Eat slow, live well, savor life

In a country super-saturated with fast food restaurants, political science professor Christine Barbour is striking out on her own and heading up a community chapter of a national response to the fast food dominance: the 'Slow Food' movement. It's a movement emphasizing pleasurable and seasonal eating, a community connection to local growers and producers, and a generally more harmonious life. And in order to bring the Slow Food movement and its way of life to the community at whole, Barbour is helping to sponsor a block-party style event this Sunday, appropriately titled "Slow Fest."\nSlow Fest, scheduled from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Madison Street between Sixth and Seventh streets, will be a culinary celebration of the Bloomington community's local harvest. Most major local producers will be involved in providing the food, wine and beer available, including local favorites like Restaurant Tallent, the Limestone Grille, Encore Cafe, Trader's Point Creamery, Butler and Oliver Wineries, Upland Brewery and many others. And with locally produced treats like braised greens with smoked bacon and onions, pumpkin turnovers and apple fritters planned by chef de cuisine Dave and pastry chef Kristen Tallent of Restaurant Tallent, the amount of local bounty available should be greater than a traditional Thanksgiving spread, Barbour said.\nBarbour, who alongside Dave Tallent spearheaded the Bloomington Slow Food movement, is literally watering at the mouth to think of the wealth of delicacies available -- especially the hot chocolate from Trader's Point Creamery.\n"Its made with Dutch chocolate, and I get so excited when I think of how delicious it is that it reduces me to a 3-year-old," Barbour, who is also a food columnist for the Bloomington Herald-Times, said. "If you're used to the taste of Nestle's or Hershey's chocolate from the stores, it's completely different."\nThe attention paid to taste and flavor is one of the reasons Barbour became involved in Slow Food. As a woman who loves food, Barbour is also intrigued about all of the things entwined with food -- like its history, background, and most importantly, the politics involved. And the politics, as Barbour tells her 'Food and Politics' class at IU, are extensive.\nOne of the major focuses of the Slow Food movement is to protect smaller groups that often produce organic or farm-raised food in danger of being crushed by big business producers -- like Kraft lobbying for legislation to keep raw milk cheese illegal in the U.S., explains Barbour. As less competition equals more business for Kraft, smaller cheese producers can be ruined. This, to Barbour, removes the choice of what food she can eat. And preserving the choice is what Barbour and the Slow Food movement are fighting to protect.\n"If McDonald's acts as a juggernaut and pushes everything out of its path, there won't be any choices in food left," said Barbour. "This movement is really about eating really pleasurably, having great food and patronizing the small producer who lives nearby."\nDave Tallent, who alongside his wife founded Restaurant Tallent to highlight local cuisine and utilize organic and free range meats, grains and produce, plans to help make Slow Fest an annual event. To him, the movement heralds how food should be served -- pure, fresh and real.\n"This is about the farmers and the local producers, and it's not going to be a snotty, sit-down wine and food thing," Tallent said, noting the last Slow Food event was an expensive, multi-course dinner. "It's going to be really laid back and fun."\n-- Contact health and science editor Kelly Phillips at kephilli@indiana.edu.