Terra Madre Day Blog

Terra Madre Day: done and dusted

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:10:43 +1000

Thanks to all the participants in Terra Madre Day this year:
• Eat-Out restaurants and cafes - Maudy’s at Witta, Pomodoras on Coral at Maleny, Spicers Clovelly Estate at Montville, Bellavista at Mapleton, Husk & Honey at Nambour (see above), Hinterland Heart at Nambour, and Rattler Cafe at Imbil
• Eat-In hosts and helpers - Tumii at Crystal Waters, all guests at Maleny, Elsie & team at Mapleton, and Sharon & team at Nambour
• Eumundi Twilight Market - Peter & team and all the stallholders at the Slow Food market
Many participants commented that Terra Madre Day was a great opportunity to celebrate local foods and re-connect with food producers. In fact, why wait a whole year until the next one! We hope 2010 will be bigger and better. See you then!

Terra Madre Day Twilight Market at Eumundi

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 06:53:13 +1000

I’m so excited about this news!
Yesterday I met with Peter Homan and about 20 food stallholders from Eumundi Market. It was a hot and sticky afternoon after what sounds like a rather sluggish market, so the turnout and level of enthusiasm were remarkable on several counts! With little encouragement, they agreed to theme their twilight market on Thursday, 10th of December around Slow Food and Terra Madre Day.
Stallholders will feature one dish or item (at least!) that uses principally local ingredients. Slow Food will give those stallholders a ‘Certificate of Participation’ - endorsing, if you like, their ‘slowness’ and providing a visual flag to customers that this stall is mindful of supporting our local food economy, and recognises the importance of connecting co-producers with the source of their food.
More information will come out in the next few weeks but please consider including Eumundi in your Snail Trail itinerary on the 10th of December!

Putting food at the centre of our lives

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:51:01 +1000

Editorial from the October 2009 Slow Food & Terra Madre Newsletter
 In seeking, eating and promoting food that is good and sustainable, and which can revive large and small processes of social justice, we cannot disregard the communities who understand how to put food at the center of their lives. The community dimension makes real the convivial spirit in its broadest definition. A fruitful alliance between co-producer and producer can only come about from this perspective.   To create this alliance and make it sustainable, we need to pay attention to the local aspect, exploring our surroundings, favoring seasonal foods, getting to know the people of the place where we live, preserving and passing on the memory and the story of our “local adaptation.” These are the starting points, or rather, the restarting points: places, territories.  Terra Madre Day will be one of the many sparks able to launch a new humanism in the world, an option that is no longer just a choice, but a necessity. Perhaps this project sounds overly ambitious, but in reality it is within everyone’s reach, because it starts from the rediscovery of simple things and does not involve sacrifices or shame, but begins from pleasure and develops with pleasure.  The Terra Madre food communities remind me of the parish churches during the fall of the Roman Empire. In its last three centuries of decline and decadence, the senators continued to pass laws in Rome, while spaces of autonomy took shape in the parishes, the people elected their own priest, and forms of grassroots government came into being. This is the image that I like to think about when I think about Terra Madre Day: food communities as post-modern parishes. While the consumerist empire falls victim to its own misdeeds, to the impulse to grow without limits, eating ourselves and the Earth, in the food communities they pay no attention to its diktaks and instead practice the austere anarchy of Terra Madre.   Their approach feeds on the pleasure of putting food at the center of our lives: the pleasure of a life full of stimuli, flavors, stories, conviviality.   I am sure that every Terra Madre Day initiative will communicate this pleasure to the world. It will be a new way of tackling crises, a new way of constructing a future that is better, cleaner and fairer.  Carlo Petrini President of Slow Food International

Cafes & restaurants join in

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 21:12:51 +1000

Seven cafes and restaurants throughout the Sunshine Coast Hinterland will be the first eating establishments on the ‘Snail Trail’ map for Terra Madre Day on the 10th of December.

These include Pomodoras on coral (Maleny), Spicers Clovelly Estate (Montville), Ma’ Mensa (Noosa), and Husk & Honey (Nambour).

In addition, three Slow Food supporters have already put up their hands to host an Eat-In in their local town (Crystal Waters, Maleny and Nambour).

Stay tuned for more updates - the numbers are growing every day!

What is Terra Madre? (Part 2)

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 10:48:19 +1000