The meaning of a Slow lunch
Home » Blog » The meaning of a Slow lunchA lot has been said about eating locally, but drinking locally is even more fun
In many parts of the world restaurants serve the local wine with a sense of pride. Of course, local wine also means less transportation and impact on the environment, but it is the notion of terroir (a sense of place) that drives local communities, and outside visitors, to choose a particular local product or wine.
So when Slow Food Waitekere decided to hold a special lunch at White Restaurant, in Auckland, we asked White excecutive chef Cristiano De Martin if he could create a three-course menu to match Kumeu River wines, which are produced from grapes grown less than 20km from the Hilton Hotel in downtown Auckland.
Cristiano has been in New Zealand since February, and his food philosophy is all for local, seasonal, artisan and organic food. Some may argue that this seems a trend among chefs right now. I really hope these ideas are spreading, because meeting a chef that actually goes out on his (few) days off to find local micro-producers is very refreshing.
The lunch was truly convivial. Michael Brajkovich, the wine maker, was also present—the whole point of a Slow Food encounter is to meet the producer and learn about the product. Then Cristiano came out of the kitchen to meet everyone, answer questions and, of course, ask us all if we had any local artisan producers to recommend.
Slow Food is an international eco-gastronomic movement. A fair amount of time and energy is spent fundraising, cooking for free, organising school gardens, farmers markets, and so on, but there is also a big focus on conviviality and taste.
On Sunday the food was excellent, and it perfectly matched the excellent wines. In a way it all came into a full circle. There was good company, learning, great tastes that were well appreciated; these are the things that everybody should experience with food.
To learn more about Slow Food Waitakere please visit slowfoodwaitakere.blogspot.com, and to learn more about what we ate please comment below!
Wed November 26, 2008 @ 06:53 AM
