What do hand-shelled chickpeas have in common with Amtrak?

In her 2021 book We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto, restaurateur Alice Waters describes the tedious process of hand-shelling chickpeas and fava beans, a time-consuming task she says all restaurant workers should engage in for a number of reasons:

“That task connects them to the season and the time of year, and the cooks are so grateful for their work. … When you’re shelling your own beans or peas, you also value them more: It took this much time to end up with one little bowl. You also understand the value of the person who might otherwise do that kind of work for you. Everyone should understand what it takes to pick beans in the field, or, for that matter, wash dishes in a restaurant.”

At first glance, this process would have little to do with traveling on Amtrak — especially considering that Alice Waters runs a high-end restaurant in Berkeley and that meals on Amtrak often consist of mini pizzas, cheeseburgers, and other microwaved dishes.

But one can trace a connection here, from Chez Panisse in Berkeley, through Rome, Paris and Norway’s most popular television event, to America’s underfunded rail system.

Alice Waters founded Chez Panisse in 1971, serving a set menu that changes daily, highlighting local in-season ingredients. The restaurant forged relationships with nearby ranchers, fishers, orchardists, foragers, farmers and backyard gardeners, bringing the products of regenerative agriculture to the tables of Chez Panisse.

When Chez Panisse was in its 15th year, a group of Italians with whom Waters would later unite learned that McDonald’s planned to open a franchise near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

The outraged Italians launched a protest, and rather than carry signs as many do, these protestors instead chose to garner more attention in their fight against Big Macs, fries and homogenization by handing out bowls of pasta with the slogan: “We don’t want fast food… we want slow food!”

Liberation from velocity

The protest didn’t stop the opening of the McDonald’s, but three years after the protests, this growing movement formalized itself with the signing of the Slow Food Manifesto in Paris. Railing against the prevailing culture of speed, the manifesto reads in part:

“Homo sapiens must regain wisdom and liberate itself from the ‘velocity’ that is propelling it on the road to extinction. Let us defend ourselves against the universal madness of ‘the fast life’ with tranquil material pleasure … Appropriately, we will start in the kitchen, with Slow Food. To escape the tediousness of “fast-food”, let us rediscover the rich varieties and aromas of local cuisines…

We can begin by cultivating taste, rather than impoverishing it, by stimulating progress, by encouraging international exchange programs, by endorsing worthwhile projects, by advocating historical food culture and by defending old-fashioned food traditions.”

The movement took the snail as its symbol and grew worldwide, now counting 1 million members in 160 countries. It also grew in multiple dimensions, spawning Slow movements in many other aspects of human life.

In his 2004 book, In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed, journalist Carl Honoré documented the rising backlash against speed, a backlash that, he writes, overlaps with the anti-globalization movement.

Chapter by chapter, Honoré outlined the proliferation of the Slow movements: food, cities, mind/body, medicine, sex, work, leisure and children. Search online and you will also find even more: Slow Aging, Slow Cinema, Slow Consumption, Slow Fashion, Slow Technology and Slow Travel.

Clearly, the initial protestors in Italy were on to something, seizing on a feeling shared by many around the world.

The McDonald’s at the Spanish Steps still stands there today — but, in a boost for the Slow Food movement, in 2019, Italy’s Culture ministry barred the construction of a McDonald’s next to the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome, saying, “the wonders of Rome must be protected.”

Slowness only for the privileged?

These movements are not without their critics, especially Slow Food, which is frequently labeled elitist.

Writing in Jacobin in December 2021, Ted Nordhaus and Alex Smith argue not only that Slow Food advocates are distant from the realities of the working class, but also that if we adopted the reforms that Waters and others call for — namely, paying more for food from small farms — we would end up with billions of people hungry and more workers hyperexploited.

“There is something especially sinister about telling people that the way to eat healthfully, morally, and sustainably requires more work — especially when slow food really does little to ensure a healthy, moral, or sustainable food system, nor one that treats farm and food-processing labor any better. In fact, small farms are as likely and maybe more likely to treat workers poorly, and often rely on unpaid family labor to remain productive. It may seem counterintuitive, but larger agricultural producers typically receive greater labor oversight and are more amenable to collective bargaining than smaller producers due to public scrutiny. …

To make matters worse, slow food is not actually the most environmentally friendly or climate-conscious choice. …

Small farms and organic production typically have lower yields, require greater land use, and account for more greenhouse gas emissions per unit of food produced. If the global food system took up Michael Pollan’s aesthetic, there’d be catastrophic consequences in terms of the loss of wildlands, the farmification of vast populated areas, and most likely, similar or worse ecological and environmental consequences to conventional agriculture today due to widespread application of organic fertilizers — also known as shit.”

Instead, Nordhaus and Smith argue, a just food system requires scale. It must be well capitalized and technological to support fair wages and safe, dignified working conditions.

Even if this criticism is valid, it should be noted that not all Slow movements draw only the elite.

Slowness in popular culture

Norwegian TV producers Rune Møklebust and Thomas Hellum had what they thought might be a crazy idea for a television program: Place cameras on a seven-hour train trip from Bergen to Oslo and then broadcast the journey. No narration. No plot. No commercials.

“It’s normally one of those ideas you get late at night after a couple of beers in the bar, and when you wake up the next day, Ahh, it’s not a good idea after all,” Møklebust told CBS News.

But Norway’s public broadcaster NRK2 gave them the green light.

And it turned out the idea was not so crazy: When the show aired in 2009, a quarter of all Norwegians tuned in to watch some part of that train trip.

The piece was so popular, the producers continued.

Subsequent episodes included

• 13 hours of women shearing sheep and knitting a sweater

• 12 hours of logs burning

• 18 hours of salmon swimming upstream

• 5.5-days of a boat journey — that had half of Norway watching

How did they explain this success?

Writing in Scandinavia Standard, editor Sorcha McCrory offers a reason:

“The popularity of Slow TV in Norway is perhaps linked to a societal appreciation and respect of the country’s epic natural beauty, or a desire to stay connected to it despite intense modernization throughout the country.”

Like the Slow movements, this television phenomenon is described as a reaction to modernity.

These Slow movements and Slow TV have their roots — and a seemingly larger following — in Europe, which begs the question: Is there room for Slow TV or Slow anything in American society?

Slowness and happiness

In his introduction to Slow Tourism, Food and Cities: Pace and the Search for the ‘Good Life,’ editor Michael Clancy explored more deeply the Slow movement, also positioning it in history as a reaction to modernity and velocity:

“The promise of speed under modernity has always been the promise of the good life. So many aspects of our lives, from washing machines and dishwashers to grocery store express lanes and fast lanes on the highways have promised us more leisure time and happiness.”

Clancy cites Richard Nixon in 1956 predicting a four-day workweek, and testimony before a mid-1960s U.S. Senate subcommittee predicting a 14-hour work week for Americans by the end of the 20th century.

Yet, our work week remains the same, and these promises of speed and efficiency delivering happiness have not been realized, Clancy writes, citing multiple happiness studies, as well as the Easterlin Paradox, which found that self-reported happiness does not correlate with economic growth or well-being.

The Slow movements have arisen amid an acceleration that has failed to deliver promised benefits — and during a period of intensified neoliberal globalization.

Cittaslow, or Slow Cities, for example, is about recapturing public spaces to bring people together.

Where highways were once built through cities with the aim of connecting people at higher speeds, Cittaslow is an attempt, in part, to reclaim spaces once given to cars and instead offer people public spaces to better connect on a one-to-one level.

Slow travel and mass travel

There would be no denying that advances in speed enable journeys never possible before. The ability to cross the Atlantic in less than six hours means that an American living on the East Coast can visit family in Europe for a long weekend (though at a cost to the planet).

Some advances in speed can be “green,” as well. Consider one can travel from Beijing to Shanghai (equivalent to the distance between New York City and Chicago) in less than five hours by rail, with a far, far lower carbon footprint than flying. Across Europe and East Asia, high-speed rail networks are making similar connections, replacing airplanes and cars.

While these parts of the world continue to build massive high-speed rail networks, the United States is left with an inefficient system that is barely utilized:

• The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that 2.9 million people fly in and out of U.S airports every day.

• In the meantime, Amtrak served roughly 32 million passengers in a pre-pandemic year — or 88,000 passengers per day.

But for those who choose to utilize America’s rail system, the benefits are similar to those touted by Slow Food and other Slow movements.

As I will explore later in this project, slow trains offer passengers a better connection with each other — similar to Cittaslow bringing people together in a public space or Slow Food’s promotion of meals together. Most American long-distance trains — especially those west of the Mississippi River with lounge cars that encourage conversation — offer an opportunity for conversation with people you would not otherwise meet.

This intimacy between train passenger and passing landscape is not unlike that advocated by Slow Food practitioners.

Consider Alice Waters’ menus, and the connections she seeks to make with local farmers, foragers and more. Or her words about hand-shelling chickpeas, connecting restaurant workers with the farm and factory workers who might otherwise do this work, and the land and season in which the chickpeas are grown.

• • •

Alas, those advocating for slow trains are few and far between — and perhaps with reason: There is no denying that we need high-speed rail to move people with a lower carbon footprint than flying or driving. Few would argue that fast food has inherent benefits to humankind, but high-speed rail does.

If there were a Slow Trains movement, however, one could trace a connection to it from the birth of the Slow Food movement.

Both Slow Food and Slow trains show a reaction against speed and modernity, revealing a yearning for a greater connection with fellow human beings and with the land.

In his conclusion to In Praise of Slowness, Honoré advises starting small: Make a meal from scratch, take a walk with a friend, sit still in a quiet place.

Honoré did not cover Slow Travel, but if he did, one might add to the list:

Visit a new neighborhood in your city or a nearby town, or take a slow train and enjoy the view — and try to enjoy some Slow Food as you take in the experience.

⮕ On the following page, I will explore how train journeys offer an intimate connection to the landscape, one that you cannot find in other forms of travel.

Bibliography

Clancy, M. (Ed.). (2019). Slow tourism, food and cities: Pace and the search for the “good life” (First issued in paperback). Routledge, Taylor & Franic Group.

Dowd, H. (n.d.). A Brief History of the Slow Food Movement. Retrieved April 7, 2023, from https://www.tourissimo.travel/blog/a-brief-history-of-the-slow-food-movement

Easterlin, R. A., & O’Connor, K. J. (2020). The Easterlin Paradox. IZA Institute of Labor Economics.

Honore, C. (2009). In praise of slowness: Challenging the cult of speed. Harper Collins.

Italy bars McDonald’s fast-food amidst monuments of ancient Rome. (2019, July 31). Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-mcdonalds-idUSKCN1UQ21N

McCrory, S. (2020, May 26). Slow down with Norway’s Slow TV. Scandinavia Standard. https://www.scandinaviastandard.com/slow-down-with-norways-slow-tv/

Nordhaus, T., & Smith, A. (2021, December 3). The problem with Alice Waters and the “Slow Food” movement. Jacobin. https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/organic-local-industrial-agriculture-farm-to-table/

Norway’s Slow TV: Fascinating viewers for hours or days at a time. (n.d.). CBS Sunday Morning. Retrieved May 25, 2022, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/norways-slow-tv-fascinating-viewers-for-hours-or-days-at-a-time/

Portinari, F. (1989). Slow Food manifesto. https://slowfood.com/filemanager/Convivium%20Leader%20Area/Manifesto_ENG.pdf

Reuters Staff. (2019, July 31). Italy bars McDonald’s fast-food amidst monuments of ancient Rome. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-mcdonalds-idUSKCN1UQ21N

Waters, A. (2021). We are what we eat: A Slow Food manifesto. Penguin.