The Cultural Roots of Slow Food: Peasants, Partisans, and the Landscape of Italian Resistance focuses on the work of a variety of intellectual activists, related food justice literature, and documentary films, and argues that contemporary forms of environmental activism, as they are rooted in local food and sustainable farming, are built on Italian peasant culture and its contributions to the Resistance movement. During World War II the Italian Resistance marked an unprecedented encounter between the urban and intellectual resistance and peasant culture, contributing to the creation of a new legacy of organic intellectuals. The organic intellectuals analyzed in this book look to the hinterlands to demonstrate that peasants, by sharing their knowledge of the land and traditional practices, produce their own organic intellectuals. Some examples examined are Alcide Cervi, Nuto Revelli, and Ermanno Olmi. Ilaria Tabusso Marcyan argues that their work, personal experiences, and visions of resistance foreground the roots of the Slow Food international grassroots movement. She posits that today, Slow Food and the food communities of Terra Madre in Italy and around the world represent one of the many examples of these new organic intellectuals committed to rebuild a more harmonious and sustainable relationship with the land.
Ilaria Tabusso Marcyan is teaching assistant professor at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
Table of Contents Map of Italy Acknowledgments Introduction: The Cultural Roots of Slow Food: Peasants, Partisans and the Landscape of Italian Resistance Chapter 1: A Story of Peasant Resistance: The Cervi Family Chapter 2: Nuto Revelli and the Disappearing Voices of Peasant Resistance Chapter 3: Nuto Revelli and the Disappearing Voices of Peasant Resistance Chapter 4: Ecological and Cultural Landscapes in Ermanno Olmi's Documentaries Conclusion: Slow Food Bibliography Index About the Author
In this highly original book, Ilaria Tabusso Marcyan has prepared a precious recipe to relish the complex and beautiful texture of the Italian landscape. On a solid Gramscian cocking basis, she blends Slow Food and the Resistance against the nazi fascist regime, the subaltern stories of farmers, and their representations into Italian cultures. The Cultural Roots of Slow Food is an excellent example of the power of environmental humanities to go beyond disciplines while nurturing the readers with healthy food of stories of resistance and transformation. -- Marco Armiero, Icrea Research Professor, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
