“Be prepared, Mareila,” I warned. “This is the most people you’ve ever seen in your life.” Imagine, at age eight, that the most people you ever saw were sustainable food producers, farmers, cooks, educators, activists, and food enthusiasts that filled in two Olympic stadiums. From starch-suit businessmen to Moroccan mothers sitting cross-legged on the floor in colorful traditional clothing, we are all at the Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre… for the same reason: to appreciate good, clean, fair food and fight for the future of our broken food system.

Good, Clean, and Fair from Uganda pose here with Mariela and her other friend from Bangladesh

I have little time to write between eating deep-fried olives stuffed with meat and rushing off to the next conference with titles like “Taste Education for Babies” and “Fair Trade and Local Markets—The Commodification of Justice.” Every moment of free time is spent networking with other delegates: Stan from Alabama, an organic chicken farmer fighting for the right to sell chickens in Georgia; Chris, who is attending the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy and in the middle of an internship with Spannochia where he’s working in the “transformation room” making traditional sausages from heritage pigs; Linda a Lakota Indian from a reservation in South Dakota (where they had 35 days of 45 degrees below last winter) who is working on a PhD at Montana State in Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Marilyn, the market coordinator for MOM- Motivate our Minds in Indiana; Alluette, owner of a “holistic soul food” restaurant in South Carolina; Hans from Germany who runs a small goat cheese operation…

Some favorite quotes from today:

Carlo Petrini, Founder of Slow Food
“We are the fastest growing peaceful army in the world. The politicians don’t understand yet.”

“We are taking what’s good from the past into the future”

“You must give a voice to the weak ones—they must come to the front (speaking of the role of women and elderly in the sustainable food movement).

Josh Viertel, Slow Food USA

“When you take a stand, you see who is standing with you”

“We want to have more school gardens than McDonald’s franchises in the USA”

“When you fight for change the first thing that happens is the opposition ignores you. Then they mock you. Then they fight. Then you win.”
(Josh was talking about how big industry is now seeing a real threat and hiring young framers to come heckle at food justice events)

A friend on the bus at midnight commenting on Mariela next to me who came to the closing ceremonies:
“Good mothering is a public service.”

Stan from Alabama talking about the family farm and deciding to take over and work (exercise) and start growing organic food.
“I used to have size 66 overalls. They are hung ton my wall so I won’t go there again. I didn’t give up on eating, though.”

“I hate that word “illegal (alien).” No one’s illegal. Everybody is legal. We should be free to roam this earth.”
-Alluette

Alice Waters
Chef, Chez Pannise and VP SF International
“We need to make models people can walk into”

And that’s the ultimate goal of Terra Madre…