On December 10, 1989, delegates from fifteen countries endorsed the Slow Food Manifesto, written by Folco Portinari, officially founding the international Slow Food movement.

Born and nurtured under the sign of industrialization, this century first invented the machine and then modeled its lifestyle after it. Speed became our shackles. We fell prey to the same virus: “the fast life” that fractures our customs and assails us even in our own homes, forcing us to ingest “fast-food.”

Homo sapiens must regain wisdom and liberate itself from the “velocity” that is propelling it on the road to extinction. Let us defend ourselves against the universal madness of “the fast life” with tranquil material pleasure.

Against those — or, rather, the vast majority — who confuse efficiency with frenzy, we propose the vaccine of an adequate portion of sensual gourmandise pleasures, to be taken with slow and prolonged enjoyment.

Appropriately, we will start in the kitchen, with Slow Food. To escape the tediousness of “fast-food,” let us rediscover the rich varieties and aromas of local cuisines.

In the name of productivity, the “fast life” has changed our lifestyle and now threatens our environment and our land (and city) scapes. Slow Food is the alternative, the avant-garde’s riposte.

Real culture is here to be found. First of all, we can begin by cultivating taste, rather than impoverishing it, by stimulating progress, by encouraging international exchange programs, by endorsing worthwhile projects, by advocating historical food culture and by defending old-fashioned food traditions.

Slow Food assures us of a better quality lifestyle. With a snail purposely chosen as its patron and symbol, it is an idea and a way of life that needs much sure but steady support.

Source: Slow Food Manifesto, http://www.slowfood.com/filemanager/official_docs/SF_Manifesto_ENG.pdf. Courtesy of Slow Food USA.

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