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R.I.P. Carlo Petrini, Slow Food Founder, Visionary for Better Food
- Bob Benenson
- 5 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Italy-Based Organization Boosted Efforts for Healthier, Sustainable Food System
The international movement for a better, healthier food system had a very low profile in 1986 when Carlo Petrini started his Slow Food organization in his hometown of Bra, Italy.
The name Slow Food arose as a response to the rise of fast food culture and protests over McDonald's plans to open a restaurant close to Rome's historic Spanish Steps. Over the next 40 years, until his death on May 21 at age 76, Petrini gained iconic status among those advocating for food produced more sustainably, locally and humanely than that provided by the dominant conventional food system.
I never met Carlo Petrini, but I surely knew of him, and his beliefs about good food for all resonated with me. Some friends and acquintances had the good fortune to attend Slow Food's Tierra Madre (Mother Earth) gatherings in Italy, and describe it as a lifetime experience.
Here are just some of tributes paid to Petrini upon his passing:
New York Times obituary
Carlo Petrini, whose embrace of seasonal foods, sustainable farming and traditional cooking as the founder of the Slow Food movement helped transform the way millions of people think about what they grow, how they cook and how they eat, died at his home in Bra, Italy, south of Turin, on May 21. He was 76.
Slow Food, the organization he founded in 1986 and led until 2022, announced the death, from prostate cancer.
It can be hard to remember a time when grocery stores didn’t offer much beyond frozen, processed foods, or when fast-food restaurants were the only option in town. The plethora of alternatives today — organic brands, farmers’ markets, restaurants that prioritize fresh ingredients — is due in large part to decades of work by Mr. Petrini.
He did not promote food as a luxury item, nor did he agree with those who fetishized, say, heirloom arugula for its own sake. But he was a pioneering voice in calling for an end to the worldwide conveyor belt of cheap, low-nutrient foods, which dealt an enormous cost to the planet, human culture and our bodies. Instead, he urged people at all points in the supply chain to embrace food that was, he said, “good, clean and fair.”
Slow Food USA
A visionary leader and public intellectual with a profound commitment to the common good, human relationships, and the natural world, Carlo Petrini founded Slow Food, the international Terra Madre gathering, and the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo. Through these initiatives, he brought to life a global movement rooted in the values of good, clean, and fair food for all, connecting communities, farmers, food artisans, cooks, activists, and young people across the world.
Marion Nestle, author and Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Emerita at New York University
Much has and will be written about his monumental importance to the Slow Food movement and to the food movement in general. His story about its founding is legendary, triggered as it was by the placement of a McDonald’s at the base of the Spanish Steps in Rome. Slow Food was to be the opposite of Fast Food—a celebration of the deliciousness of traditional, “real” foods consumed around the world. He taught the world to treasure them.
He also established the University of Gastronomy in Bra, an exciting place; I taught there once.
Alas, I do not speak Italian, so I never got to know him well. But I heard him speak many times (particularly enjoyably when translated by Corby Kummer). I thought he was brilliant, and funny. Our meetings were always warm and affectionate.
Here is one memory. At the Slow Food Terra Madre in Turin in 2016, he drove up to me on an electric bike and insisted I get on it immediately. I took the photo right after that.
There he was, surrounded by adoring fans. I count myself among them.
This is an irreplaceable loss to the food movement, to humanity, and to me.
Fred Plotkin, food and culture writer, and longtime friend of Carlo Petrini
My friend Carlo Petrini has died. Known to his friends as Carlin, he was a genuine visionary who helped found and was the emotional and intellectual force of the Slow Food movement that changed the way the world thinks of food and sustainability and how food is about culture and identity that "foodies" and "influencers" cannot fathom. He was the Noah who built the "Ark of Taste" that saved thousands of plants, fruits, vegetables, herbs, cheeses, meats, wines and so much more from the scourge of standardization and mass market consumption.
Carlin and I met in Rome in the mid 1980s. He was speaking at a demonstration near the Spanish Steps, protesting the potential closure of a beloved local coffee bar to be replaced by one of the first McDonald's in Italy. It happened to be my local coffee bar and I was drawn to what he was saying. He was one of the most charismatic speakers I have ever come across and even people who spoke no Italian were mesmerized by him. As this was a neighborhood full of tourists, I stepped up next to Carlo and offered to simultaneously translate his speech into English. Someone called out, "if you are against fast food, what are you for?" Carlo knew just enough English to say, "Slow Food!" Someone asked what that is and he grinned and replied, in Italian, "When I know, I will let you know!"
As a brilliant writer, philosopher and a man of the Left who did not see food as the exclusive province of the rich and the fashionable, he evolved his thoughts on a movement that sought to give value and worth to the people who struggled to maintain traditions that understood how every tomato, pear, asparagus stalk, lentil, bean and wine grape represented life, history and a sense of identity to those who cultivated and transformed them into food, ate them and shared them with others.
Local Food Forum honors Carlo Petrini's legacy.