phone outside and proceeding to yell at the slaughterhouse owner for over half an hour for
being careless with his animals. His anger reflected both a concern for the welfare of the hogs he
raised and the possible effects on the flavor of his meat products.
121
These factors, in addition to the dearth of information available about the breed at
the time, stunted Spannocchia’s efforts at meat curing. Riccio explained a bit of the
science behind this difficulty to me. There are two basic ways to cure a salame the
“traditional” way—acidification and dehydration. The acidification process raises the
temperature of the meat to 18°C (65°F) for a few days to jumpstart the fermentation
process. In most cases, chemical acids and nitrites are added to the meat to achieve a
regulated fermentation. However, because Cinta fat begins to liquefy at 18°C, and
because the farm does not make use of chemical additives, Spannocchia utilizes the
dehydration method. Even after careful considerations and calculations, Riccio and
Richard’s early efforts at meat curing at Spannocchia were thwarted due to variations in
humidity. Some meat went bad, and some of it just tasted like salt.
Obviously, Tuscans successfully consumed the Cinta Senese in salumi production
for centuries, long before the advent of humidity control or chemical acidifiers. What
Spannocchia was missing was an expert butcher who knew the ins and outs of curing the
Cinta Senese. In the past, a traveling butcher called a norcino would go around to help
area farmers butcher in the fall. The norcino played a crucial role in the days when the
only source of animal protein for many people came from a pig or two slaughtered and
cured for home consumption. 31 Eventually they found Piero, a retiree who possesses a
vast knowledge of small-scale butchering. Piero became the maestro of Spannocchia’s
transformation kitchen, eventually training Riccio in particular. Piero was also
photographed for the 2008 Bon Appetit article; standing in front of a room of curing
prosciutto, his image occupies a full page across from that of Graziella.
31 The norcino butcher dates back to medieval times. The name refers to the men who attended a
well-known butchering apprenticeship in the village of Norcia, Italy. Thus trained, these men
were able to earn additional income during the fall and winter months serving as itinerant
butchers.
122
As the operation grew, Spannocchia invested in a cella (a roughly 8’ by 5’ walk-
in refrigerator used to store fresh meat), the asciugatura (a low-humidity cooler used to
begin the drying and curing process of salame), and a system to control the temperature
and humidity in the stagionatura (the dry curing room adjacent to a cellar wall) and
salatura (salting room). The European Economic Community (EEC) requirements for
meat production, even on a small scale like this, are strict. A veterinary service must
approve not only the environment animals live in, but the transformation areas as well.
According to Richard, the EEC was stricter five years ago than they are now. When he
and Riccio designed the transformation kitchen, local officials required both practical
changes to the building (a separate bathroom and sink had to be installed) and somewhat
inexplicable changes (such as removing the original wooden doors and installing vinyl
ones). The biggest problem they encountered was the location of the cella—according to
law, the space between the front door and the cella (a distance of perhaps twenty feet) is
too far to transport raw meat without risk of contamination. Fortunately, due to the small
scale of Spannocchia’s production the inspectors waived this rule. However,
Spannocchia’s vending license only allows for direct sales to restaurants, markets, and
individuals. Without substantial changes to the transformation kitchen and processing
procedure, Spannocchia cannot sell its products in retail stores.
The transformation kitchen, affectionately known as the Lab, is a narrow
rectangular room dominated by an enormous marble-topped table. A stainless steel
counter, stove, and sink occupy one half of the room, and an assortment of hooks, knives,
cutting boards, and plastic bins line the walls. Large windows that never fully close
allow cold breezes to sweep through the screens (the only screen windows and doors I
ever saw at Spannocchia), numbing the fingers and noses of anyone inside. For
sanitation purposes it is important that the room remains cool during the butchering
process. During the winter I arrived to work at the Lab wearing long johns, jeans, two
123
pairs of wool socks, and layers of shirts, and quickly layered a white butchering coat and
plastic apron over the top.
Figure 19 Making salame in the Transformation Kitchen
Many people’s first observation of the Lab is that it is incredibly clean,
particularly when compared with the rest of the farm. Cleanliness and temperature
control are clearly dictated by EEC regulation and reinforced by Riccio. The emphasis
on a pristine environment played out in my own work: for every hour I spent working
with the meat itself, I probably spent ten hours scrubbing floors, buckets, white plastic
tubs, walls, knives, and metal hooks. As the least-skilled worker in the transformation
124
kitchen, cleaning tasks almost always fell to me. 32 We did not use chemical cleaners on
any part of the kitchen except for disinfecting the floor after a butchering cycle. White
vinegar was the primary cleaning agent, along with scalding hot water, an industrial
steam cleaner, and biodegradable organic dish soap for the tubs. Anyone at work in the
transformation kitchen had to wear head coverings, white lab coats, and clean shoes at all
times. Over time I found that a bandana was most effective at keeping the blood and
grease out of my hair, which I kept tightly braided; Riccio’s wild mane of curly hair
threatened constant escape from the white butcher’s cap he wore.
Butchering
European Union regulations dictate that hogs destined for sale at market must be
killed in a certified slaughterhouse. Although my butchering experience at Spannocchia
included the processing of wild animals killed on site, such as deer and chinghiale boars,
the Cinta Senese were slaughtered off-site. In 2005 the farm butchered between 28-30
pigs a year, which increased to 40-50 per year in 2008/2009. Every two to three weeks,
Riccio and Giuseppe would select three or four animals to send to slaughter. Practical
considerations played a role in the selection process: in addition to size and shape, the
pigs that escaped from their pens the most regularly and successfully found themselves
higher on the list of potential prosciutto.
The pigs arrive from the slaughterhouse sawed in half lengthwise. In addition to
our regular white coats, we don long plastic aprons and hang the carcasses from large
metal hooks in front of the window. In the winter steam would rise from the bodies,
which were still warm from slaughter a few hours before. The majority of the wiry hair
32 Although it is outside the scope of my present study, I also perceived gendered dimensions to
my work assignments in the Lab. Butchering is not considered “women’s work” in Italy, and in
addition to cleaning tasks I was also asked to fetch espresso for Piero, clean the bathroom
attached to the Lab, and re-paint the walls. Although essential, these jobs did not directly involve
working with meat itself.
125
on the body of each hog is removed through a scalding process at the slaughterhouse, but
the first step at Spannocchia is to use a small butane torch to burn off any remainder.
Whoever is in charge of this process alternates between torching the stray hairs and
“shaving” the shriveled remnants off the flesh with a sharp knife. When exposed to the
extreme heat of the torch the skin shrinks back, and one must be careful not to scald the
flesh. Worse, the odor of burning hair permeates everything and lingered in my own hair
and clothes for days afterward.
In addition to the hanging carcasses, the slaughterhouse returns plastic tubs of
innards. The tongue, throat, and lungs remain connected in one long strip, which we
rinse with water and hang on metal hooks inside the cella. We then wash out the hogs’
stomachs and intestines, already emptied of any residual food/digestive material at the
slaughterhouse, which will serve as casings for buristo and fresh sausage. The
slaughterhouse also drains the blood from the animals after slaughter, and returns it to
Spannocchia in a large canister. For me, this blood is the most evocative reminder of the
living animal, which is now very literally transformed into “meat.”
At this point the carcass is hoisted onto the marble countertop and the major
divisions begin. The large cuts require the most expertise and experience; although I
observed this process numerous times, only Piero—and occasionally Riccio—
transformed the hog into its components. At one point Riccio, still learning the
intricacies of artisanal butchering, asked me to video-record Piero at this stage in the
process. “What if something happens to the maestro?” he asked, “I need to see how he
makes the cuts.” The butcher carefully sharpens an assortment of knives at this point.
Each has a specific use. During my fieldwork, Riccio was in the process of amassing a
comprehensive collection of high-quality butchers’ knives. When he visited larger cities
he would often return home with a new piece. Although the transformation kitchen is
equipped with dozens of blades of varying quality, Riccio’s tools were his alone.
126
When I watched Riccio break down a hog for the first time, the process took
about two hours. Piero wasn’t in the lab that day, and Riccio nervously worked from
memory. Although his own “apprenticeship” with Piero and other area butchers began
several years before, Riccio still considered himself a newcomer to the field. The first
step in the entire process is to remove the hind leg for prosciutto, the most valuable piece
of meat Spannocchia produces. Riccio first made an incision to remove the caul fat in the
lower abdomen, carefully carving around the kidneys, which are saved for use in salume.
A series of intricate cuts released the hind leg from the rest of the body. Riccio laced a
metal hook between the tendons below the hoof and hung the leg from the metal bar
above the window. When the hog carcasses arrive back at Spannocchia, the
slaughterhouse affixes a certificate of authenticity (i.e., that the hog is Cinta Senese) to
each half. This crucial certificate is tied to the prosciutto leg, where it will remain until it
is sold almost two years later. Although all of the meat at Spannocchia is traceable to the
pig from which it came, the prosciutto holds the highest economic and symbolic value.
Not only does it require a lengthy investment of time for curing, Riccio explained to me
that “A good prosciutto will create strong emotions in people.” Prosciutto ties emotional
value to artisanal production.
With the pressure of the prosciutto over, Riccio went on to remove the head of the
hog. After breaking the neck bone, he trimmed the flesh away for guanciale (cured
jowls). He cut off the ear, carefully removing the yellow identification tag that was
attached to the pig shortly after it was weaned. The ear tags contain serial numbers,
which are retained by the farm long after the meat has been processed and consumed, to
ensure further traceability. Riccio then pulled out the brain and spinal cord tissue for
sopressata, and threw away the glands and tissue around the neck, as the hormones they
contain negatively affect the flavor of salumi products. Carving along the spine from the
neck down, he detached the muscle tissue from the fat and iridescent connective tissue.
Riccio showed me how to feel for the “false ribs,” and made a major cut directly in front
127
of them, pulling the ribs and away from the rest of the body. After trimming small pieces
of meat from the upper layers of muscle for sausage, Riccio then used a bone saw to
separate the spine from the ribs, and the loin from the spine. Bits of cartilage flew
through the air as the bones cracked.
The layers of meat and fat were further divided: the stream of fat on the hog’s
back would be cured as lardo, the sides divided up into portions of pancetta. The lower
belly, marbled with fat, would be wrapped in caul fat and cured into capocollo. Riccio
continued to carefully carve up the side of hog, and eventually we were left only with the
shoulder (spalla) and surrounding bones. We transferred each cut of meat into a separate
white plastic tub in the cella, with specific tubs relegated for bones, fat, and other small
pieces of meat that would be used for making salame the next day.
Salumi versus Salame
In Tuscany, all types of cured meats are known as salumi. The term encompasses
all charcuterie; the root of the word, sale (salt), indicates a class of meat products
traditionally cured in salt. Salame, on the other hand, is a specific variety of salumi made
with salted and spiced ground meat packaged in animal intestine and allowed to ferment.
In other words, while all salame is salumi, not all salumi is salame. 33 To add to the
confusion, similar pork products have different names throughout Italy. For example, the
product known as sopressata in Tuscany is a kind of head cheese containing scraps of
meat, skin, fat, garlic, lemon, and a spice blend dominated by pepper, cloves and nutmeg.
In southern Italy, however, this combination is called coppa, and sopressata refers to a
spicy, aged salame similar to pepperoni.
33 The English term salami is the Italian plural of salame, and refers to the same product. It is
not a variant spelling for salumi.
128
In the Spannocchia transformation kitchen we produced the following types of
salumi in the winter of 2008-2009: Salame, Rigatino (Pancetta), Lardo, Sopressata,
Finocchiona, Proscuitto, Capocollo, Gotino, Buristo, Salsiccia, Spalla, and Salame
Bastardo. (Please see Appendix A for descriptions of these products written by
Spannocchia staff for the Cinta Senese tour.) Most of these are made of nothing but
Cinta Senese meat, salt, and pepper. Nothing contained “mystery meat,” although all
parts of the pig were used. Spannocchia follows the old Italian dictum “Del maiale non
si butta via niente” (No part of the pig should be thrown away). This culinary suggestion
requires an in-depth understanding of animal anatomy, as every cut has a specific
preparation. Sayings like this reflect a deeply rooted cultural legacy in which skills that
ensured daily survival in the countryside were revered. However, it is a mistake to
believe that eating the entirety of the animal was a hallmark of the rural poor, as recipe
collections from the Middle Ages on show great enthusiasm for organ meats and other
offal across the social spectrum (Capatti & Montanari 1999). Whereas today we typically
consider certain cuts of meat to be less prestigious, social difference was for many years
reflected in the type of animal consumed, with beef and veal being the choice of the elite
in most areas of the peninsula. Throughout the Middle Ages, a forest (i.e., landholding)
was measured by the number of pigs and wild game it was capable of fattening. Until the
14th century, when feudal land use patterns began to shift, all social classes ate pork. At
that time, population shifts to urban centers, the shrinking of forests, and developments in
cattle breeding began to mark pork consumption as specifically rural or associated with
the peasantry. However, Capatti and Montanari point out that in regions like Tuscany,
where single-family farming and sharecropping persisted as the primary modes of
agricultural production, pork continued to hold a place of importance at the table
regardless of social standing (1999).
Significant care is given to even a less pricey preparation of meat, such as

salsiccia (fresh sweet sausage links) or salame. As Riccio explained it to me, if a
129
customer buys the cheapest meat we have, and finds it to be outstanding, it would
indicate that our most expensive cuts would be even more phenomenal. Two of the
cheapest meats Spannocchia sells are sopressata and buristo, a headcheese and blood
sausage, respectively. These products are made on the final day of a butchering cycle,
after all of the sausages, prosciutto, lardo, and other items have been processed. At this
point, all that remains of the pig—the skin, the head, and leftover bones and flesh—is
tossed into a large cauldron filled with boiling salt water (Figure 20). There it cooks for
several hours, eventually emerging as a gelatinous slurry that must be strained for bones
and inedible cartilage (Figure 21). Spices are added, and the entire mix is diced by hand
using a large knife and wooden board (Figure 22), a difficult process due to the hot steam
that continues to rise up from the mix. Finally, the seasoned meat is packed into heavy
paper casings (Figure 23). It takes two individuals to complete this step; one person
holds the casing upright, and the other ladles the meat inside while checking for stray
bones. The finished sopressata is then hung over a plastic bin, where it continues to
secrete excess gelatin for several hours (Figure 24). Unlike the other Cinta Senese
products, sopressata and buristo (Figure 25) are not aged. These products go directly to
the refrigerator, where they remain until market day.
Figure 20 Piero stirs the cauldron

130
Figure 21 Straining meat and bones from the brine in the cauldron
Figure 22 Slicing meat for sopressata

131
Figure 23 Putting the spiced meat mixture into casings
Figure 24 Gelatin forms on the exterior of freshly packaged sopressata

132
Figure 25 Sliced buristo
Le Muffe (The Molds)
Many Americans would be shocked if they saw just how much mold collects on
Italian salumi as it cures. Good salumi, however, is evenly covered in grayish-white
mold as it ages (Figure 26). The mold imparts flavor and prevents spoilage during the
curing process. One of my jobs in the stagionatura, or curing room, was to brush excess
mold from the hundreds of hanging salame to encourage even coverage. Riccio handed
me a soft broom top, and instructed me to be “very, very gentle” with the brushing. He
demonstrated, lightly passing the bristles over a rack of salami, which left a gentle
snowfall of greenish mold below. He explained, “The white muffa, this is good. This we
want. The green muffa, it is sometimes good. We don’t want too much. The black
muffa—you come and find me.”

133
Figure 26 Racks of curing salame in the Stagionatura, with more aged products covered
in the desirable white muffa hanging on the lower racks
Forty-five minutes later I found myself coated with greenish dust. Surprisingly I
did not sneeze uncontrollably, although my sinuses were filled with muffa for the next
day and a half. (In the future I remembered to ask for a paper face mask before
beginning this particular task.) Riccio came in to check my work half an hour later and
shook his head in frustration. Apparently I took off far too much mold, most of which
now pooled in dusty puddles beneath the drying racks. “I said lightly, lightly!” he
hollered. This was just one of many, many mistakes I would make in the transformation
kitchen. Riccio shook his head, shook his fists, and told me to get the mop and some hot
water. I needed to clean up the stalagmites of mold left on the stone floor. “Do NOT use
soap, you will kill the muffa!” Riccio admonished as he left the room to take yet another
cell phone call. No chemicals were allowed anywhere near the stagionatura. The mold
population was precious.

134
The stagionatura is precisely temperature and humidity controlled with a
digitalized system and Riccio records the readings on each twice a day. When he left for
a weekend trip to his hometown in February he very hesitantly assigned another winter
intern and I to check the readings, carefully explaining the process to each of us both
individually and together. A few degrees of humidity or temperature can make dramatic
changes to the final product. The “right” molds only survive in specific conditions, and it
is widely understood that the final flavor of a product is influenced by the specific molds
that exist in a given site. What grows in the Spannocchia stagionatura is not the same as
what occurs in a neighbor’s. This microbial terroir is difficult to reproduce. Industrial
salumi producers have a range of mold “cultivations” at their disposal, and curing rooms
are carefully controlled to maintain a homogenous end product. 34 Prior to the days of
electronically controlled humidity, a good curing room or cave was an important
commodity.
The irony is that in the past individuals created salumi as a product that did not
demand a lot of attention, but was left to age in relative peace. In the current market
economy, which demands specific outputs, the technological aging process must be
carefully monitored. Spannocchia’s butchering program is thus simultaneously based in
“traditional,” artisanal processes and modernized, technological practices. The same is
true for Spannocchia’s other food production efforts, which blur the line between
tradition and efficiency. Although these are not always conflicting modes of producing
food, Spannocchia does incorporate modern means in order to sustain “artisanal”
processes. The same is true of the estate’s Cinta Senese breeding program, which
emphasizes time-honored practices of rearing this indigenous hog while concurrently
34 See Paxson (2008) for further discussion of “microbiopolitics” in the case of cheese microbes.
Similar to the highly localized muffa described here, artisanal cheese producers identify unique
cheese cultures as both as distinguishing features of a marketable terroir and as a means of
differentiation from industrialized cheese production (Paxson 2010).
135
conforming to external standards of production enforced by the EU, Slow Food, and a
local Cinta Senese consortium.

136
CHAPTER FIVE: THE CINTA SENESE
Eat It to Save It
The Cinta Senese is the only breed of native Tuscan swine to survive extinction.
Until very recently, the Cinta Senese pigs that I helped to feed, house, and butcher at
Spannocchia were members of an endangered species. Today, breeders keep these pigs
for hobby or in connection with agritourism, but increasingly the Cinta is raised for
commercial production of lard, salami, prosciutto, and other specialty meat products.
The Cinta is not an “economical” or particularly profitable animal in the age of industrial
agriculture, and ironically this may be exactly what enhances its popularity today. What
could be deemed more “distinctive” than eating a food product that is difficult to obtain,
must be raised in highly unique contexts, and can only be enjoyed by a narrow segment
of the population? It is the renewed demand for Cinta Senese meat in both local and
regional markets that brought this breed back from the brink of extinction. The survival
of the species literally depends on a gastronomic market. Renewed ideals of locality,
typicality, and artisanal production bolster the market for Cinta Senese products in Italian
markets
Normally, when we think of endangered animal species, the idea of eating them is
far from our minds. However, in the case of heritage livestock breeds like the Cinta,
cultivating a consumer demand for animal food products is central to conservation
efforts. Heritage breeds are the traditional livestock breeds raised by farmers in the past,
before the drastic reduction of breed variety and genetic diversity caused by the rise of
modern industrial agriculture. Heritage animals were bred over time to develop traits that
made them particularly well-adapted to local environmental conditions. As such, they are
generally better adapted to withstand disease and survive in harsh environmental
conditions, and their bodies are better suited to living on pasture. In contrast, industrial
food production favors the use of a few highly specialized breeds selected for maximum
137
output in a controlled environment. These animals are bred to produce lots of milk or
eggs, to put on weight quickly, or to yield particular types of meat within confined
facilities. Today's industrial farms rely upon a small handful of specialized types of
livestock and crops, resulting in the loss of thousands of non-commercial animal breeds
and crop varieties.
Since 1990, roughly 200 breeds of farm animals have gone extinct worldwide,
and there are currently 1,500 others at risk of becoming extinct. The United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that over the last decade, sixty breeds of
cattle, goats, pigs, horses and poultry have become extinct; at this time, one in five
species of farm animal is in danger of extinction (FAO 2006). In Europe, half of the
breeds in existence at the turn of the 20th century are now extinct, and a high percentage
of the remaining breeds are in danger of disappearing over the next 20 years. In 1980,
fewer than 200 Cinta Senese pigs remained in Tuscany. Through efforts of local
breeding consortia, Slow Food’s Ark of Taste and Presidia, and EU-wide efforts to label
the origin of products, consumers receive information about the “traditional” methods of
breeding, rearing, and butchering Cinta Senese pigs. By attaching positive values to
these products, consumers value foods produced in this way not only for their flavors, but
for the cultural distinction they connote.
In their marketing efforts, producers explicitly link their products to local
geography, history, and cultural identity, but may be pulled between multiple groups with
differing agendas. While an emphasis on “traditional” production methods underlies
Spannocchia’s efforts, my ethnographic examination of the marketing of Cinta Senese
foods produced at Spannocchia highlights how Italian producers navigate complex and
contested regulatory practices in order to market such goods. However, different groups
categorize and highlight the Cinta Senese in very different ways.

138
A Truly Tuscan Pig
The Cinta Senese serves as a cultural object that provides a common reference
point for farmers and consumers in Tuscany. The pig serves as a receptacle of symbolic
meanings: it is part of a localized sense of history, and the ways in which its meat is
prepared and consumed are typical specialties of the area. The Cinta Senese originated in
the hills around Siena, and the majority of breeders continue to work in this province.
The distinctive white belt, or cinta, was carefully selected for by medieval breeders who
needed to separate their stock from other, “wilder” breeds living in forests nearby; today,
a solid white band remains a crucial feature in breeding selection.
Figure 27 Cinta Senese breeding sows
The breed remains “rustic” and is ideal for raising wild or semi-wild, and today
the Cinta continues to be raised freely on meadows, rocky fields, and in forests of oak
trees, where they receive the majority of their nutrition from acorns and wild greens
139
(Pacini and Madeo n.d.). At Spannocchia, many of the sows gave birth in hidden nests
within the forest and had to be relocated to outdoor farrowing pens. The Cinta Senese is
uniquely adapted to the area, and it is able to survive in the wild for extended periods. It
withstands the hot summers, and demonstrates a marked resistance to infectious diseases.
For many centuries, peasants kept one or two Cinta Senese hogs, which could be left in
relative isolation to feed on otherwise unproductive land for several months out of the
year.
However, the advent of industrial farming and subsequent introduction of larger,
more prolific breeds like the Yorkshire, or Great White, nearly wiped out the Cinta
population in the late 20th century. Several factors led to the decreased popularity of the
breed among area farmers. The Cinta is a “grazing” pig, and requires wooded areas for
foraging in addition to a typical grain diet. They tend to be lively and energetic, or in
more practical terms, they have a hard time staying within the confines of pens, as I
learned all too well at Spannocchia. Moreover, they take up to two years to reach market
weight. In a competitive market that is increasingly dominated by industrial production
methods that can get a pig to market weight in less than six months, this is a major
deciding factor for most farmers.
The shift to more prolific breeds began long before the 21 st Century. In the 1928
book Castiglione che Dio Sol Sa, Delfino Cinelli (Federica’s grandfather) describes the
animals living on the Spannocchia estate nearly a century ago. In this excerpt, Cinelli
describes an early 20th century meeting between two landowners: Gherardo (a somewhat
autobiographical version of Cinelli himself) visits a neighboring estate, that of Count
Geminiani. The Count is considered to be more or less the head of the region, and
Gherardo is anxious to make him a friend and mentor. This scene occurs early in
Gherardo’s development of Cerreta (the fictional estate based on Spannocchia), when he
is still struggling to figure out the local agricultural system. Mastiani is the man he has
hired as a “farm manager.”
140
In Count Geminiani’s stables the first thing that struck the eye was
the glorification of the local breeds. At Cerreta, Mastiani never
missed a chance to criticize them, discoursing on the more rapid
growth of other breeds and the greater profits in raising them.
Certainly, a visit to Cerreta’s stables could not prove him wrong;
but here the effect was entirely different. Here were only local
Maremma oxen, with great moon-shaped horns, great almost black
shoulders, low powerful bodies, short and agile legs, with
something of the savage in their eyes. And in the stys, pigs of the
Cinta breed, the same that can be seen in the countryside of
Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco of the Good Government. The
stables were beautiful, airy, clean, too well kept in Gherardo’s
opinion; they seemed more a luxury than part of an agricultural
operation; in this he had learned to expect more stinginess than
splendor.
Perhaps out of vanity in his newly acquired knowledge, he

surprised himself by repeating some phrases of Mastiani referring
to specialized imported breeds.
“Wife and ox from your own neighborhood,” moralized

Geminiani. “Up here we need rustic animals, for several reasons.
But you need to experiment or else you don’t learn. They have
many advantages, these animals, you’ll see.” In saying so he
caressed the neck of a filly that had turned its muzzle toward him
as he passed. “Unfortunately, our native breeds are disappearing;
there has been too much cross-breeding. But now we are
attempting to go back to the old.” (Cinelli 2005 [1928]: 92-93)
The importance of maintaining heritage breeds is evident in this passage, written
nearly a century ago. Echoing modern concerns surrounding the loss of heritage breeds,
the rhetoric utilized in this quote—with its emphasis on rustic, “glorified” local breeds—
is similar to that seen in today’s Cinta Senese marketing tools. Translated reprints of the
book are available for purchase in the Spannocchia gift shop, and it is possible to peruse
one of several copies positioned in the Spannocchia library or sitting rooms. With its
long descriptions and meandering storylines, the book is written in a style unfamiliar to
readers of most modern novels. However, the book provides key historical information
about the estate, and reveals an ongoing interest in historical preservation and sustainable
agriculture both at Spannocchia and throughout Tuscany.
The fresco referred to in the 1928 Cinelli excerpt, Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory
of the Effects of Good and Bad Government, still hangs in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico.
Painted between 1338 and 1340, this late-medieval sequence of paintings provides an
141
unrivaled pictorial encyclopedia of quotidian incidents in both the Sienese countryside
and urban center. The images depict an orderly, well-fed city and flourishing countryside
on the side of “good” government, and starvation and recklessness on the “bad.”
Thousands of tourists visit this room each year, and it stands as a prime example of
secular art during this period.
Figure 28 Detail of Lorenzetti fresco; Image courtesy of www.cintasenese.blogspot.com
Of particular significance to the producers and consumer of Cinta Senese pigs
today is the detail of a pig being led from the countryside to a market within the city
walls (see Figure 28). The farmer takes his pig, which is tethered by one hoof, past
peasants laboring in the fields and wealthy lords on horseback. The presence of the Cinta
Senese pig in this painting proves its importance in the agricultural and gastronomic life
of 14th century Siena. It even forms the basis of a 2008 children’s book, Scandalo in
Toscana (“Scandal in Tuscany”) by Nancy Shroyer Howard, in which the pig, now a
142
cartoon figure, runs loose throughout the fresco, interacting with the various characters in
the painting. The presence of the Cinta Senese pig in this painting highlights its role in
the agricultural and gastronomic past of Siena, and lends a sense of authenticity to current
production. Twenty years ago this detail did not receive special attention. Today, this
painting is regularly cited by the Consorzio di Tutela della Cinta Senese (or the
Consortium for Guardianship of the Cinta Senese), and appears on most of its posters and
promotional materials. 35
Formed in 2000, the Consortium is comprised of Siena’s provincial
Administration of Agricultural Assessment and the Associaiazione Senese Allevatori
(Association of Senese breeders), a group of producers and butchers dedicated to
preserving the Cinta breed for food products. According to one of its founders, the
Consorzio was created first to save the breed, and then to promote and guarantee the
origin and distribution of the products obtained from it (Pacini and Scatena 2005). It is a
voluntary consortium, and focuses on maintaining and overseeing the genetic heritage of
Cinta hogs. In 2005 there were over 140 members, the majority of whom support
themselves primarily through direct sales of hogs or meat products. The network of
Cinta Senese producers operates on the following general guidelines: identification of
territorial boundaries, mobilization of the symbolic capital generated around the name
“Cinta Senese”, communication and coordination provided by codes of practices (not
strict quality standards), and sanctions (i.e., improper uses of the breed name).
35 As one culinary guidebook points out, the Cinta Senese in the painting would not pass the
quality controls of today’s area breeding consortium—the white band across the shoulders of the
animal is too wide and the ears are too small (Guinti Gruppo Editoriale 2001). Over the
centuries, interbreeding with both the wild cinghiale boars that roam the forests and various
porcine breeds traversing the Sienese Maremma, a transhumant livestock passage for millennia,
led to changes in the Cinta Senese. It was not until 1934 that selective breeding records were
kept by the Sienese agricultural chair.
143
Perhaps the most important work of the Consortium involves controlling the
commercialization of the Cinta Senese salumi products. This is most clearly visible in
their efforts to obtain DOP (Denomination of Origin) status for Cinta Senese products
sold throughout the EU. The process is worth describing in some detail for what it
reveals about the intense regulatory pressures brought to bear on producers, as well as the
tensions that develop between different groups of producers.
Emphasizing Locality Through EU Standards
In 1992 the EU developed a system of protected geographical status through the
Common Agricultural Policy to legally safeguard the names and characteristics of
specific regional foods.36 In Italy, these certifications are known as IGP (Indicazione
Geographica Protetta, Protected Geographic Indications) and DOP (Denominazione
d’Origine Protetta, Protected Designations of Origin). 37 These regulations guarantee a
specific degree of quality linked to the territorial origin of a food product. 38 Moreover,
the labels constitute an attempt to protect traditional food products from encroachment by
industrial production, which endangers their unique identity and potentially detaches it
from a local context. Italy promotes dozens, if not hundreds, of products through the EU
36 At the core of EU food policies is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a system of
European agricultural subsidies that began operating in 1962, with the EC intervening to buy
farm output when the market price fell below an agreed target level. It was agreed that simple
tariffs were not enough to protect farmers from fluctuations in world market, and nations had
devised a range of complicated forms of price and income support instead. However, allowing
opening up a free market of produce grown under states with different price systems was
dangerous, and creating an EU-wide system of support remains a difficult political task (Pinder
1998). Today, the Union taxes imports, subsidizes agricultural exports, and sets internal
intervention prices on specific products, providing a degree of economic certainty for EU farmers
and ensuring production of a certain quantity of agricultural goods. The result of this is that the
CAP budget currently constitutes 44% of the entire EU financial plan, and entails a complex
system of “red tape” that the EU is currently working to simplify.
37 In English, the acronyms of these categories are PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) and
PGI (Protected Geographical Indication). I use the Italian acronyms throughout this dissertation.
38 The DOP and IGP designations are independent of those used for wine and spirits, which fall
under a different class of labeling.
144
agricultural quality policy. 39 There are 29 Italian charcuterie products that hold either
the DOP or IGP recognition, and these constitute roughly 45% of all European meat
products certified as such.
When a product is DOP, the entire production chain—from the operator who
obtains the raw material to the operator who obtains the product that ends up on the
consumer’s table—must comply with the regulations of the European Union and the laws
of the Italian State. This system aids consumers by giving them information concerning
the specific character of the products, which is particularly important in the context of
GMOs and other concerns over food purity, and promotes an EU-wide niche market for
artisanal and locally produced foods. Essentially, receiving DOP status enables
producers to target much larger consumer audiences throughout Europe. According to a
study funded by the European Commission, the main reasons given by producers for
involvement with the DOP system “are economic and relate to marketing, gaining or
securing market share to keep businesses viable or profitable through the protection of
the use of names, or sending quality assurance signals to consumers” (London Economics
2008:6).
Regional-specific products made across Italy can be classified into two groups:
either they are products that primarily serve small niche markets, typically remaining
highly exclusive and localized (such as the Cinta Senese pig), or they are products that
cover a significant share of the relevant market, and are frequently exported despite being
produced in specific, delimited areas (e.g., Parmigiano Reggiano cheese) (de Roest and
Menghi 2000). In either case, the regional product competes against cheaper,
39 A complete list of can be found at http://europa.eu.int/comm/agriculture/ qual/en/it_en.htm. It

is particularly interesting to compare the Italian list—including varieties of cheese, meat, olive
oil, and so on—with those of other EU member states. Denmark, for example, has only three
products listed, and it appears that the only country utilizing the designation labels more than
Italy is France.
145
industrialized versions of the same food. Capturing a niche market is critical to the
success and survival of regional products, and strengthening the identity of the food,
either through connections to producers, local history, or local culture, is the primary
means of doing so. The Cinta Senese consortium highlights such connections, but it also
developed stringent definitions of what precisely constitutes a Cinta Senese pig in order
to better compete for the DOC label and to protect local heritage food markets.
The Cinta Senese consortium applied for DOP status in June 2005, under the
category of fresh meat (Goracci 2005). Unlike many other applications, DOP status was
requested for the entire animal, not a particular product coming from that animal. The
Consortium developed operational codes and procedures in 2004 in order to bolster the
likelihood of approval, and structured the system so that DOP labels would be available
only for animals born, raised, and slaughtered in Tuscany. In contrast, Prosciutto
Toscano received DOP status in 1996, and the prosciutto holding the label does not
necessarily come from hogs born and raised in the region as long as it is cured in
Tuscany. The Cinta Senese guidelines are more stringent.
The application process is formalized, and requires an enormous amount of
administrative organization. While a small farmer would be highly unlikely to apply for
DOP status, groups like the Cinta Senese consortium hold the organizational power to do
so. In order to register a product name, a group of producers must first define the product
according to precise specifications laid out by the EC. Specific criteria linking food
products and geographical areas must be met: how do the characteristics of a particular
region affect a product in a way that other regions cannot? Applicants must demonstrate
a causal link between an area and the characteristics and reputation of the product,
typically joining ideas about terroir with local production techniques. The proposal is
then sent to national authorities for approval, and these groups transmit their decision to
the European Commission. There the application undergoes a number of control

procedures to determine compliance with EC regulations. If it meets the requirements,
146
publication in the European Union’s Official Journal will inform those who are
interested. Finally, the application is subject to a six-month waiting period, during which
oppositions to a geographic status indicator may be made to the national authorities. 40
Although the Cinta still does not hold DOP status, the Cinta Senese consortium
continues to regulate breeding and production in the area. At present, producers like
Spannocchia, who operate in accordance with the Consortium, continue to use the quality
assurance labels developed by the Amministrazione Provinciale di Siena. In March 2007
the Consortium effectively changed the name of the pig to the Cinto Toscano as part of
an initiative to include a greater number of producers and processors, regional and
provincial institutions, and trade associations (Siena Province News 2007). The DOP
label would now read “Suino Cinto Toscano” if approved, although this name change is
not presently reflected on the EC database.
Presumably, the producers with strong ties to the city of Siena and its surrounds
found fault with this change, as it undermines the history and culture of this particular
area. The preparation of cured meats is uniquely framed by the context of a shared
culinary heritage in which local products are transformed into staples that can be
exchanged over greater periods of time and space. As such, cured meats tie directly into
the Italian sense of campanilisimo: literally this means “loyalty to one’s bell tower” and
figuratively it signifies a strong association with one’s hometown. Many Italians
embrace the concept of “food perfection” associated with products from specific regions
(Harper and Faccioli 2009). The importance of regionalism in Italy plays a particularly
vital role here, as the local origins of Italian foods are intrinsically tied to identity (cf.
Brierley and Giacometti 1996; Stacul 2003). Likewise, consumers around the globe
continue to purchase the connection between specific meats and locality (e.g., Bolognese
40Detailed information about the application process is available at

http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/quality/schemes/index_en.htm.
147
mortadella, Prosciutto di Parma, etc.), even if these connections are now largely symbolic
in an era of industrial food production. In changing the name of the Cinta Senese pork
products to Cinta Toscana these localized associations lose credence, even if it
simultaneously allows for the inclusion of more Cinta producers. During the course of
my research in Italy I never heard anyone refer to the pig as a Cinto Toscano, and it is
unclear if this name change remains in effect. The importance of localism in increasingly
global (or at least European) markets remains central to producers.
The Trouble with Labels
Current consortium status is restricted to pork products from animals born, raised
and slaughtered in Tuscany. The swine must live in a wild or semi-wild state, with
access to grazing pasture and forested areas. Their diets must be exclusively vegetarian,
consisting of a combination of free-range grazing and feed that is free of genetic
modifications. All piglets must be registered and certified after birth, and provided with
an ear tag listing their genetic background. Likewise, all salumi products made from
these animals must be marked with a Consortium wrapper providing the numerical
identification code of the producer, the animal, the year of slaughter, and the weight of
the product (Figure 29). This allows the Consortium (and the consumer) to trace any
final product back to a unique animal. This “quality seal” is provided by the Provincial
Administrators of Siena, and regulates all products sold. Keeping the labeling system in
order was a major part of my job at Spannocchia, as there is a great deal of record
keeping for each cut of meat.
According to some farmers, the Consortium exists largely to support the efforts of
larger breeding operations. A conflicting community of interests begins to emerge—
smaller operations are typically locally oriented, selling primarily to area farmers markets
or via other methods of direct marketing (such as sales to tourists). These small
producers share values of safeguarding biodiversity and maintaining tradition and organic
148
methods, both in the raising and butchering of the Cinta. On the other hand, larger
producers have the capacity to capitalize on a much longer retail chain. Strong
communication networks provide access to export markets, and meat processing is
streamlined by scientific advances in meat curing. While both groups are working to
“revive” the Cinta Senese breed, they are operating through very different spectrums of
cultural, social, and financial capital.
Figure 29 The red Consortium labels contain serial numbers for traceability to the point
of origin. The brown paper labels from Spannocchia list the ingredients and
date of production, as well as contact information for the estate.
Some worry that this lack of network cohesion could lead to the erosion of the
collective capital assets of Cinta breeders. Without a common language to express
quality standards, incoherent images of the product could lead to a loss of reputation.
Perhaps foremost in the minds of the breeders is a disparity in financial capital. Marked
differences in the final prices of Cinta products (60 €/kg for prosciutto at supermarket
chains versus 95 €/kg at the farmers’ markets) attract different kinds of consumers. It is
149
difficult to engage the small farmer, who may view a breeder who sells to a retail chain as
an opportunist, in a common enterprise with a larger producer. Although the two groups
share many of the same challenges, no network truly exists to address these issues in a
meaningful way. Although the Consortium connects numerous producers, their broader
efforts to regulate production and achieve DOP status alienate smaller producers.
The case of the Cinta Senese producers echoes Cavanaugh’s (2007) work with
northern Italian salumi makers. In this research, Cavanaugh found that many producers
believe DOP labels end up homogenizing and commodifying food products. Rather than
emphasizing a unique regional typicality, they argued that DOP labels demand
standardized production, something that only a handful of producers are financially
capable of doing. Moreover, standardization negates the unique characteristics that
define individual producers. The concept of nostrano (literally, “ours”) emphasizes the
individuality of flavor imparted by a particular producer. However, DOP trademarking
of foods considered traditional to specific regions legislatively backs the
commodification of “authentic” foods, and stands in sharp contrast to the ever-increasing
bioregulation of artisanal producers, whose methods may considered unhygienic or
“backwards” by EU authorities (Roseman 2004).
For example, Leitch (2003) describes the process by which Lardo di Colonnata
gained status via international food writing. At this point it also attracted the attention of
EU food inspectors, who found the “traditional” methods of curing the product in a
conche curing rack to be unsanitary. Regulators demanded tiled floors, bathroom
facilities, and nonporous curing containers, the last of which fundamentally alters the
flavor of the end product. Slow Food became involved, and nationalists in Italy took on
the rationalizing logic of EU bureaucracy in order to “preserve” the cultural traditions of
lardo production. It is not hygienic by scientific reasoning, but it is hygienic in

150
practice. 41 Ironically, at this point butchers across Italy began to capitalize on the status
of lardo, making their own batches and labeling it all as lardo di Colonnata. The
“branding” by Slow Food boosted the popularity of all types of lardo, whether or not they
were produced using the artisanal methods valorized in Colonnata (seasonal processing,
the area’s microclimate, the marble of the aging tanks, and the extensive variety of local
aromatic herbs and spices). Residents of the original village copyrighted their product
and fought for DOP protection. Making things even more complicated, the demand for
lardo di Colonnata meant that pigs became so scarce in the area that pigs were imported
from neighboring regions to boost production—however, in order to hold DOP status, all
raw materials must come from the region. The popularity of a “backwards” product led
to numerous difficulties for producers, even as their economic success increased.
In his popular book Heat (2006), journalist Bill Buford describes a similar
situation, in which the infamous bistecca di Toscana (an enormous beefsteak from the
Chianina cattle breed) sold to tourists and locals alike in a well-known butcher shop was,
in fact, steak shipped into Tuscany from artisan meat producers in Spain. From the
butcher’s perspective, the modern breeding and feeding practices used locally ruined the
cattle breed. Rather than do away with a pervasive and well-known food tradition, the
butcher simply sourced his raw materials (albeit under the cover of night) from another
location. The consumption of this symbolic bistecca is complicated—much like
knockoff Prada and Fendi handbags sold on the streets of any large Italian city, one
wonders if the reality of the symbol is truly as important to the consumer as the
mythology surrounding it.
41 Although an array of scientific experts defined the risk presented by lardo, the Italian response speaks
to the ways in which locally-defined and subjective values shape an understanding of risk (c.f. Beck 1992;
Douglas and Wildavsky 1982). Here, socially embedded, culturally defined notions about food production
shape decisions about consumption.
151
The places where “typical” Italian foods are most likely to be found are also areas
with negative demographic trends (Fonte 2006). One way to preserve these foods is to
de-localize the consumption of the product itself, and market it to a distant, often urban,
consumer. In the process, foods may lose their inherent links to territory, tradition,
community, and so on, and these must be “re-created” by the distributor. Distant
consumers have to learn the value of a “local” product that they do not know directly.
Once again, the DOP/IGP system is a powerful means of achieving this, transforming
“cognitive systems,” or the codification of local knowledge, into formalized systems by
technicians and experts. Fonte’s study of the COOP-Italia supermarket chain and its
efforts to promote ten Slow Food Presdia products in 2000 shows that the role of the
distributor “is one of mediation and translation between urban and rural culture; between
scientific and empirical forms of knowledge; between local production and global
markets (2002:272-273). In other words, traditions, local networks, and associations
become new forms of social capital.
The marketing of cultural “reference points” in Tuscany does not end with large-
scale distributors and supermarkets, however. Cinta Senese hogs are culturally defined—
they occupy symbolic space in addition to being a material, economic product. The
consumers value Cinta Senese products for their flavor as well as the prestige associated
with consuming an “endangered” and artisanally produced meat. On the other hand, the
producers value the territory and cultural heritage linked to the Cinta Senese products,
and they link prestige to who is producing the food and the manner in which it is done.
Therefore, negotiating both material (market) value and symbolic value involves
processes of re-contextualization between these two groups as foodstuffs move through
their “social lives.” Marketing Cinta Senese meat products involves a conscious
manipulation of cultural ideals. Groups like Slow Food perform such manipulation on a
massive scale, formally linking producers, consumers, and foods in previously undefined
ways.
152
The Ark of Taste
Cinta Senese pigs are members of Slow Food’s Ark of Taste project, which was
launched in 1996. The Ark of Taste aims to rediscover, catalog and promote foods which
are at risk of extinction, but have productive and commercial potential and are closely
linked to specific communities and cultures. Today the Ark of Taste lists more than 900
unique foods from 50 countries around the world that are threatened by industrial
standardization. In addition to profiling rare foods, it is a tool that helps farmers,
ranchers, fishers, chefs, retail grocers, educators and consumers celebrate the diverse
biological, cultural and culinary heritage of a particular place. To reiterate, in the case of
heritage livestock breeds like the Cinta Senese, cultivating a consumer demand for
animal food products is central to conservation efforts. When a food product boards
Slow Food’s Ark of Taste it is indexed as a culturally and gastronomically important
item, making it highly desirable to our omnivorous, socially and ecologically-conscious
consumer. (The guidelines for Ark of Taste selection and management are listed in
Appendix B). The examination of the milieu of local knowledge and memory of
“endangered” foods connects to the “exterior landscapes” of local history, ecology, and
the scientization of risks intersect with “interior landscapes” of invented traditions and
fantasy (Nazarea, 2006; see also Belasco, 2006).
Slow Food developed an alternative global system, the Presidia, to support
“endangered” Ark of Taste products lacking backing from strong companies or consortia.
Presidia status entails stringent codes of practice (e.g., type of animal feed, husbandry,
sustainability, etc.) similar to those seen in the Cinta Senese consortium. To date, more
than 300 Presidia have been created around the world, involving over 10,000 small-scale
sustainable farmers. Each Presidium supports a quality product at risk of extinction,
emphasizing traditional processing and/or agricultural methods and safeguarding native
breeds and local plant varieties. The activity of a Presidium not only safeguards products
and production processes rooted in a well-defined context, it also ensures that aspects
153
regarding the cultural identity of a product are known and appreciated. Although it may
appear to be similar in structure and scope, Slow Food does not support the EU system of
Product of Origin labeling, arguing it is cost prohibitive to the small producers it claims
to support.42
Figure 30 Labeling for Presidia products
42 Although Slow Food does not directly support the DOP program, AREPO (Associazione delle
Regioni Europee dei Prodotti d’Origine, or the Association of European Regions for Origin
Products) handed out brochures at Salone del Gusto describing the IGP and DOP seals. AREPO
works to promote and defend the interests of the European producers and consumers “committed
to enhancing quality agrifood products.” Each regional group is represented by food producers,
and its goals mirror those of Slow Food Presidia in many ways. For example, AREPO works to
disseminate information about specific attributes of quality and origin products, promote DOP
and IGP logos and products with consumers, and support producer organizations holding
geographical indications. Sixty percent of the DOP or IGP producers in Italy work with AREPO,
and the group also hosts international programs to increase the visibility of quality products in
underdeveloped nations. The parallels to Slow Food are evident, and this program highlights the
fact that there are multiple avenues in which food producers can work to effect global change
through involvement with consumers.
154
In 2006 there were 195 Presidia projects in Italy; by 2008 that number decreased
to 177. Many of the original recipients of Presidia status—including the Cinta Senese—
actually lost their membership in the program, although they remain on the Ark of Taste.
On the other hand, the number of international Presidia increased substantially, from 84
in 38 countries (2006) to 121 in 46 countries (2008). As Slow Food shifts its emphasis to
promoting endangered foods from developing nations, groups like the Cinta Senese,
which enjoy relatively secure financial and organization backing on a local level, are
encouraged to fend for themselves in order to free up resources for global ventures.
Nevertheless, in the course of my research I continued to find references to the Cinta
Senese as a Presidia product, and the consortium’s connection to Slow Food remains
unclear. Although formal ties between the groups appear to have been severed (i.e., the
Cinta Senese is no longer listed on official Presidia documents), they continue to work
together on a regular basis. For example, in the 2007 Slow Food guide Salumi d’Italia
(Salumi of Italy), the authors dedicate a page to the Cinta Senese despite the fact that it
lacks a “Presidia” stamp (Slow Food Editore 2007).
Figure 31 Cinta Senese producer at Salone del Gusto

155
In 2006 the Commune of Siena sponsored an Island of Taste at Salone del Gusto,
featuring images of the city and artwork of Siena and surrounds, regional olive oil,
honey, and Cinta Senese salumi. Wearing an apron that mirrors the banded white stripe
on the pigs themselves, a Cinta Senese producer sliced samples of what appears to be
pancetta by hand (see Figure 31). Here, the emphasis is on the region of Siena and its
products, rather than membership in the Presidia program or even Consortium status.
Large posters of Sienese art and architecture frame the booth.
In her ethnographic study of a village in northern Italy, Cavanaugh (2007) shows
how Bergamasco salami emerged as a potent symbol of local culture in recent years.
Prior to the economic miracle of the 1960s, Bergamasco salami was consumed only by
those who produced it themselves at home. As economic conditions improved in the
region, the salami production became sporadic and the product was harder to find. Today
“authentic” Bergamasco salami is distinguished by its particular territory and cultural
history both for locals and outside consumers. Already heralded by Slow Food,
Bergamasco producers continue to push for IGP status from the Italian government.
Cavanaugh argues that the IGP can:
Indexically signify a cultural group, such that achieving an IGP for

Bergamasco salami means that it would stand for the province of
Bergamo, but also Bergamo’s history, culture, and society as an
‘authentic cultural object’ – that is, a concrete symbolic
representation of local value and ways of life. (2007: 159)
The story of Bergamasco salami mirrors that of the Cinta Senese, wherein
producing salami is equivalent to “producing” culture. Does an equivalent process of
marketing salumi lead to the marketing of local culture? The influence of organizations
like the EU, Slow Food, and the local breeding consortium all factor into the political-
economic restructuring of Cinta Senese production during the past twenty years.
Changing notions of rurality and food “quality” mark a major shift in the ways Italians
and Europeans as a whole consider food. How does the marketing of Cinta Senese
products cultivate a particular set of social relationships with consumers in various social
156
spaces? To address this question, I return to ethnographic data collected during
Spannocchia’s market events.

157
CHAPTER SIX: PRODUCERS IN THE MARKET
My time spent with Riccio, the farm manager at Spannocchia, yielded a wealth of
information about the day-to-day pressures that small-scale producers face when
marketing their products. In addition to working with “reflexive” consumers who
connected his Cinta Senese products with the overarching mission of sustainability at
Spannocchia, Riccio also sought to educate new consumers about the cultural heritage of
the pig as well as the ecological impacts of free-range pork production. However,
different social spaces and the contexts of local and regional markets shaped the
construction of Riccio’s self-presentation and performances. These constructions bring
me back to revisit questions regarding the ways that Slow Food stages interactions
between producers and consumers at its major events. I initially explored these
interactions in Chapter One in my discussion of Salone del Gusto, but these themes are
magnified in the practices of the associated event Terra Madre, which attempts to connect
consumers with an even broader range of global producers.
Portrait Five: Riccio
Riccio’s real name is Bruno, although I never heard anyone call him by that name.
The word riccio means “curly” in Italian, and Riccio is obviously nicknamed for his wild
head of hair. He talked to me in Italian and broken English, depending on the activity of
the day and who else was around. Due to the multitude of languages spoken at
Spannocchia by visiting guests and interns he speaks at least four different languages
decently. Riccio’s English is better than my Italian, and he is politely conscious of the
presence of so many English-speaking interns and tends to code-switch so that everyone
present can comprehend his message. That being said, on days when Riccio was
particularly frustrated with me, he spoke mostly in Italian.
Riccio and his partner, Daniela, never officially got married. They met in the
early 1980s on an anarchist, back-to-the-land commune that lacked running water and
158
reliable electricity. Riccio speaks fondly of those days: “We were crazy, just crazy.
Living out in the woods, growing our food. It was a wild time.” Today, Daniela is the
Castello manager at Spannocchia, and organizes the day-to-day activities of the
hospitality crews. She and Riccio have two daughters who spent much of their
childhoods on the Spannocchia estate. When the family first arrived, they lived on the
bottom floor of Casa Pulcinelli while the buildings were being renovated. Riccio laughs
about the fact that he has tried to get Daniela to marry him multiple times. In keeping
with their non-traditional ideologies, she always refuses, despite their decades-long
commitment.
Originally from the suburbs of Venice, Riccio is not a native Tuscan. Whenever
we traveled he would search for frutti di mare at restaurants, the fruits of the sea. The
local pizzeria would often accommodate his tastes when we arrived for a meal after
markets, adding shellfish to his dishes. Going anywhere with Riccio was an adventure,
primarily because he seemed to know everyone in the nearby villages. A twenty minute
trip into town could easily transform into a three hour undertaking. During my first week
at Spannocchia, Riccio took me and two French hog farmers visiting Spannocchia to a
Slow Food event in the Tuscan coastal city of Orbetello. We drove several hours each
way, and on our way there I had no idea where we were going. Riccio spent most of the
trip there speaking in French with the other farmers, leaving me entirely in the dark
regarding our destination and purpose for the day. Upon arrival I was thrilled to have
been included—the event, Terra Madre Toscana, brought together Presidia food
producers from across Tuscany and also included the international guests hosted by these
farmers after Terra Madre events in Turin. There were talks, food booths, and numerous
opportunities to make research contacts. I soon discovered that Riccio’s lack of
explanation on this occasion was painfully typical.
Despite his practical oversights with me, Riccio plays a critical role in the success
of Spannocchia’s farming program. His phone never stops ringing when we are
159
together—he deals with the Cinta Senese Consortium, veterinarians, the local
slaughterhouse, Slow Food Siena members, consumers who want to purchase meat on
site, and myriad others. His role as the farm manager encompasses a broad range of
duties, and in addition to overseeing the animal operations on the farm, he must complete
a massive amount of paperwork required by the Italian state. His desk, located in a high-
ceilinged former stable near the tower, overflows with hastily scribbled phone messages,
Cinta Senese consortium forms, receipts from the local market, and books about
sustainable agriculture. On a day-to-day basis Riccio oversees Giuseppe, who was one of
the few people who could handle Riccio’s regular outbursts of temper. Although Riccio
was not directly in charge of the interns, many of them simultaneously feared him and
sought out his company. Those who played musical instruments were immediately
welcome in Riccio’s home, as he is an avid fan of musical genres ranging from American
jazz to Italian folk tunes. I would often hear guitar music coming from his house after a
long day. It was his method of relaxing, so if I stopped by his house in the evening I was
equally likely to find him fast asleep in a rocking chair with the guitar in his lap, his dog
Lapo sitting at his feet.
I spent more time working with Riccio than anyone else at Spannocchia, and it is
easy to describe his gregarious public personality. In private, however, he became much
more reserved. After spending a day at a market, he would treat me to dinner—and often
spend the entire meal reading an Italian newspaper. “It’s nothing personal to you,” he
explained, “I am just so tired.” In the spring of 2009 he began to suffer from heart
problems related to stress, and although he did not cut back on his consumption of cheese
or Cinta Senese salumi, he began to ride a bicycle around the estate in the evenings for
exercise. His work spreads him thin, and most days it seemed as though he was
performing the tasks of at least three individuals. Furthermore, with a house that
connects to Spannocchia’s villa, Riccio literally lives at work—he gets up in the middle
160
of the night to deliver calves, he stays up late cleaning the transformation kitchen after a
long day of butchering, and he can be found in his office late in the evening.
Eventually, Riccio hopes to focus specifically on the butchering and curing of the
Cinta Senese pigs. His true passion is butchering, a trade in which he remains a relative
novice. As the meat curing program at Spannocchia grows, however, it seems more and
more likely that his dream may come true. The year after my time at Spannocchia,
Riccio developed a long-term winter butchering internship, ensuring several months of
labor and support in the transformation kitchen. As the meat processing program grows,
however, it remains to be seen how much of the marketing Riccio will continue to
oversee.
The Sovicille Market
Figure 32 Cinta Senese statue in Sovicille

161
According to Riccio, the monthly Saturday market held in the nearby village of
Sovicille is the reason that Spannocchia is able to continue its Cinta Senese program. It
is where Spannocchia sells nearly all of its fresh pork products, and butchering cycles are
timed to coincide with market dates. This particular market emphasizes local, organic
produce, and the Slow Food Siena group operates an informational booth and recruits
new members on most Saturdays. In the central square of Sovicille, within eyeshot of the
market stalls, a small statue of a Cinta Senese states “Qui nacsi la Cinta Senese” (Here
the Cinta Senese was born) (Figure 32). As the figurative birthplace of the Cinta Senese
hog, the residents of Sovicille and the surrounding area are constant supporters of farms
like Spannocchia.
In addition to butchering fresh meat products like pork loin and salssiccie sausage
links, we sometimes included other value-added products at the stand. For example, one
of my first interactions with Graziella took place in the transformation kitchen one Friday
evening prior to a market day. She was making fegatino, a specialty product from pieces
of pork liver that is time-consuming to prepare and therefore rarely seen for sale.
Graziella cut the liver into golf-ball sized chunks, rolled them in flour, fennel seeds, salt,
and pepper, and then wrapped each piece into a slice of stomach membrane (caul) saved
from the recently butchered hog. The flavorful packet was sealed with a toothpick, to be
sold the next morning for one euro apiece. There, Riccio instructed customers to cook
the fegatino slowly over a low flame. Despite the fact that the process of making a large
tray of fegatino took several hours, even with my help, Graziella thought this price was
exorbitant. She recognized the demand for the product—elderly Italian customers
connected fegatino to nostalgia, and younger customers saw them as a “heritage” item
unique to our stand. To Graziella, however, the relative value of caul, pork liver and
other ingredients was too low to justify the prices charged, regardless of demand
generated by cultural fetishization. Nevertheless, Riccio and I rapidly sold the entire tray
the next morning.
162
In the days leading up to market we would locate clean Spannocchia aprons, dig
out promotional materials and paper sacks, find the receipt books, and load roughly a
dozen large containers of various cured meats. Early on Saturday morning I met Riccio
outside of the transformation kitchen to load the van. Another winter intern, Dylan, and I
eventually created a checklist in order to remember all of the items we needed—the knife
set, multiple wooden boards, an enormously heavy scale, the metal prosciutto stand, and
the officina (a large plastic crate that contained our legal documents in addition to string,
pens, markers, price lists, flyers for firewood sales, and so forth). Invariably we departed
behind schedule, although Riccio never seemed concerned as he navigated the rickety
van the twenty minutes to Sovicille, blaring his favorite Italian radio station,. At some
point I realized that Riccio preferred to arrive after the other vendors, as this meant he
could pull the van right up to our stand in order to unload without shuffling for space.
While Riccio unpacked, I would begin to clean out the glass display case (provided by
the market) with white vinegar, and arrange the fresh meats inside. Several items
remained vacuum sealed in plastic (such as the sopressata and lardo), and these went in
first to keep refrigerated. Keeping things cool was never a problem when I worked,
however. It always felt bitterly cold. Sovicille's charming central piazza is shaded by
the centuries-old buildings surrounding it, and awnings cover the vendors, so even if it
was warm in the sun, we never felt it.
My responsibility at the market was to handle the money and keep track of the
sales. I was not allowed to slice meat or sell it on my own. Riccio referred to me as his
"secretary" to the customers, and asked them to pay at the cassa (cashier stand) when
they tried to hand money to him directly. For every purchase, I would record the type of
meat being sold and how much we charged, which tended to vary. Sometimes Riccio
would use the scale and calculator to figure out an exact price based on our price list
(which was based on a per kilo rate). Other times he would simply say "one euro" or "two
euro" and leave it at that. When his friends came around he would chat happily, handing
163
out samples. More often than not, these folks would purchase a large piece of prosciutto,
usually along with a couple of salame or chunks of lardo. Typically we would make 5-10
large sales of over 50 euros, but the vast majority of purchases were only a few euros
each. People would stop for a few slices of sopressata or buristo for sandwiches, or ask
for just a small amount of prosciutto for the week.
At the market we always wore aprons with the Spannocchia logo on the front
along with small white butcher caps, and for Riccio, latex gloves. Sometimes he was very
conscious of wearing these (he said it made the stand look more "clean" and
"professional") and other times he would forgo them completely. Within an hour the
gloves would be covered with nicks and tears from his knife, which carved away samples
of meat throughout the morning. "Per passagiare" was the motto— "to sample."
Figure 33 Riccio slicing salumi products at market

164
Riccio never used an electric slicer, or even one of the mandolin-style slicers to
get a fine cut of prosciutto. He insisted on shaving off paper thin slices by hand, and he
felt that this added to the traditional/artisanal quality of our products (Figure 33). This
differentiated us from a grocery store or typical butcher shop. Our meats were unlike
anything that could be purchased in a shop, and the presentation of the products at
market-- the "performance" of selling an artisanal product-- was likewise different.
Most people seemed to enjoy talking to Riccio and his (always slightly confused)
string of young Americani assistants. I think that in some ways the presence of interns
lent a certain degree of clout to Spannocchia (i.e., the estate is prosperous enough to
support interns), while simultaneously reminding consumers that Spannocchia is a
working/training farm. While the other stalls are operated by local producers and their
families, Spannocchia possesses a steady stream of foreign labor eager to participate in
food production and marketing. For a local market that emphasizes local products and
producers, I wonder what other producers might think about the “foreign workers”
associated with Spannocchia. Riccio’s dynamic personality has clearly played a major
role in earning and maintaining credibility for Spannocchia within small local markets
such as Sovicille’s.
Again evidencing their positions as “co-producers,” many of the interns actively
desired a market shift with Riccio, particularly those who did not regularly work with
butchering or animal production on the farm. It allowed them an opportunity to represent
Spannocchia in public, and to gain a sense of what a local Italian market is like. Working
behind the stand, rather than shopping in front of it, altered one’s relationship with the
farm—it conferred "insider" status both literally and figuratively, along with the
responsibilities and privileges that entailed. One intern, Ava, wrote about her
experiences with Riccio in the market for the intern newsletter. Her quote reinforces the
connection between production and consumption at the Sovicille market, and the way
that working at the market allowed an intern “outsider” access to the local community.
165
Although she primarily worked in the gardens during her time at Spannocchia, Ava
volunteered to help at the market several times.
There was a flurry of activity all morning with customers buying

up all of our different packaged meats…I hurriedly made change
and bagged meat, while Riccio took his time cutting and chatting
with the customers, dishing out free samples. Everyone who came
to our stand knew Riccio and Spannocchia’s quality products. It
was a very special moment to feel such a sense of community…I
was amazed by the seamless intermingling of local shoppers and
local producers. Not only did consumers take the time to travel to
Sovicille to converse and purchase their goods straight from the
source, but at the end of a full day of shopping they sat down with
the producers as one big community to share a meal. (Il Pennato
2009:7-8)
The meal that Ava refers to above is a highlight of the Sovicille market, where
Riccio treats his assistants to a special meal at the local trattoria around the corner. This
trattoria utilizes the day’s market produce, and various cooks (including Graziella and
Loredana) rotate through its kitchen. The meal is always open to the public, but after the
market closes at noon it is primarily filled with the producers themselves. The menu
changes every time, featuring different products from different farms, but the food is
always incredible. My favorite part of an otherwise exhausting market day was sitting at
the table with area producers, who would discuss the sales of the morning, the market
atmosphere, their farms, and the state of the world in general. The trattoria served
Spannocchia wines, and Riccio never hesitated to bring out additional bottles for the
producers. The atmosphere was jovial, fueled by great food and drink and a sense of
conviviality with other market participants. Most of them had known one another for
many years, and knew the ups and downs of the area. The producers were unfailingly
kind to me, especially when they realized I could speak a certain amount of Italian. They
were curious about my project (especially given Riccio's nickname for me--"PhD") and
always wanted to know more about what farming and food were like in the Midwestern
USA and in my family.

166
At Sovicille, consumers arrived with an understanding of the Cinta Senese pig.
The Italians visiting the market all knew about the Cinta statue in the town square, and
most were familiar with the various salumi products offered at our stand. As such, the
Sovicille market is an ideal environment in which to support the mission of Spannocchia,
both through gastronomic channels and through education about sustainable agriculture.
The majority of the individuals who purchased meat at our stand knew Riccio or one of
the other Spannocchia residents personally, and supported the overall mission of the
estate, which many of them had physically visited at some point. In addition to the
Sovicille market, I assisted Riccio at other regional markets in nearby small towns and in
the city of Siena. The larger the market, and the more distant from Spannocchia, the
more Riccio emphasized educating consumers about organic agriculture and the nature of
hog production at the estate. Even in Siena, the home of the famous Lorenzetti painting,
not everyone knew about the Cinta Senese hog, and many questioned its higher retail
price at our stand. In most cases, however, Riccio was able to deftly navigate the world
of the market, and reveled in performing the role of an artisanal butcher. In the case of a
market trip further afield to Rome, however, the story unfolded in a very different fashion
that highlights how tenuous and context-specific the social capital of small-scale
producers can be in the broader Italian marketplace
The Casino di Roma
In Italian, the term casino refers to a mess, a disaster, or general disorder. In
March of 2009, I accompanied Riccio and a winter intern, Dylan, to an expo in the
outskirts of Rome. Riccio was originally invited months before, but the price of a booth
was unbelievably high. The city of Siena ended up sponsoring Spannocchia, due to a last
minute cancellation on the part of another Cinta producer. Before we left I searched
online for information about the expo, called “Parklife,” and gathered that the focus
would be on outdoor activities, promoting the parks, and natural foods. Since
167
Spannocchia works with endangered pigs on a natural reserve, it seemed to be a logical
fit. Only two people could fit in the Spannocchia van packed with prosciutto and other
meat products, so I agreed to drive to Rome with Paola, one of the regular vendors at the
Sovicille market. Paola operates a sizable apiary, and I got to know her during the post-
market meals described above.
Arriving at the enormous fairgrounds, Paola and I were surprised to discover that
Parklife constituted only a tiny section of a massive expo called “Big Blu,” a pan-Italian
boat and water show. We pulled up to the building holding the Parklife exhibits, and
upon entering we found dozens of booths vending fishing gear, camping gear, wet suits,
motor boats, and so on. Other vendors from Siena arrived before us and began to set up
in our small corner booth, which someone decorated with a wall-sized poster of the city
of Siena. I helped Paola carry in her wares—jars of honey, shaped beeswax candles, and
bottles of honey-flavored grappa. Another vendor, Matteo, arrived with a selection of
Chianti wines, Vin Santo, and olive oil produced on his property. Matteo emphasized the
organic nature of his products, and hung banners stating biologica in large letters.
Another couple from Montepulciano brought their wines to sell. The wife, sporting a
skintight pair of black leather pants and a black sweater, was emphatic about decorating
the space to “look like Tuscany.” To this end, she brought yellow and white plaid
tablecloths, red and yellow potted flowers, and a large terra cotta pot filled with fake
sunflowers. Riccio, eternally late, did not show up until the evening. He insisted on
bringing one of the prosciutto racks, which we crammed into an already overflowing
space. Dylan, one of the long-term winter volunteers at Spannocchia who also spent a lot
of time in the transformation kitchen, worked with me to collect some decorative and
promotional items before we left: Spannocchia informational brochures, Cinta Senese
posters and books, and an aerial photograph of the farm printed as a poster. We also
brought a case of our organic farro, the organic spelt that Spannocchia grows.
168
On the first morning of the exhibit, we discovered that Parklife, which constituted
perhaps 5% of the entire Expo, was not on the official map of the show. Most people
seemed to discover it while heading toward the bathrooms located in the back of the
building. Big Blu was dedicated to fishing, boating, scuba diving, and other water related
activities, and there were several buildings devoted to specialty décor for yachts, high-
end speedboats, and so on. Early that morning, Dylan looked at me and simply said, “I’m
so thoroughly confused.” It appeared that we were going to attempt to sell artisanal Cinta
Senese meat at a national boat show. People walked past with new fishing poles and
bags of tackle, or wandered in for a snack after purchasing a new boat. Unlike our
typical market customers, no one had heard of Cinta Senese hogs before. In the first day
we made less than 250 euros in the course of 10 hours, although Riccio gave out most of
one leg of prosciutto as samples. The sales tactics he employed at the Sovicille market
were unsuccessful at Big Blu. Sales for the other vendors in our booth were equally
dismal—“mal’ economia” (bad economy) became an oft-repeated phrase that day.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of all of this was the enormous, professional
butcher stand located directly across from our booth. They rolled in early the day before
with a dark, wooden facade that set up over the generic metal Expo stand. In the middle
of the space a spotlessly clean butcher table provided room for several people to work at
once. This travelling meat show knew how to market to the Roman customers—their
space looked like a “traditional” Italian butcher’s stand, rather than a hastily constructed
vending booth. Towers of meat and cheese piled up on the counters, and we actually saw
people stop to take a photograph with this glorious showcase of various salumi products.
Legs of prosciutto lined the walls of the booth, and it was possible to have meat vacuum
packed for transport. Three employees in crisp white butchering jackets made constant
sales—and their main sales appeared to be on simple panini sandwiches made with cold
cuts.
169
Riccio took this as a clue. Even though, as he argued, we are selling a very
different kind of product (a specialty meat made in an artisanal way), the competition
clearly irked him. I caught him looking over at the stand wistfully throughout the
morning. Before we left the first day he asked me to look around and “scope out” other
food stands to see if there was anything we were missing that they might have. The next
day, he told me, we would try a different approach. Rather than emphasize the
educational, ecological, or artisanal aspects of Spannocchia products, we would focus on
making sales. The next morning, a Saturday, we purchased twenty loaves of bread from
a local bakery and I became a de facto sandwich maker. Sales were brisk, and Riccio
could barely keep up the pace of slicing prosciutto by hand, something he maintained
throughout the weekend. By the end of the next day he could barely move his arm.
Dylan suggested that we could bring a slicer and triple our profits, but Riccio was
horrified by this idea and argued that people want to see the process. Indeed, this
artisanal performance does seem to be what differentiated Riccio from the other vendors,
even if our sales were slower and the appearance of the stand a bit shabbier. By midday
the crowds swelled substantially and everyone was making sales.
Around 3:30 in the afternoon, the financial police showed up at our booth with a
man who had just purchased 5 euros worth of product from us. It is illegal to purchase
food without a receipt in Italy, although this is something that is variably enforced. At
the local market, Riccio very rarely gave a receipt, preferring to record the price and type
of salumi sold in Spannocchia’s transaction book. Before we left for Rome, Richard
gave Riccio a stern reminder that we must give receipts, specifically because the financial
police are much more active in Rome. That day, Riccio had issued receipts for larger
purchases—say a kilo of prosciutto, or multiple salamis—but the sandwiches and little

170
purchases were exempt. With the pace of sales, we didn’t have time to write down the
amounts or types of meat sold. 43
The financial police asked to see our receipt books and all of our legal documents.
The atmosphere in our little corner of the Fiera, previously jovial, rapidly turned sour and
silent as we strained to hear the conversation going on between the police, Riccio, and a
representative from Siena overseeing our booth. At one point, this representative
declared that singling us out was “the dream of Berlusconi, to fine the smallest producers
at an Expo.” Nevertheless, the rules are the rules, and we ended up with a verbal warning
after a thirty minute debate. For the rest of the day we were very careful to give receipts
to everyone.
After the police left, vendors from other booths around ours came by to ask what
happened. They all agreed that it was ridiculous, and in an interesting way the entire
episode created a sense of solidarity between everyone on the floor. Instead of eyeing
each other as competition, as they had done before, they now had a moment to bond over.
Suddenly, Riccio was in his element—meeting other producers, talking to people from all
over, and selling the products that he loves. He was upset by the financial police, but
when he noticed that Dylan and I looked ashen after the incident he looked at us and said,
“Hey, ragazzi (guys), don’t give up.”
Over the course of the weekend we went through six legs of prosciutto and
several cases of salami and gotino. A lot of sopressata (which the Romans call coppa)
sold in panini, but very little was sold by weight or in whole portions. (This was
probably a good thing, since the sopressata was refrigerated sporadically in a mini-fridge
at the back of the stand, shared with the other vendors.) Ironically, although the rules
43 I discovered later Spannocchia’s license is only for sales of “whole” meats, not value added
items like sandwiches. Legally, we should not have been selling them at all. By not writing
down these sales, Riccio may have been pre-emptively covering his tracks.
171
about giving receipts were stringent, health codes were not enforced. At no point did
anyone question the cleanliness of our stand, our hands, our tools or aprons. Riccio had
me wipe down the cutting board with vinegar several times throughout the day, and all
meat scraps were swept into a paper sack under the table.
He also hung onto any scrap of recyclable material. This is a mission of his, and
he was furious that the building was not equipped with recycling facilities. At one point I
thought I found a recycling station only to discover that it was a stand selling recycling
bin systems, and the containers that were out were floor models. Trash cans overflowed
with plastic cups and flatware, paper plates, and paper flyers from different stands.
Riccio was also angry about how “light” the expo center was. At first I didn’t understand
what he meant, but eventually realized that he was taking issue with the large amount of
electric lighting that was wired in everywhere. In Riccio’s words, it was not a “green
building.” The environmental mission of Spannocchia was utterly abandoned there, and
the desire to market Spannocchia products to a larger audience was in direct competition
with the core values of the estate itself. At Spannocchia, residents recycled everything
from batteries to food scraps to short pieces of wire. In criticizing the environmental
impact of Big Blu, Riccio simultaneously asserted his role as a caretaker of the
environment, something central to his persona at Spannocchia.
Our challenges continued. On the second day we ran out of bread by noon. Even
more disconcerting, we also ran out of blank receipts around the same time. I found out
that for the entire event Riccio only allotted two receipt books (each with 100 receipts),
one of which was already half used. These books are small, carbon copy pads that must
be stamped with essential Spannocchia information (location, phone number, etc.). We
have a special ink stamp to do this, and it would work with any blank receipt book.
Unfortunately, no one had thought to bring the stamp along. On the final morning we
arrived early to prepare for customers. Bolstered by the previous day’s sales, Riccio
purchased 70 euros worth of bread at a local bakery before arriving at the Expo center.
172
Before the doors opened we prepared about 40 panini with various meats and displayed
them attractively on the counter. Then, the very first sandwich we sold turned into a
fiasco. Within ten seconds, the Guarda di Finanzia stopped the man who had purchased
the sandwich and asked for a receipt. Because we had run out of them entirely the day
before, he did not have one. Flashing their badges, the Guarda brought the customer back
to our stand and demanded to see all of our papers and receipt books. An hour of
arguing, fighting, pleading, and high tension ensued, and eventually Spannocchia
received a 500 euro fine (essentially all of the profit from the previous day). Dylan and I
left the immediate vicinity during this debacle, as we didn’t have our passports or
WWOOF cards with us and could be considered unpaid labor.
After the fine was written the police left, and a very aggravated Riccio took a
walk to cool off. Our sales were suspended until we had receipts, and there were 39
panini still sitting on the table mocking us. People walking by would ask to purchase
one, we would say we couldn’t, and they’d head to the booth across the way. The fellow
vendors at the booth worked with Riccio to formulate a solution—maybe we could try
photocopies, or faxed receipts. They flagged down the financial police again, but the
Guarda did not like the idea of using photocopies, and also refused the faxed receipts sent
from Spannocchia. Another half hour debate ensued, during which Riccio tried to
convince them in any way possible. At a certain point, one of the policemen,
exasperated, knocked on the wooden table to imitate Riccio’s “hard head.” He became
insulting, suggesting that Riccio “stick with farming” rather than selling and marketing in
the city. It was an ugly scene; although in retrospect I also wonder if Riccio was
performing the role of a rural, uneducated peasant in order to get a little leeway. While I
have no way of knowing his conscious or unconscious strategies, Riccio was adept at
creating a visage for multiple audiences. In Rome, playing downtrodden peasant butcher
allowed him to negotiate the market in ways that were never required of him back in
Sovicille.
173
In the end, Richard drove from Spannocchia to Rome with new receipt books.
The winemakers in our booth formulated a crafty solution in the interim, using their
receipt books to make the sales for Spannocchia, writing degustione in the items sold
column along with the amount charged. Later we balanced our accounts against theirs.
This ended up being somewhat useful for them as well, since they could ask each
customer if he or she would like a small glass of wine along with their sandwich. Our
sandwich sales were considerably stronger than their wine sales, and this allowed them to
turn out a lot more glasses of vino. They also were able to market and sell entire bottles
of their products while people were waiting in the line for panini.
We used this temporary solution for about two hours, at which point Riccio went
back to selling things without a receipt. I was horrified, since Richard still wasn’t there
with receipt books. Visions of being utterly shut down, tossed from the Expo, and losing
all of our money to fines raced through my head. But Paola explained it to me—the
guard that was giving us all the hassle, the one who had implied that Riccio was a stupid
hick from the country, went off duty at noon. When he left, the next guard on duty
wouldn’t give us any trouble. This was such a stereotypical Italian way of dealing with a
legal issue that I laughed. And, indeed, we didn’t have any further problems. When
Richard arrived with the books I ran outside to meet him in the car, returned with the
receipt books, stamped away, and we sold panini and meat without an issue for the rest of
the fair.
Shifting Roles of Production
Food producers like Riccio have diverse relationships with multiple consumer
audiences in local and regional markets. Riccio’s multiple roles—of farm manager,
artisan food producer, educator and market worker—coalesce dynamically in various
settings. In many ways he seems to be the ultimate Slow Food producer, creating Good,
Clean and Fair foods for a broad, international audience of engaged consumers. At
174
Spannocchia, Riccio directs the everyday operations of the farm, working with numerous
individuals to create the specialty food products for which the estate is known. He
interacts with tourists to build Spannocchia’s reputation as a paragon of sustainable
agriculture. At the local market, he is the convivial butcher, keen to spread the word
about organic, ethical meat production. In Rome, he adopts the role of the “backwards”
peasant, adroitly bending official rules in order to market a specialized product to an
unwitting and indifferent audience. In all cases, the pressure to perform the role of the
rural protagonist is one that he willingly accepts. Yet it is equally clear that he does so
with varying degrees of success. He is proud to be a food producer, but his day-to-day
work extends far beyond what Slow Food’s definitions of the role entail.
As described in Chapter One, a major goal of Slow Food is to build the profile of
small producers like Riccio, and to bring them into contact with greater numbers of
consumers. In taking an active interest in the people who produce food, including their
methods and the problems they face, such consumers metamorphose into co-producers.
Slow Food instigates and mediates the direct contact between producers and consumers
on a global scale. Major Slow Food events, such as Salone del Gusto, orchestrate these
connections, even if the stated objectives of the events do not necessarily map onto actual
realities, as depicted in Chapter Two. In short, Slow Food utilizes representations of
producers that are not based upon the lived daily realities and challenges of food
production. Nevertheless, Slow Food consumers adopt these representations, and build
them into the symbolic politics of the movement. Here, symbolic politics refer to “ideas
and images, not common identity or economic interests, [which] mobilize political
actions across wide gulfs of distance, language, and culture” (Conklin and Graham 1995:
696). The symbolic politics of Slow Food permit consumers to enact “action from a
distance.” These politics emerge in Slow Food’s notion of Virtuous Globalization,
wherein the pleasure derived from eating well is intrinsically tied to responsible
consumption and a connection to the welfare of producers and the environment.
175
Through the lens of Slow Food, the labor and social lives of food producers (or at
least the performances thereof) become visible to the engaged consumer. But in practice,
the movement’s stated concerns with unequal relations of production are largely
subsumed by an emphasis on relations of consumption. Massive inequalities persist in
food production, particularly between large scale corporate food producers and locally-
based small-scale producers. Even Spannocchia, a farm with a well-developed business
plan, engaged producers, and an international clientele, felt the impact of ongoing
disparities between large and small producers. In the case of producers from
underdeveloped regions of the world, inequalities and consumer-producer relationships
become even more problematic.
While Riccio faces numerous challenges in his everyday activities, his role is
largely self-defined. The stories of marketing the Cinta Senese hog with Riccio highlight
his roles as a Slow Food producer in the developed nation of Italy. He presents himself
as a rural agriculturalist, but not necessarily as an Italian, a Tuscan, or a white, middle-
class man with heart problems. For other producers, particularly those in underdeveloped
nations, the ability to forge connections through Slow Food channels remains far more
tenuous. In the remainder of this chapter I return to the site of Terra Madre, the
complementary event to Salone del Gusto where international producers arrive in Turin
every two years to perform the role of small-scale producers. Based on my observations
at this event, the experiences of Terra Madre participants are shaped by multiple layers of
intersectionality, wherein race, ethnicity, and a romanticized “peasant” class profoundly
shape their roles.
A Return to Turin: Terra Madre
One space in which to analyze the practical impact of Slow Food’s discursive
strategies on food producers is Terra Madre, an arm of the movement that works to assist
small-scale producers from around the world in concrete, practical ways. The term Terra
176
Madre is used interchangeably by Slow Food to refer both to the Terra Madre projects
that operate continuously and also to the Terra Madre events that occur simultaneously
with Salone del Gusto every other October. Whereas Salone del Gusto is a meeting place
for consumers and producers—essentially a “journey of shopping and eating” for most
attendees—the Terra Madre event highlights political, ethical, and environmental issues
facing food producers. However, a closer examination of Terra Madre events reveals
Western consumer imaginaries of the producers, particularly those from underdeveloped
nations, which obscure problematic inequalities. Although the producers are rhetorically
central, my observations and experiences at the 2006 and 2008 Terra Madre events in
Turin and the 2008 Terra Madre Toscana in Orbetello revealed ongoing disparities not
only between producers and consumers, but between the producers of poor and rich
nations, and between producers and the Slow Food network as a whole.
Within the Terra Madre network the socio-political ideologies of Slow Food find
a practical foothold, and many see it as the arena in which Slow Food may overcome its
reputation as an elitist foodie club. Here, Slow Food presents the standardization of taste
and agrifood production as one aspect of a larger homogenizing phenomenon that
eliminates a sense of place and local tradition. The Terra Madre network works to bring
sustainable growth to local economies, particularly those from remote, underdeveloped
regions of the planet. As one arm of the Slow Food network, it aims to do the following:
To give voice and visibility to the rural food producers who

populate our world. To raise their awareness, as well as that of the
population at large, of the value of their work. To sustain their
ability to work under the best conditions, for all of our good and
for the good of the planet. (Terra Madre Foundation 2011)
Terra Madre operates on the premise that the social and economic welfare of
farmers is integral to the production of healthy foods. In the opening address of the 2006
Terra Madre conference, Carlo Petrini likened the state of the organization to a well-
fertilized soil, ready to sprout new growth for local economies based on worldwide
solidarity and sustainability. The oft-repeated goal for Terra Madre focuses on linking
177
locally-based food communities within a global network of food producers, cooks,
academics, and researchers. Attendance at the event is viewed as a first step in traversing
the global/local divide, and a continuing theme in Terra Madre examines alternative
relationships between local communities and global processes.
The biannual Terra Madre event is held in the Lingotto Oval, a hangar-like space
reconstructed from the aging bones of a defunct Fiat car factory to hold the speed skating
arena in the 2004 Winter Olympics. Admission to Terra Madre is free, but requires a pre-
approved pass. In addition to the delegates selected to attend the conference, chefs,
academics, and other food producers can apply for a pass. In 2006 and 2008 I obtained
permission from Slow Food to attend the event as an observer. Upon entering the Oval,
delegates and other visitors must first obtain an official name tag from the desk
representing their country (see Figure 34). The multi-lingual staff at each desk was
equipped to handle questions about lodging, transportation, and other concerns.
Figure 34 Delegate check-in

178
The explosion of diversity celebrated at Terra Madre is perhaps best embodied by
the parade of nations that opens the meetings. United Nations-style translation headsets
provide access to teams of real-time simultaneous interpreters who provide an aural
lifeline between the thousands of individuals present during the main events. In 2010 the
Terra Madre event coordinators chose to highlight indigenous languages during the
opening speeches. In October 2010 I watched the Opening Ceremony of Terra Madre
streamed live, via the internet, from Turin, Italy to my home in Iowa. A nervous-looking
Guarani Indian wearing blue jeans, a yellow athletic shirt, and an “ethnic” looking
headdress and necklace made of feathers and leaves came to the podium to discuss the
degradation of his homeland in South America. A Sami herder from near the Arctic
Circle wore a brightly colored wool coat, a Mongolian woman appeared in animal furs
and a beaded headband, and an aboriginal Australian entered in a woven grass skirt.
Each of the individuals mentioned above addressed the audience in a language considered
to be linguistically endangered. This synchronized revival of locally-based foodways,
language, dress, and indigenous knowledge is performed to a global audience through the
latest technological innovation.
Unfortunately, the translation of these endangered languages was dubious at best.
It felt a bit like a strange version of the game “Telephone,” in which a message undergoes
so many repetitions and translations that it ends up reduced to almost nothing. I
witnessed the same thing happening in 2006, when a Tibetan yak herder spoke to the
crowd at Terra Madre. He spoke, a man translated his words from the Tibetan language
to Cantonese, which was then translated into Italian, and then into English. It is safe to
assume that the message changed somewhat during the course of four translations, as
each successive translation grew increasingly shorter in length and the narrative
continuity I heard in the English version varied
In 2008 I received a hefty Terra Madre “guidebook” listing individual food

communities by continent, country, and category of food product. Email contact
179
information was listed for each entry, and additional pages listed data for academics and
chefs participating at the event. The introduction to the handbook describes it as a map
of Terra Madre:
It doesn’t have a center or periphery, as a network is made up of

many parts of equal importance. It brings together more than 1600
food communities that are at the forefront in protecting diversity;
human, natural, agricultural and gastronomic. In addition, it
includes around 800 cooks from all around the world who are
fighting against the homogenization of food, and more than 400
universities, professors and researchers with their ideas for
virtuous globalization: an approach that is not based on
colonization, but on development through shared knowledge. The
Terra Madre map is for everyone who respects and cares for the
planet we live on, to let them see that they are not alone. It is also
an invitation to explore and respect other cultures.
This map of the Terra Madre diaspora underscores a valuation of indigenous
knowledge, which is rhetorically juxtaposed with intensive industrial agriculture and
mass production. Similarly, rampant Western neoliberal development is viewed as
detrimental to the social fabric of communities. Adrian Peace describes this “political
theatre” not only as the ideological flagship of Terra Madre, but also as “the occasion on
which the myths and fetishisms of Slow Food are much in evidence” (2008:31).44 Here,
he argues, the “iconically key figure of the small-scale producer” is valorized in
opposition to the “demonic order to agribusiness,” and Terra Madre’s rhetoric contends
that “those at the base of the agricultural hierarchy consistently behaved in a manner
qualitatively different from those at its apex” (Peace 2008:38). However, fetishizing the
nobility and dignity of small-scale producers obfuscates how they experience the wider
relations of food production. In practice, the majority of producers in rural economies
have relatively little autonomy from either the constraints of global agribusiness or from
local inequalities based on class, gender, age, or ethnicity.
44 Following Barthes (1973), his use of the term myth refers to “the assemblage of social
stereotypes, skewed representations, and biased accounts that are characteristic of all consumer
experiences under late capitalist conditions” (Peace 2006:57).
180
Fetishizing Cultural Diversity
In 2006 the Italian government provided 1,500 special visas for Terra Madre
delegates.45 Delegates arrived from all corners of the earth, including nations not
considered politically “friendly” to Italy. In a quote from the British newspaper The
Guardian:
One of the problems was that a lot of these people didn't have
passports. So we'd set about arranging that, and then we'd discover
that they didn't have the documents they needed to get a passport,"
says Cinzia Scaffidi, one of the principal organisers of the event.
"There was one group of indigenous people from Brazil who
wouldn't have their photos taken either. We asked why and were
told they were afraid it would rob them of their souls. (Hooper
2004:8-9)
Figure 35 Peruvian delegates at Terra Madre
45 Italian taxpayers end up paying for a lot of Terra Madre—to the tune of about 3 million euros.
Ironically, the right-wing government of Italy supports this project because it promotes tourism
and agriculture in Italy. At the first Terra Madre in 2004, the neo-liberal governor of the
Piedmont, Enzo Ghigo, and Italy’s agricultural minister, Giovanni Alemanno (who is part of the
post-facist National Alliance) stood with Petrini at the opening ceremonies.
181
Through their connections with Slow Food, these delegates amassed the economic
and social capital needed to travel to Italy. In Bourdieu’s (1984) terms, however, they
presumably did not possess the cultural capital necessary to navigate the modern,
metropolitan space. Putting aside any ethnocentric presumptions about photography for
the moment, the use of a statement that emphasized the delegates’ lack of cultural capital
sends a particular message to Guardian readers. Rural peasants from around the world
may hold indigenous knowledge about agriculture, but their ability to navigate urban
Turin was presumed tenuous at best. This statement simultaneously reinforced readers’
images of rural food producers as “ecologically noble savages” (Redford 1990): People
who dwell in harmony with nature, free from modern social complexities.
Carlo Petrini describes Terra Madre as a concrete means of using local action to
generate major effects on a global scale, and serves as the “true catalyst” for Slow Food
as a whole (2010:23). Here, Slow Food merely provides the support and resources for
Terra Madre to flourish. Petrini goes on to state that Terra Madre farmers represent “the
opposite of homogenization, of consumerism, of what the Slow Food movement calls fast
life” (2010:24). He does not want the ideas of these food producers to be “colonized”,
and argues that they share “a brotherhood that much of the world has lost.”46 In a bizarre
romaticization of the Global South, Petrini repeats that many of these producers may
have never left their villages before, often working thanklessly, and yet have managed to
avoid overt consumerism and urbanization.
46 Interestingly, the Terra Madre farmers who arrive in Turin act as symbolic placeholders of
Marxist movements that shaped the original Slow Food ideology. Deeply rooted in the
communist agenda of 1970s Italy, the first members of Petrini’s proto-Slow Food organization
called Arcigola hoped to bring the Peasant new forms of social capital via consumption and
regional/national reclamation of “forgotten” local foods (Parescoli 2003; van der Meulen 2008).
182
In direct opposition to these presumptions, a casual conversation with a Slow
Food employee in Bra, Italy, several weeks after Terra Madre 2006 revealed a very
different picture. While discussing the activities of Terra Madre delegates, I learned that
several delegates “fled” during their trip to Italy. When I questioned her further, she said
that it was not something that Slow Food wanted to publicize, but that it had also
happened in 2004. Some of the delegates from poor nations, armed with a visa to a
Western European country, simply left the convention and quietly entered Italian society.
This calls into question the glorification of “traditional peasant” lifeways, as well as the
motivation of delegates to attend Terra Madre.
My fieldnotes from Terra Madre 2006 reveal my discomfort with several aspects
of the event: “Much of the iconography of the meeting (the publications, ads, etc.)
focused on images of very ‘traditional’ looking ethnic groups. (See figure 35 and 36.) At
Terra Madre these individuals did not receive glossy brochures, or stalls in the Salone del
Gusto. A physical separation arose between the tourist crowds and the food producers
themselves. [Unlike at the Salone] there was no soft lighting, no signs as to where people
were from, no emphasis on the food production they did in everyday life. Most did not
sell food at all; rather, they sold things like jewelry, weavings, and other handicrafts.
These Terra Madre vendors sat on the ground or on low folding chairs. They had no
designations other than their ‘ethnic’ apparel, which the organizers encouraged them to
wear during the event. Terra Madre emphasized ethnicity and a traditional Sud del
Mondo (Global South)47 appearance. This look was itself commodified—would the
African woman selling carved jewelry have done well if she wore Western-style clothes
(see Figure 36)? Did the vendors change out of their ‘traditional’ outfits once they left
47 This term is used regularly by Carlo Petrini and other Slow Food representatives in Italy to
reference developing nations. I have never seen or heard this term used in Slow Food rhetoric in
the United States.
183
the sales floor? I certainly did not see anyone dressed this way wandering the halls at
Salone del Gusto, or even participating in delegate meetings.”
Figure 36 African delegate in "traditional" attire, Image courtesy of Slow Food

International
In her research on Slow Food events, Steager (2009) discovered that the
individuals vending jewelry and the like were not officially sanctioned by Slow Food—
rather, they arrived at the event carrying large bags of items to sell. These agriculturalists
arrived in Turin anticipating a wealthy, Western audience, and they were not
disappointed. Everyone else—including me—walked around the Oval like an Epcot
tourist, snapping photos and purchasing trinkets. Starting up conversations with the
delegates was difficult due to language barriers, and there were no simultaneous
translators working with individuals. For the most part, the white European and North
184
American attendees at Terra Madre wore casual clothing that bore no reflection on either
their day-to-day work clothes or any ethnic identity. For example, the only Italians
wearing visibly “traditional” costumes were part of a folkloric musical group that
performed while walking through the Oval. However, I am also not sure that I would
have taken notice of some producers without their “costumes” on, which brings up
another set of questions about my own reflexive observation and creation of meaning.
Casual conversations I have had with other attendees to Terra Madre events
reference the issue of “Othering” delegates. I particularly recall a conversation with two
cheese makers from Iowa, whom I first met in the airport at Turin in 2008. Following the
loss of much of their arable farmland in the Iowa floods that spring, the couple travelled
to Terra Madre for inspiration and renewal. They spoke glowingly of their experiences
with Slow Food and sincerely referred to Terra Madre as a moment that changed their
business and lives. However, when I mentioned interactions with foreign delegates they
became visibly uncomfortable. It was strange, they recalled, how many of them were
sitting on the floor. “Were they there as family or friends of the food producers?” the
couple asked me. These Iowan producers were not asked to dress in any specific way,
and they were confused as to whether or not other delegates might have been.
This brings up important questions about the intentions of these producers and the
ways in which they chose to represent themselves at Terra Madre. In Goffman’s terms
(1959), the front stage performance of an idealized identity may conflict with backstage
realities. In most cases, however, Terra Madre producers do not hold power over the
ways in which Slow Food represents them publicly. Terra Madre is widely publicized
throughout the city, despite the fact that the event is not open to the public. The images
of the individuals on the subway sign are from the “Faces of Terra Madre,” an ongoing
photography project that invites all delegates to be photographed against a solid black
background (Figure 37).

185
These striking images beautifully capture the range of faces, styles of dress, and
expressions of Terra Madre participants. However, outside the context of the Oval, these
portraits are not always well contextualized. On one hand, giving food producers a
“face” encourages consumers to consider the human work that goes into food production.
On the other hand, it is easy to draw comparisons with the images of Lavazza coffee
workers shown at the corporate stand at Salone del Gusto. Reducing producers to their
physical appearance on a subway sign does not tell the viewer where the individual is
from or what he or she produces. Another viewer may interpret the range of races and
ethnicities presented to be symbolic of the “biodiversity” of life and culture that Slow
Food promotes.
Figure 37 Terra Madre sign at Turin subway stop

186
Finding a Middle Ground
In their discussion of indigenous Amazonian Indians and global environmental
movements, Conklin and Graham (1995) refer to a pragmatic “middle ground” in which
first-world and fourth-world (indigenous) citizens meet. It is “a political space, an area of
intercultural communication, exchange, and joint political action” wherein “indigenous
people have become key symbols as well as key participants in the development of an
ideology and organizational networks that link [local] conflicts to international issues and
social movements” (Conklin and Graham 1995:696). In this case, Terra Madre delegates
are featured as key symbols and key participants in Slow Food’s events. This is
especially true in regards to producers from “the Global South,” but it is equally true for
politically-savvy “western” producers, many of whom hail from underdeveloped regions
of wealthy nations.
However, this “global meeting of food communities” that appears to constitute a
rich middle ground for mutual constructions of knowledge is, in truth, a first-world
construction, carefully created through the media and Slow Food’s extensive
communication channels. The deliberate use of certain producers’ symbolic capital—
such as native costume, endangered language, and other “cultural” ephemera that do not
necessarily correlate with actual day-to-day food production activities—supports Slow
Food’s political and ideological agendas. When Terra Madre coordinators encourage
delegates to exhibit these forms of symbolic capital, the group captures the “profit of
distinction” (Bourdieu 1984), something that sets them apart from other food-related
social movements. As a consumer-based movement relying on voluntary membership
and donations from an overwhelmingly Western audience, Slow Food utilizes these
“creative misunderstandings” to its benefit. Over the past several decades, images of
indigenous people, particularly those in colorful costumes and wild settings, became
regularly used in advertising campaigns to connote eco-consciousness and ethical

production and trade. Slow Food builds upon this trend, and connects the Good and Fair
187
connotations displayed by this style of media campaign with its own political and
ideological agendas. As Conklin and Graham point out, “Identification with native
cultures can be a political statement: it encapsulates a critique of Western cultural
dominance and colonial regimes and locates those who identify with the native in an
oppositional position, morally distanced from their own societies’ racism or colonial
histories” (1995:702). Slow Food’s critique of the “insidious virus of fast life” parallels
this kind of utilization of indigenous symbolic capital.

188
CONCLUSION
I suppose it would have been a lot more fun to have written a book
on the sublime virtues of slow food, Chez Panisse, Berkshire pork,
or the gustatory pleasures of an heirloom tomato. For sure, it
would have been a pleasure to indulge my research abilities in
something sensual and fulfilling. But such concerns, given the
challenges we face as socially aware consumers, strike me as
overly precious. Such idealization of the luxurious—a staple of
food writing today—distracts us from the reality of the concrete.
So I’ve chosen to save the romantic rhetoric for the parlors of
hobby farmers and seminar rooms of the chattering culinary class.
(McWilliams 2009:9)
In the early days of this project, I collected numerous magazine articles,
newspaper clippings, and blog posts written for popular and academic audiences on the
political, economic and cultural constructions of “alternative” food movements.
Spanning topics from GMOs to 100-mile diets to animal welfare, these discursive
artifacts reflected a surge of interest in food and rapidly engulfed my file folders. The
publication of several pivotal journalistic exposés—Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s
Dilemma (2006) and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (2001) central among them—
intensified the escalation. Food was at the forefront of my academic pursuits, but in a
relatively brief amount of time I could no longer keep up with the deluge of information
documenting America’s renewed interest in food.
Currently, a rapidly expanding genre of food literature written for popular
audiences continues to shape public discourse on food in the United States. While many
authors address issues of social and environmental justice related to food production and
consumption, a subset of the genre succumbs to the “idealization of the luxurious” noted
above. Sometimes deemed “food porn”—a tongue-in-cheek term describing the
glamorization of food photography and the decadent writing presented in blogs, cooking
shows, and other media—this growing category of food discourse emphasizes the
delectable and indulgent characteristics of eating and drinking. As one might expect,
much writing on (and by) Slow Food attempts to adulate the aesthetic qualities of
189
particular foods while simultaneously providing a penetrating description of the
individuals who produce them.
I must admit that it was sometimes difficult to write about my experiences doing
research with Slow Food and at Spannocchia without succumbing to the “romantic
rhetoric” that McWilliams lampoons. Particularly at Spannocchia, where cypress trees
line dusty paths and centuries-old stone walls surround sumptuous fields of poppies and
olive trees, the sensate pleasures of everyday rural life emerge regularly. My field
notebooks overflow with descriptions of convivial meals featuring local wines, organic
vegetables, heritage pork, and a seemingly endless array of pastas. While both the
natural and constructed beauty of Spannocchia is part and parcel of what makes it a
successful agriturismo, my research also reveals the less-than-desirable tasks crucial to
the maintenance of this illusion of effortless authenticity and the numerous pressures
faced by its inhabitants. McWilliams’s characterization that such topics provide fodder
for the “seminar rooms of the chattering culinary class” not only oversimplifies the
breadth and competence of the work done by Slow Food and others to connect producers
and consumers, but also undermines the researcher’s ability to analyze it.
Pleasure and Politics
Central to the underlying ideology of Slow Food is a reassessment of gustatory
pleasure as it connects to principles of social and environmental justice. However, the
ideologies underscoring this pleasure are distinct from those seen in literary “food porn.”
Slow Food inserts culinary taste—an attribute normally associated with cultural capital—
into a social economy built around the preservation of endangered foods, local cuisines,
and cultural heritage. However, as Andrews points out, “It is the pleasure factor which
has given rise to confusion in the intersections between class, food and elitism in Slow
Food’s distinctive cultural politics” (2008:176). Although it is the link between pleasure
and responsibility that steers Slow Food’s operation, this connection, and its associated
190
values of “Slow” living, gives rise to charges of self-indulgence and exclusivity.
However, rather than dismissing the entire Slow Food enterprise as an exercise in elitism,
the revaluation of pleasure need not negate the political potential that Slow Food holds.
Within Slow Food the significance of a particular food item moves beyond that of
monetary value to encompass the valorization of (sometimes distant) local cultures and
environments. For instance, Parkins and Craig (2009) describe Terra Madre as a unique
system that negotiates between international consumers and localized, marginalized food
communities in an attempt to deploy cultural values that protect and enhance an
alternative model of global food networks. In connecting “traditional” food cultures with
consumer culture, Slow Food (and related consumer-based movements such as Fair
Trade) developed a potent means of refereeing political and economic change in
everyday life. Parkins and Craig note that:
These features of alternative food networks are represented as a

resistance against the disembedding forces of globalization and the
dominant food culture derived from the global agro-food industry
and mark an attempt to build an alternative economy of food that
grounds economic relations in particular social and cultural
contexts, lived out through everyday practices. (2009:79)
The issues central to Slow Food—environmental sustainability, biodiversity,
education, and social justice—outline the values of “Slow” living. As the values of Slow
Food are incorporated into peripheral projects like Slow Tourism (Matos 2002), Slow
Cities (Knox 2005), and even Slow Money (Tasch 2008), it becomes clear that the
foundational values of this movement are not limited to food production and consumption
and have the capacity to encourage systemic political change.
At the same time, the myriad ways in which producers and consumers interpreted
Slow Food throughout my research indicate that it is not a static or unilateral
institution/movement. Rather, Slow Food encourages multiple interpretations across
political, cultural, and national boundaries. For instance, Spannocchia regularly invokes
discourse about cultural and environmental sustainability that echoes the core ideologies
191
of Slow Food (e.g., “Good, Clean and Fair”). The estate functions as a prototypical
locale for the ethical production and educated consumption of “Slow” foods like Cinta
Senese pork, even as Slow Food principles are variably incorporated by different
individuals working at or visiting the estate. Likewise, individuals from around the world
involved with major Slow Food events like Salone del Gusto translate Slow Food
ideologies into concrete realities in multiple spaces of their own. As evidenced in this
thesis, the efforts of the Slow Food movement are framed by new complexities and
contradictions at global-local interfaces, creating new opportunities for both the
reproduction and the transformation of social inequalities. My ethnographic data
demonstrate that Slow Food—as one organization in an array of social movements
working to address food, globalization, and ethical production— disseminates new
responses to to these transnational concerns. With its emphasis on connecting producers
with socially invested consumers, or co-producers, Slow Food offers a medium through
which to examine the intended and unintended consequences of alternative food systems
cross-culturally.
Shifting Fields
The original scope of my thesis research included a comparative study of Slow
Food activities in Italy and the United States. I began research on Slow Food in my home
state of Iowa in 2006, where I spent a significant amount of time working with a local
Slow Food convivium. In 2008 my husband and I joined the leadership committee and
coordinated many of the group’s activities. My work in Iowa included organizing a local
Slow Food “Eat-In” to bring attention to the bleak condition of public school lunches,
attendance at multiple Slow Food dinners emphasizing both conviviality and local food
products, staffing a Slow Food booth at local farmers markets to publicize the convivium,
organizing the public screening of several films exposing the realities of industrial
agriculture in the U.S., and rebuilding the group’s website. I also began to collect data
192
from local food producers who held membership in the convivium. However, through
discussions with local producers and consumers at public venues like the farmer’s market
I learned that although many Iowans supported the ideas behind Slow Food, few deemed
it necessary to spend the money to officially join. For example, after I described the
movement and its core philosophies to a middle-aged organic farmer he laughed and
responded, “Good, clean and fair? That’s what I’ve been trying to do my whole life! I
don’t need some group to write it all up for me!” In so many words, he went on to
explain that although he appreciated Slow Food for its role in educating consumers, he
didn’t see a need to join as a farmer.
Conversations like this one made me question the role of producers in Slow Food.
Data from my earlier research trip to Bra, Italy and my observations at Salone del Gusto
emphasized the political and economic roles of producers in the Slow Food movement,
but this was not something I saw in my work in Iowa, where Slow Food seemed to be
swept into a broad category of “food activism” occurring on the local level. When
compared to several groups in the area that energetically addressed issues of food
insecurity, organic production, and consumer education, the Slow Food group was largely
ancillary. I also experienced growing frustration with convivium members who
continually requested activities centered on dining in expensive area restaurants or
organizing fundraising events, pursuits that many members—farmers among them—
could not afford. Later I found that the Slow Food Siena convivium encountered similar
obstacles. In both cases, an emphasis on gustatory exploration overshadowed the
political objectives of Slow Food. The disconnect between the stated ideology of Slow
Food and its implementation on a local scale points to one of the potential difficulties in
the study of New Social Movements. The rhetoric of an international movement will be
interpreted variably by local, grassroots actors, sometimes in ways that detract from the
stated goals of the larger organization.

193
While the information presented in this thesis focuses primarily on my work in
Italy, it also highlights the international scope of the Slow Food movement in unexpected
ways. The profusion of American and Italian “co-producers” at Spannocchia allowed me
to not only explore the ways local actions develop within transnational social movements,
but also to consider the types of relationships that exist among members from very
different backgrounds. Additionally, the concentrated representation by individulas from
myriad nationalities at large events like Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre emphasized
the globalized nature of the movement and its effects. The multi-sited nature of this
project reflects ongoing efforts in cultural anthropology to link global exigencies with
local realities. Locating a cohesive “middle ground,” wherein diverse groups of
producers and consumers interact to co-construct new shared meanings and practices
through Slow Food channels, remained a challenge for the duration of the project. As
Slow Food works to translate its ideology regarding co-production into everyday acts of
food production and consumption, the importance of finding a practical and
epistemological middle ground for analysis remains central.
Future Directions
It remains to be seen if the connections forged through Slow Food at events like
Terra Madre, or in agricultural settings like Spannocchia, can translate into real-life
changes in the daily lives of small-scale food producers around the world. As Slow Food
focuses its attention on increasingly politicized activities and events, efforts to instigate
system-wide changes through food production and consumption rise to the forefront of
the movement’s rhetoric. Slow Food’s concept of Virtuous Globalization, for example,
posits that a global system like Terra Madre can assist farmers by creating a network of
self-sufficient local economies, and the powerful interdependent linkages forged through
these connected local economies holds the capacity to confront neoliberal structures.
Based on my understanding of the current organizational structure of the movement, I do
194
not believe that Slow Food operatives alone can foster economic independence or
revolution in remote or underdeveloped agricultural sectors. However, the movement
does possess the capacity to assist people in specific local market segments and specific
geographic areas.
At this point, Slow Food offers the greatest potential impact to areas where local-
foods initiatives go beyond the monetary value of food production, due to synergies with
other economic activities like tourism and landscape management (cf. Van der Ploeg et al
2002). For instance, at places like Spannocchia, where Italian food producers generate
financial support through relationships with socially- and environmentally-conscious
gastronomic tourists, relationships of co-production guide the ongoing development of
the estate. Co-producer relationships emerge even more strongly with interns, who not
only ideologically support the mission of Spannocchia, but also serve as a physical labor
force for the estate’s agricultural production. Here, the principles of Slow Food
implicitly guide food production and consumption in an everyday context. The decisions
made by consumers at Spannocchia manifest in long-term economic sustainability for
producers. It is unclear if producers supported by Presidia projects or other Slow Food
directives experience similar consumer support. Moreover, the outcomes of Slow Food’s
emphasis on cultural or environmental sustainability through co-production remain
ambiguous.
To the best of my knowledge, no current research exists on the implementation of
Presidia projects outside of Europe. Analysis of producers and consumers in
underdeveloped regions could reveal additional interpretations of the Slow Food
“message.” Do these producers view Slow Food as yet another group within a spectrum
of well-meaning aid organizations arriving from developed nations, or is the role of Slow
Food unique? Moreover, how do Slow Food ideologies play out in regions where the
most pressing issues facing food producers may include food insecurity or social
instability? And as such, is an emphasis on Good, Clean and Fair specific to the
195
ideologies of capitalist Western consumers, or is it meant to transcend social and cultural
borders worldwide?
As the movement grows, particularly considering the more recent emphasis on the
relevance of Terra Madre in shaping Slow Food as a whole, highlighting the ways in
which tastes for certain food aesthetics and ideologies indicate and maintain distinctions
between groups is a starting point for future study. Further, as Mintz and DuBois (2006)
point out, there is a need to (re)contextualize issues of class, gender, ethnicity, and other
markers of identity into the social economy of movements like Slow Food. Delineating
groups as uniquely identified “food communities” begs for additional analysis on the
significance and structure of community itself in the postindustrial era. Similarly, food
related social movements emphasize promises of democracy and equality. However, the
same movements can erect barriers to these ideals by “charging the market with the
responsibility for realizing them” (Lavin 2009). Is food a fashionable political issue
because food is inexorably tied to consumption, the ethos of which comes to the fore in
capitalist, consumerist politics? Here, a resurrection of my initial comparative analysis
between the U.S. and Italy (or another Western European country) will prove useful.
As both a physical substance and symbolic object, food offers a lens through
which to view the intersections of large-scale economic, political, and social processes
with small-scale, mundane, everyday routines (Wilk 2006). As such, food-centered
narratives and practices also reflect the social and economic changes and processes
brought on by capitalism, technology, and informational and bureaucratic complexities.
Anthropology is uniquely positioned to study the ways that food activism, such as that
promised by Slow Food, holds the potential to manifest itself in meaningful ways for
food producers and consumers. As evidenced in this study, singular examinations of
specific events or locales do not present a full portrait of either the Slow Food producer
or consumer.
196
These considerations highlight anthropology’s potential contribution to the larger
academic field of food studies, especially with regard to studies of food production and
consumption. Multiple avenues exist for further studies tracking the international spread
of the Slow Food movement and its various forms of knowledge across the globe.
Scholarly investigations on food issues have the potential to link academics more closely
with alternative agrifood movements like Slow Food, particularly in cases where research
can effectively counter-position the movement against neoliberal markets and systems
that exploit food producers. With an increased awareness of tensions between global and
local processes, anthropological investigation can reveal the ways in which everyday
social experiences surrounding food shift and expand over time and space.
197
APPENDIX A: SALUMI PROCESSING AT SPANNOCCHIA
Salumi Processing at Spannocchia

All Spannocchia’s salumi (cured meats) are made from the meat of our own
organically raised Cinta Senese pigs. We do all our own butchering and meat
processing on the premises.
Siena’s meats are famous around the world.

The city’s sausages have been revered since the time of the crusades.
“ Del maiale non si butta via niente”

“From a pig, you don’t throw away anything”
Prosciutto
Material: The back leg of the pig, including the foot.
Process: First it is massaged with a mixture of salt, pepper, vinegar and crushed garlic.
Then it is completely covered in salt for between 20-25 days. At this point it is washed
with cold water and the open part (or joint) is rubbed with strutto (lard) and covered with
pepper. Now it is ready for aging. During aging it is hung for at least 12 months
(sometimes up to 2 years) in a cool, humid environment.
When Ready: The meat should be bright red or pink with evident marbling of white fat.
The aroma and taste are very particular to this product. It can either be hand cut or sliced
thin with an electric slicer.
Capocollo
Material: The neck of the pig from the nape of the neck to the 5th rib.
Process: Meat is massaged with salt, black ground pepper, vinegar, and crushed garlic
and then covered with salt for three days. After this, it is washed and re-massaged and
covered with ground black pepper.
When Ready: It should be a long, round form about 25-35 cm long and 6-8 cm wide. The
meat is red with swirling areas of lighter pink. The flavor is intense and slightly spicy. It
should be sliced thin to serve.
198
Salsicce (Sausage)
Material: From lean and fatty cuts of meat left over after making the other salumi.
Process: The meat is finely ground and flavored with salt, pepper, and garlic. It is encased
in long casing, often pig intestine that has been cleaned and stretched. They are usually
prepared in long, connected strips, tied off between sausage with string.
When Ready: They can be eaten fresh or after a brief aging period. There are also
salsicce secche “dry sausages” that are made from leaner cuts of meat and aged for a
much longer period of time. The color should be red with a strong flavor and aroma.
Lardo
Material: Fatty white colored meat taken from the high part of the thorax, including the
skin.
Process: The meat is cut into big square chunks and coated with salt, ground black
pepper, chopped rosemary, bay leaves and juniper berries. It is aged for at least 90 days.
When Ready: The color should be white, with only very rare lines of more lean red meat.
The taste should be delicate and the texture smooth.
Soppressata
Material: Head, skin, fat and scraps.
Process: In a huge pot, boil everything together. Remove the bones. Add salt, pepper and
some spices including clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. The mixture is then put into
a large, porous cotton sack. The mixture is packed into the sack so that the liquid oozes
out. The form should be 20 cm wide.
When Ready: The meat is grey, white and maroon in varying degrees. The flavor is
intense and aromatic. The meat should be sliced as thinly as possible. It is not aged.
Buristo Senese
Material: The same cooked meat as the soppressata with pig blood added to it.
199
Process: The meat is mixed with salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, and other spices and
placed in a casing (usually the stomach or colon). It is then re-boiled in the liquid from
the first cooking of the meat. The form is very irregular, because of the different casings
used. It should be aged a few days.
When Ready: The meat is a dark reddish brown with small areas of white fat. The taste is
very particular.
Other cured meats we make are: guancia (from the cheeks), pancetta (the same cut as
American bacon but aged, not smoked), and spalla (front leg cured in the same way as
prosciutto which is a back leg), strutto and ciccioli (after the pork fat is cooked, the
liquid portion becomes strutto, lard, and the remaining small pieces of fat are ciccioli).
Document courtesy of the Spannocchia Foundation.

200
APPENDIX B: ARK OF TASTE GUIDELINES
Article 1
The selection and approval of products must be based on the following criteria:
1. Products must be of distinctive quality in terms of taste. ‘Taste quality’, in this

context, is defined in the context of local traditions and uses.
2. The product must be linked to the memory and identity of a group, and can be a
vegetable species, variety, ecotype or animal population that is well acclimatized over a
medium-long period in a specific territory (defined in relation to the history of the
territory). The primary material of the foodstuff must be locally sourced unless it comes
from an area outside the region of production, in which case it must be traditional to use
materials from that specific area. Any complementary materials used in the production of
the product (spices, condiments, etc.) may be from any source, and their use must be part
of the traditional production process.
3. Products must be linked environmentally, socio-economically and historically to a

specific area.
4. Products must be produced in limited quantities, by farms or by small-scale

processing companies.
5. Products must be threatened with either real or potential extinction
Article 2
General rules for Governance of the Ark:
1. GM products or GM-based products are forbidden.
2. No product using a trademark or commercial name may be introduced to the Ark.
3. The use of the Slow Food logo, name and trademark (or any variations thereof) is
forbidden on Ark and Presidia products and/or the packaging thereof.
4. Ark products must be produced in accordance with general Slow Food campaigns
and 'manifestos': for example the campaign in Defense of Raw Milk, that against
Transgenic Wine Production, and that in favor of Sustainable Fishing.
201
Article 3
The International Commission has the following responsibilities:
1. Defining the criteria and categories for the Ark.
2. Defining the general rules for the Ark.
3. Verifying compliance with the general rules by national Ark commissions.
4. Supporting the national commissions.
5. Assisting the creation of new national commissions in countries where these are
not yet present.
6. Verifying products and admitting them to the Ark in countries where there is not
national Ark commission.
Article 4
No national commission has the power to autonomously change the criteria and
regulations of the Ark.
Eventual changes in International Ark Commission Duties, and Criteria need to be

proposed by at least two members of the International Commission, at which time they
can be discussed and voted upon in any meeting at which at least two-thirds of
International Ark Commission members are present.
Article 5
The board of the national association (or the national coordinators) must present a
shortlist of names for the national commission and the name of the commission’s
chairperson to the International President’s Board and the Slow Food Foundation for
Biodiversity.
The national commission will be officially active only after it has been approved by the
International President’s Board and ratified by the Slow Food Foundation.
In a country without a board or national coordinators, the International President’s Board

will provide a shortlist of names for the commission and the name of the commission’s
chairperson to the Slow Food Foundation.
If the board of the national association (or the national coordinators) becomes aware of a
problem or the need to change a commission or a chairperson in the period between
international congresses, it must send written notification to the International President’s
Board and the Slow Food Foundation.
202
If the International President’s Board becomes aware of a problem or the need to change
a commission or a chairperson in the period between international congresses, it must
send written notification to the board of the national association (or the national
coordinators) and the Slow Food Foundation.
If the Slow Food Foundation becomes aware of a problem or the need to change a
commission or a chairperson in the period between international congresses, it must send
written notification to the board of the national association (or the national coordinators)
and the International President’s Board.
When an agreement cannot be reached, the International President’s Board will make the
final decision.
All commission members must also be members of Slow Food.
The position of chairperson of a national commission cannot be held by the president of

the national association or the head of the national coordinators.
Article 6
After every International Congress, all national commissions will be dissolved and must
be reappointed.
Article 7
Commissioners will be asked to leave the International Ark Commission in the following
cases:
1. They do not follow the International Ark Guidelines
2. They do not develop their National Commission (if they have no current national
commission)
3. Given due consideration of regional differences, they do not complete the work of
the National Commission, for example, in the space of a year the country they represent
submits less than three Ark products that have been reviewed and researched (up to the
point that the National Ark is declared 'complete') or they are unable to show work
completed on the Presidia project in said time period.
4. Are no longer part of the International Slow Food Movement
(Developed by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, Accessed online at

http://www.fondazioneslowfood.it/ October 28, 2011)
203
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Benedict
1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism. London: Verso.
Andrews, Geoff
2008 The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure. Montreal: McGill Queen’s
University Press.
Appadurai, Arjun.
1981 Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia. American Ethnologist 8(3): 494-
511.
1988 How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India.
Comparative Studies in Society and History 30(1): 3-24.
1996 Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Public
Worlds, Volume One. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Beck, Ulrich
1998 Cosmopolitan Manifesto. New Statesman 127, 20 March: 28-30.
2002 The Cosmopolitan Society and its Enemies. Theory, Culture & Society
19(1–2):17-44.
Belasco, Warren J.
1989 Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry.
New York: Pantheon.
2006 Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Berry, Wendell
1990 What Are People For? New York: North Point Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre
1984 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
2001 Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market 2. Loïc Wacquant, trans.
New York: The New Press.
Brierley, William and Luca Giacometti

1996 Italian National Identity and Failure of Regionalism. In Nation and
Identity in Europe. Brian Jenkins and Spyros Sofos, eds. Pp. 172-197.
London: Routledge.
204
Buford, Bill
2006 Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-
Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. New
York: Vintage Books.
Byrne, Paul
1997 Social Movements in Britain. London: Routledge.
Capatti, Alberto and Massimo Montanari

1999 Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History. Áine O'Healy, trans. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Capo, Enrico
1995 Transformation and Development in Italian Rural Society. Sociologia
Ruralis 35(3/4):297-308.
Cavanaugh, Jillian
2007 Making Salami, Producing Bergamo: The Transformation of Value.
Ethnos 72(2): 149-172.
Chadwell, Sean
2002 Do Large Italian American Families Really Eat at the Olive Garden?
Ethnic Food Marketing and the Consumption of Authenticity. Studies in
Popular Culture 24(3): 1-15
Chrzan, Janet
2004 Slow Food: What, Why, and to Where? Food, Culture, and Society
7(2):117-132
2008 Dreaming of Tuscany: Pursuing the Anthropology of Culinary Tourism.
Expedition 49(2):21-27.
CIA World Factbook

2011 Italy. Central Intelligence Agency: The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/it.html,
accessed October 15, 2011.
Cinelli, Delfino
2005[1928] Castiglione che Dio Sol Sa. [The Castle That Only God Knows.]
Archie Stone, trans. Florence, Italy: Sator Siena.
Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff

2003 Ethnography on an Awkward Scale: Postcolonial Anthropology and the
Violence of Abstraction. Ethnography 4(2):147-179.
205
Conklin, Beth and Laura Graham

1995 The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco-Politics.
American Anthropologist 97(4):695-710.
Counihan, Carole
2004 Around the Tuscan Table. New York: Routledge.
Csordas, Thomas
2002 Body/Meaning/Healing. New York: Palgrave.
Dalla Costa, Mariarosa, and Dario De Bortoli

2005 For Another Agriculture and Another Food Policy in Italy. The
Commoner 10, http://www.commoner.org.uk/, accessed October 2006.
DeBlasi, Marlena
2004 A Thousand Days in Tuscany. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books.
DeLind, Laura
2000 Transforming Organic Agriculture into Industrial Organic Products:
Reconsidering National Organic Standards. Human Organization
59(2):198-208.
DeRoest, Kees and Alberto Menghi

2002 Reconsidering ‘Traditional’ Food: The Case of Parmigiano Reggiano
Cheese. Sociologia Ruralis 40(4):439-451.
Desmarais, Annette-Aurélie
2002 The Via Campesina: Consolidating an International Peasant and Farm
Movement. The Journal of Peasant Studies 29(2): 91-124.
Donati, Kelly
2005 The Pleasure of Diversity in Slow Food’s Ethics of Taste. Food, Culture
& Society 8(2):227‐242.
Edelman, Mark
2001 Social Movements: Changing Paradigms and Forms of Politics. Annual
Review of Anthropology 30:285-317.
2005 Bringing the Moral Economy Back In…To the Study of 21 st-Century
Transnational Peasant Movements. American Anthropologist 107(3):331-
345.
Elon, Beth
2009 A Culinary Traveller in Tuscany: Exploring and Eating Off the Beaten
Track. New York: The Little Bookroom.
206
Fantasia, Rick
1995 Fast Food in France. Theory and Society 24(2): 201-243
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)

2006 Farm Animal Biodiversity. http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0609sp1.htm,
accessed December 4, 2010.
Ferriѐres, Madeline
2006 Sacred Cow, Mad Cow: A History of Food Fears. Jody Gladding, trans.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Fiddes, Nick
1991 Meat: A Natural Symbol. New York: Routledge.
Fisher, Carolyn
2007 Selling Coffee, or Selling Out?: Evaluating Different Ways to Analyze the
Fair-Trade System. Culture & Agriculture 29(2):78-88.
Fonte, Maria
2006 Slow Food’s Presidia: What Do Small Producers Do with Big Retailers?
In Between the Local and the Global: Confronting Complexity in the
Contemporary Agri-Food Sector. Terry Marsden and Jonathan Murdoch,
eds. Pp. 203-239. Research in Rural Society and Development, 12.
Oxford: Elsevier.
Foer, Jonathan Safran

2009 Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Friedberg, Susan
2003 Cleaning Up Down South: Supermarkets, Ethical Trade and African
Horticulture. Social and Cultural Geography 4, 27– 43.
Gagnier, Reginia
2001 The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market
Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gewertz, Deborah and Frederick Errington

2010 Cheap Meat: Flap Food Nations in the Pacific Islands. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Goffman, Erving
1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday
Anchor Books.
207
Goodman, David
2002 Rethinking Food Production‐Consumption: Integrative Perspectives.
Sociologia Ruralis 42(4):271‐277.
2004 Rural Europe Redux? Reflections on Alternative Agro-Food Networks and
Paradigm Change. Sociologica Ruralis 44(1):3-16.
Goracci, Jacopo
2005 Cinta Senese: Processo di Valorizzazione Non Ancora Concluso. [Cinta
Senese: Certification Process Still Not Completed.] News da Terra Madre
[News from Terra Madre], January 12. http://www.slowfood.it/sloweb/ita
/dettaglio.lasso?cod=3E6E345C1d5291D990htu43433DF,
accessed November 10, 2010.
Graham, Laura and Brenda Farnell

1996 Discourse Centered Methods. In Handbook of Methods in Cultural
Anthropology. H. R. Bernard, ed. Pp. 411-419. London: Altamira Press.
Guinti Gruppo Editoriale

2001 Viaggio in Toscana: Alla Scoperta dei Prodotti Tipici. [Journey Through
Tuscany to Discover Typical Products.] Florence, Italy: Giunti.
Giuliano, Paola
2006 Living Arrangements in Western Europe: Does Cultural Origin Matter?
Journal of the European Economic Association 5(5):927-952.
Guidry, John, with Michael D. Kennedy and Mayer N. Zald

2000 Globalization and Social Movements: Culture, Power, and the
Transnational Public Sphere. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Press.
Guthman, Julie
2003 Fast food/organic food: reﬂexive tastes and the making of ‘yuppie chow.’
Social & Cultural Geography 4(1):45-58.
2004 Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California.
Hannerz, Ulf
2003a Being there... and there... and there!: Reflections on Multi-Site
Ethnography. Ethnography 4(2):201-216.
2003b Several Sites in One: On Multi-Sited Fieldwork. In Globalisation: Studies
in Anthropology. Thomas Hylland Eriksen, ed. Pp. 18-38. London: Pluto
Press.
Harper, Douglas and Patrizia Faccioli

2009 The Italian Way: Food and Social Life. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
208
Harvey, Mark, with Andrew McMeekin and Alan Warde, eds.

2004 Qualities of Food. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Hayes-Conroy, Allison and Jessica Hayes-Conroy

2010 Visceral Difference: Variations in Feeling (Slow) Food. Environment and
Planning 42(12):2956-2971.
Heldke, Lisa L
2001 Let’s Eat Chinese: Reflections on Cultural Food Colonialism.
Gastronomica 1(2):76-79.
Helstosky, Carol
2004 Garlic and Oil: Food and Politics in Italy. New York: Berg.
Hernandez, Michael and David Sutton

2003 Hands that Remember: An Ethnographic Approach for Everyday Cooking.
Expedition 45(2):30-37.
Herzfeld, Michael
1997 Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York:
Routledge.
2009 Evicted From Eternity: The Restructuring of Modern Rome. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Hinrichs, C. Clare
2003 The Practice and Politics of Food System Localization. Journal of Rural
Studies 19(1):33-45.
Hirtz, Frank
2003 It Takes Modern Means to be Traditional: On Recognizing Indigenous
Cultural Communities in the Philippines. Development and Change, 34(5):
887–917.
Honoré, Carl
2004 In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the
Cult of Speed. Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada.
Hooper, John
2004 Peasant farmers of the world unite! The Guardian. October 20: G2, 8-9.
Horn, David.
1991 Constructing the Sterile City: Pronatalism and Social Sciences in Interwar
Italy. American Ethnologist 18(3): 581-601.
209
Human Rights Watch

2010 Italy: Speed Investigations of Rosarno Attacks, Government Should
Signal Zero Tolerance for Racist Violence. February 4, 2010.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/02/04/italy-speed-investigations-rosarno-
attacks, accessed October 2, 2011.
Il Pennato (The Spannocchia Intern Newsletter)

2009 Discovering Sopressata and Community. Il Pennato 8(1):7-8.
Johnston, Josée and Shyon Baumann

2010 Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape. New
York: Routledge.
Jones, Peter, with Peter Shears, David Hillier, Daphne Comfort, and Jonathan Lowell
2003 Return to Traditional Values? A Case Study of Slow Food. British Food
Journal 105(4/5):297-304.
Kearney, Michael
1995 The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and
Transnationalism. Annual Review of Anthropology 24:547-565.
Kloppenburg, Jack, with Sharon Lezberg, Kathryn de Master, G.W. Stevenson, and John
Hendrickson
2000 Tasting Food, Tasting Sustainability: Defining the Attributes of an
Alternative Food System with Competent, Ordinary People. Human
Organization 59(2):177-186.
Knox, Paul.
2005 Creating Ordinary Places: Slow Cities in a Fast World. Journal of Urban
Design 10(1): 1-11.
Krause, Elizabeth
2005 Encounters with the “Peasant”: Memory Work, Masculinity, and Low
Fertility in Italy. American Ethnologist 32(4):593-617.
Lavin, Chad
2009 The Year of Eating Politically. Theory and Event 12(2).
Lebovics, Herman
2005 Why Did They Trash that McDo? Paper presented for the Ida Beam
Distinguished Visiting Professor lecture series, Iowa City, Iowa, February
23.
Leitch, Alison
2003 Slow Food and the Politics of Pork Fat: Italian Food and European
Identity. Ethnos 68(4):437-462.
210
Lockie, Stuart
2002 ‘The Invisible Mouth’: Mobilizing ‘the Consumer’ in Food Production–
Consumption Networks. Sociologia Ruralis 42(2):278-294.
London Economics
2008 Evaluation of the CAP Policy on Protected Designations of Origin (PDO)
and Protected Geographical Indications (PGI): Short Summary.
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/eval/reports/pdopgi/
short_sum_en.pdf, accessed October 30, 2011.
Long, Norman
1996 Globalization and Localization: New Challenges to Rural Research. In
The Future of Anthropological Knowledge. Henrietta Moore, ed. Pp. 37-
59. London: Routledge.
Lotti, Ariane
2010 The Commoditization of Products and Taste: Slow Food and the
Conservation of Agrobiodiversity. Agriculture and Human Values 27:71-
83.
MacClancy, Jeremy
2004 Food, Identity, Identification. In Researching Food Habits: Methods and
Problems. Helen Macbeth and Jeremy MacClancy, eds. Pp.63-73. New
York: Berghahn Books.
Manacorda, Marco and Enrico Moretti

2006 Why Do Most Italian Youths Live with Their Parents?: Intergenerational
Transfers and Household Structure. Journal of the European Economic
Association 4(4):800-829.
Máté, Ferenc
1998 The Hills of Tuscany: A New Life in an Old Land. New York: Albatross
Books.
Matos, Rafael
2002 Can “slow tourism” bring new life to Alpine regions? In Leisure Futures:
Center for Tourism and Service Economics Symposium, Univ. of
Innsbruck (Innsbruck, April 11-13, 2002). Pp. 254-263. Binghamton:
The Haworth Press.
Mayes, Frances
1997 Under the Tuscany Sun: At Home in Italy. New York: Broadway Books.
211
McWilliams, James
2009 Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat
Responsibly. New York: Little, Brown & Company.
Meneley, Anne
2004 Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Slow Food. Anthropologica 46:165-176.
Miele, Mara and Jonathan Murdoch

2002 The Practical Aesthetics of Traditional Cuisines: Slow Food in Tuscany.
Sociologica Ruralis 42(4):312-328.
Mintz, Sidney
1985 Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York:
Viking Press.
2006 Food at Moderate Speeds. In Fast Food/Slow Food: The Cultural
Economy of the Global Food System. Richard Wilk, ed. Pp. 3-11.
Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.
Morgen, Sandra
2002 Into Our Own Hands: The Women's Health Movement in the United
States, 1969-1990. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Murcott, Anne
2001 Public Beliefs About GM foods: More on the Makings of a Considered
Sociology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 15(1): 9-19.
Nazarea, Virginia
2006 Local Knowledge and Memory in Biodiversity Conservation. Annual
Review of Anthropology, 35, 317-335.
Pacini, Giovanni and Francesco Madeo

N.d. La Cinta Senese: La sua Storia, Dalle Origini ad Oggi. [The Cinta Senese:
Its History, From its Origins to Today.] Amministrazione Provinciale di
Siena.
Pacini, Giovanni and Arianna Scatena

2005 Cinta Senese. Monteriggioni, Italy: Industria Grafica Pistolesi Editrice Il
Leccio.
Painter, Michael
1984 Changing Relations of Production and Rural Underdevelopment. Journal
of Anthropological Research 40(2):271-292.
212
Paolini, David
2003 Food: Language, Thought, Identity. In Globalization and Multicultural
Societies: Some Views From Europe. Marina Ricciardelli, Sabine Urban
and Kostas Nanopoulos, eds. Pp. 287-292. Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame Press.
Parasecoli, Fabio
2003 Postrevolutionary Chowhounds: Food, Globalization, and the Italian Left.
Gastronomica 3(3):29-39.
Parkins, Wendy, and Geoffrey Craig

2006 Slow Living. New York: Berg.
2009 Culture and the Politics of Alternative Food Networks. Food, Culture and
Society 12(1):77-103.
Patel, Rajeev
2007 Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.
Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing.
Paxson, Heather
2008 Post-Pasteurian Cultures: The Microbiopolitics of Raw-Milk Cheese in the
United States. Cultural Anthropology 23(1):15-47.
2010 Locating Value in Artisan Cheese: Reverse Engineering
Terroir for New-World Landscapes. American Anthropologist
112(3):444-457.
Peace, Adrian
2006 Barossa Slow: The Representation and Rhetoric of Slow Food’s Regional
Cooking. Gastronomica 6(1):51-59
2008 Terra Madre 2006: Political Theater and Ritual Rhetoric in the Slow Food
Movement. Gastronomica 8(2):31-39.
Peterson, Richard and Roger Kern

1996 Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore. American
Sociological Review 61(5):900-107.
Petrini, Carlo
2001 Slow Food: The Case for Taste. New York: Colombia University Press.
2005 Buono, Pulito e Guisto: Principi di Nuova Gastronomia. [Good, Clean
and Fair: Principles of a New Gastronomy.] Turin: Giulio Einaudi
Editore.
2007 Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, and Fair. New
York: Rizzoli ex libris.
2010 Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food
Communities. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.
213
Pietrykowski, Bruce
2004 You Are What You Eat: The Social Economy of the Slow Food
Movement. Review of Social Economy 62(3):307-320.
Pilcher, Jeffery
2006 Taco Bell Maseca, and Slow Food: A Postmodern Apocalypse for
Mexico’s Peasant Cuisine? In Fast Food/Slow Food: The Cultural
Economy of the Global Food System. Richard Wilk, ed. Pp. 69-81.
Pinder, John
1998 The Building of the European Union. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Pollan, Michael
2006 The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York:
The Penguin Press.
Qazi, Joan and Theresa Selfa

2005 The Politics of Building Alternative Agro-food Networks in the Belly
of Agro-industry. Food, Culture and Society 8(1):45-72.
Redford, Kent
1990 The Ecologically Noble Savage. Orion 9:24-29.
Regione Toscana [Region of Tuscany]

2011 Agricoltura e Foreste [Agriculture and Forests].
http://www.regione.toscana.it/, accessed October 8, 2011.
Roseberry, William.
2005 The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the
United States. In The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating. Watson
and Caldwell, eds. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Pp. 122-143.
Roseman, Sharon.
2004 Bioregulation and Comida Caseira in Rural Galicia, Spain. Identities:
Global Studies in Culture and Power 11: 9-27.
Ross, Silvia
2010 Tuscan Spaces: Literary Constructions of Place. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press.
Ritzer, George
1993 The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
Said, Edward
1979 Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
214
Sapontzis, Steve, ed.

2004 Food for Thought: The Debate Over Eating Meat. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books.
Sassatelli, Roberta
2007 Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics. London: Sage.
Sassatelli, Roberta and Federica Davolio

2010 Consumption, Pleasure and Politics: Slow Food and the Politico-Aesthetic
Problematization of Food. Journal of Consumer Culture 10(2): 202-232.
Scarpellini, Emanuela
2004 Shopping American-style: The Arrival of the Supermarket in Postwar
Italy. Enterprise and Society 5(4): 625-668.
Schneider, Stephen
2008 Good, Clean, Fair: The Rhetoric of the Slow Food Movement. College
English 70(4):384-402.
Schneider, Jane (Ed.)

1998 Italy's 'Southern Question': Orientalism in One Country. New York:
Berg.
Schlosser, Eric
2001 Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All‐American Meal. New York:
Perennial.
Siena Province News

2007 Iniziative per il rilancio della Cinta Senese. [Initiatives for the Revival of
the Cinta Senese]. Siena Provincia Informa: Notizie [Siena Province
Information: News], March 13. http://www.provincia.siena.it/pages/
prov_info.asp?cod=8&dettNews=display&ne_id=286, accessed June 25,
2011.
Simon, Michèle
2006 Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and
How to Fight Back. New York: Nation Books.
Slow Food Editore

2007 Salumi d’Italia: Guida alla Scoperta e alla Conoscenza. [Salumi of Italy: A
Guide to Discovering and Understanding]. 3rd Edition. Bra, Italy: Slow
Food Editore.
215
Slow Food International

2006 Our Philosophy. http://www.slowfood.com/about_us/eng/philosophy.
lasso, accessed March1, 2010.
2010 Slow Food Manifesto for Quality. http://www.slowfood.com/
_2010_pagine/com/popup_pagina.lasso?-id_pg=122, accessed
October 8, 2011.
Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity

2011 Who We Are. http://www.slowfoodfoundation.org/, accessed October 11,
2011.
Sonnino, Roberta
1999 Farmers, Tourists, and “Sustainable” Development. A Case Study in
Tuscany. KU Anthropologist 11.
2004 For a ‘Piece of Bread’? Interpreting Sustainable Development Through
Agritourism in Southern Tuscany. Sociologia Ruralis 44(3):285-300.
Spannocchia Foundation
2011 2012 Spannocchia Farm Internship Program Applicant Information.
http://www.spannocchia.org/internships/farm-internships.cfm, accessed
October 14, 2011.
Squires, Nick
2011 Italian Town Bans Any New Kebab Shops or Other ‘Ethnic Food.’ The
Telegraph, October 14. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/, accessed October
25, 2011.
Stacul, Jaro.
2003 The Bounded Field: Localism and Local Identity in an Italian Alpine
Valley. New York: Berghahn Books.
Steager, Tabitha
2009 You Say Pleasurable, I Say Political: Political Activism and Cultural
Translation in the Slow Food Movement. MA Thesis, Interdisciplinary
Studies, University of British Columbia.
Sutton, David
2001 Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory.
Oxford: Berg.
Tasch, Woody
2008 Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and
Fertility Mattered. White River, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.
216
Terra Madre Foundation

2011 Terra Madre 2006. http://www.terramadre.info/pagine/incontri/
welcome.lasso?id=5232CF8A11b3b23296oun3D500AE&tp=3, accessed
September 8, 2011.
Trubek, Amy
2009 The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Tucker, Michael
2007 Living in a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Love in
Italy. New York: Grove Press.
Van Der Meulen, Hielke

2008 The Emergence of Slow Food: Social Entrepreneurship, Local Foods, and
the Piedmont Gastronomy Cluster. In Pathways to High-tech Valleys and
Research Triangles: Innovative Entrepreneurship, Knowledge Transfer
and Cluster Formation in Europe and the United States. W. Hulsink and
H. Dons, eds. Pp. 225-247. New York: Springer.
Van Der Ploeg, Jan Douwe with Henk Renting, Gianluca Brunori, Karlheinz Knickel, Joe
Mannion, Terry Marsden, Kees De Roest, Eduardo Sevilla-Guzmán, and
Flaminia Ventura
2002 Rural Development: From Practices and Policies Towards Theory.
Watson, James, ed.

1998 Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Watson, James and Melissa Caldwell, eds.

2005 The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
White, Geoffrey
2001 Histories and Subjectivities. Ethos 28(4): 493-510.
Wilk, Richard
2006a Fast Food/Slow Food: The Cultural Economy of the Global Food System.
2006b Home Cooking in the Global Village. Oxford: Berg.
217
Wolf, Eric
1969 Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper and Row.
Yan, Yunxiang
2000 Of Hamburger and Social Space, Consuming McDonald’s in Beijing. In
The Consumer Revolution in Urban China. Deborah Davis, ed. Pp. 201-
225. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Savoring Ideology - An Ethnography of Production and Consumption I

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Savoring Ideology - An Ethnography of Production and Consumption I

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Savoring Ideology - An Ethnography of Production and Consumption I

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

University of Iowa

Iowa Research Online

Theses and Dissertations

Savoring ideology: an ethnography of production and

Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd

Part of the Anthropology Commons

Copyright 2011 Rachel Anne Horner Brackett

This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2715

Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd

CONSUMPTION IN SLOW FOOD'S ITALY

Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Erica S. Prussing

socially and ecologically aware consumerism. However, Slow Food’s rhetorical

ecologic and cultural sustainability on daily basis. Multi-sited ethnographic research

conducted in Italy between 2006-2009 explores 1) international, national, and regional

tourism estate). Through an analysis of discursive messages that consumers receive, on

obviously on fields and farms.

Current scholarly work on alternative food networks emphasizes the structural

and economic processes that connect food producers to politically-conscious consumers.

small-scale, organic food producers in Italy. An emphasis on the relationships between

producers and consumers underscores the changing nature of society’s relationship to

to local, national, and global change.

Abstract Approved: ____________________________________

CONSUMPTION IN SLOW FOOD'S ITALY

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Erica S. Prussing

RACHEL ANNE HORNER BRACKETT

All Rights Reserved

This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of

Rachel Anne Horner Brackett

has been approved by the Examining Committee

Thesis Committee: ___________________________________

organizations. First, I am indebted to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological

Research Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, which made my research in Italy financially

Department of Anthropology Summer Research Fellowship. I was also fortunate to

Department of Education to fine tune my Italian language skills.

Foundation for cooperation on this project. To Spannocchia’s employees, interns, guests,

better group of people to work with.

through this intellectual journey. I am grateful to my entire committee for providing

In particular, I am amazed by the unwavering support of my parents, Mark and Michele

encouragement. Equally astounding is the boundless love and enthusiasm of my

socially and ecologically aware consumerism. However, Slow Food’s rhetorical

ecologic and cultural sustainability on daily basis. Multi-sited ethnographic research

conducted in Italy between 2006-2009 explores 1) international, national, and regional

tourism estate). Through an analysis of discursive messages that consumers receive, on

obviously on fields and farms.

Current scholarly work on alternative food networks emphasizes the structural

and economic processes that connect food producers to politically-conscious consumers.

small-scale, organic food producers in Italy. An emphasis on the relationships between

producers and consumers underscores the changing nature of society’s relationship to

to local, national, and global change.

LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................vii

The Rise of Slow Food .................................................................................. 4

CHAPTER ONE: SITUATING SLOW FOOD .............................................................. 18

Portrait One: Sofia’s perspective on Slow Food........................................... 18

CHAPTER TWO: INFORMING TASTE ...................................................................... 41

Salone del Gusto ......................................................................................... 41

CHAPTER THREE: CREATING FOOD IN TUSCANY .............................................. 72