A Rebuttal to An Interview About "Slow Food" (Supporter Bonus) - MaryMuse Farm & The Fantasy Farmer Podcast

Yesterday while driving into town, I heard this interview on NPR in which Alice Walker talks about her new book, “slow food”, and she made the audacious statement that it was “cheap and easy” to eat slow. Well you know me, I couldn’t let this one pass, and before I knew it, I’d recorded a 20-minute discussion in response.

I break down the fallacy that it’s “cheap” to eat beans and greens, including discussing the additional costs of time it takes to prepare food, especially dried beans, as well as having the knowledge to cook, whether gleaned from family, ancestors, or from the internet. This leads into a talk about Generation X, latch key kids, and why people today may not know how to cook the way our grandparents did. (Alas, I didn’t think at the time to go into the division of labor, communal households, or even economic factors.)

Finally, I discuss some of the governmental reasons, fresh off my World Ag Economy class last semester, about why we even have processed/fast food. As someone who has worked hard to eat more slow food and less processed food for health reasons (I find it helps my fibromyalgia), this is a topic that’s near and dear to my own heart. Alas, Ms. Walker did not unpack her privilege here, and it shows.