Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities

by Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters (Foreword)

More than twenty years ago, when Italian Carlo Petrini learned that McDonald’s wanted to erect its golden arches next to the Spanish Steps in Rome, he developed an impassioned he helped found the Slow Food movement. Since then, Slow Food has become a worldwide phenomenon, inspiring the likes of Alice Waters and Michael Pollan. Now, it’s time to take the work of changing the way people grow, distribute, and consume food to a new level. On a global scale, as Petrini tells us in Terra Madre , we aren’t eating food. Food is eating us. Large-scale industrial agriculture has run rampant and penetrated every corner of the world. The price of food is fixed by the rules of the market, which have neither concern for quality nor respect for producers. People have been forced into standardized, unnatural diets, and aggressive, chemical-based agriculture is ravaging ecosystems from the Great Plains to the Kalahari. Food has been stripped of its meaning, reduced to a mere commodity, and its mass production is contributing to injustice all over the world. In Terra Madre , Petrini shows us a solution in the thousands of newly formed local alliances between food producers and food consumers. And he proposes expanding these alliances—connecting regional food communities around the world to promote good, clean, and fair food. The end goal is a world in which communities are entitled to food sovereignty—allowed to choose not only what they want to grow and eat, but also how they produce and distribute it.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Gardening

184 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2009

About the author

Carlo Petrini, an Italian sociologist, is the founder of the international movement Slow Food (1989).

Reviews

[Arda Alkkåskøgen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ekolojizm'den sonra teknik açıdan bu kadar kusursuz bir kitap okumak yayınevine olan güvenimi tazeledi desem yalan olmaz. Çevirisi, redaksiyonu, sayfa tasarımı kusursuz kere kusursuz. Öncelikle bu titizlikleri için tebrik etmek gerek yayınevi çalışanlarını.

İçerik açısından ise, her ne kadar fiziksel olarak öyle gözükmese de, devasa bir kitap olduğunu söyleyebilirim. İstisnasız her sayfasından 5 sayfalık dersler çıkarabileceğiniz müthiş bir çalışma. Herkesin okumasını umut etmekten başka yapacak veya söyleyecek çok bir şeyim yok. Gerek de yok.

[Tuğba Özb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Türkçe çevirisini okudum. Belki içinde bulunduğum bir oluşum olduğu için biraz sıkıcı geldi okuduklarım. Ama bu konuya merak salmış kişilerin de sıkılabileceğini düşünüyorum. Yine de altını çizdiğim bir sürü bilgilendirici satırlar da oldu.

[Ceren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow Food'un ve Terra Madre'nin benimsediği değerleri beğensem de kitabın düzensizliği, argüman eksiliği ve bazı bölümlerde bu eksikliğin tekil örneklerle kapatılmaya çalışılması okumayı biraz sıkıcı hale getirdi. Bir diğer eleştirim Petrini'nin hayvan hakları konusundaki yetersizliği. Kitap boyunca kurulan bireysel ilişkilerin önemini vurgulayan Petrini, söz konusu hayvanlar olduğunda geleneğin tarafında yer alıyor ve ne yazık ki yemek kültürünü koruma konusunda bilgiler veriyor.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short read about some very noble work. It doesn’t have the most engaging prose, and a few bits could have been expanded on for sure (the tiny “new rights and participatory democracy” for one), but I’d still recommend it.

[Kitten Kisser · Rating 3 out of 5]

The three stars are all for the idea & noble cause of the book & not the book itself. I am a huge supporter of local and organic foods as well us encouraging others to grow & raise their own food. We are organic hobby farmers and we raise organic happy livestock as well as growing a lot of our own food. Normally books like this are right up my alley. Not so with this one. I have had the book for 2 months now & it just shouldn't take that long to read something so tiny. It is boring. Utterly mind numbingly boring. It's really too bad. If the author could have written this in a more engaging way, I think it would have caught more attention. The more attention paid to supporting slow food, local food, organic food - the better.
I don't want to say not to get this book, but on the other hand, I can't say get it either. There are many other "green movement" books out there that are much better & as a result, very popular. Michael Pollan being one of them as well as Barbara Kingsolver. Just searching for their books, will lead you to many other similar types of books. 'Fast Food Nation' by Eric Schlosser is a long time favorite of mine. It is not about slow food. It's about fast food. But reading it will most likely make you want to eat slow food & appreciate it's value. All three of the above mentioned books are available on Amazon.

[stefano · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tra i Petrini preferisco quello vero, il pallonaro.

Ogni tanto mi impelago in letture che so già che mi infastidiranno. Parto bello carico, con tutti i miei pregiudizi ben allineati, e di solito riesco ad arrivare alla fine. Anche un po’ felice e compiaciuto per avere confermato, a contrario, le mie solidissime e stupidissime certezze. Questa volta non ce l’ho fatta. Ho chiuso dopo una manciata di pagine e sono andato da McDonald’s a mangiare velocissimamente del cibo veloce per definizione.

[Suzanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

An information-dense short look at food politics from the founder of Slow Food International.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a description of the motivations for the Terra Madre conference.

[YakimaFoodCo-op · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very inspiring collection of speeches that gives readers a doorway into what it's like to be present at the premier event in the global food justice movement.