[Thoughts on the Table Transcript] Gino De Blasio on Slow Food/Fast Food

Not too bad. Good morning to you Paolo. How are you?

Everybody feels more polite.

Yeah, and I think it’s a fantastic area, fantastic moment in food history. You have to go back to, this is me now storytelling, so kids try and keep awake, so you have to go really back to the mid 1980s. It was a time where capitalism, free market economics was rife. You have the Reagan era in the States, the Thatcher era in the UK. It was really at the forefront of thinking. Communism was being broken down from the east slowly and surely.

You have to think of this very wobbling time of what you could regard as really a capitalist machine, a capitalist model. What was behind that really in terms of food was fast food. Now, in 1986, at the height of this capitalism, the golden arches of McDonald’s sent Carlo Petrini into shock.

Yes.

Yeah. There was this fascination because culturally, you just look at the films that were being produced. 1980’s Italy was probably what you would say at its lowest in terms of quality. Foreign films were all the rage. If you look at the 1980s films, they were really highlighted by the Spielberg era, the Back to the Futures. Which it was so popular, I mean it was popular everywhere, but in Italy people were talking about the Delorean because they were so fascinated about the car, all these things.

That’s what it was embodying. That’s what it was trying to capture. I think Italy was trying to capture it through this idea of the food. Basically, Carlo Petrini, he started this movement in 1986 because McDonald’s opened on the Spanish steps.

I think that was the first McDonald’s in Italy.

It was in a lot of ways being accepted. This will be the norm, and that was Petrini was against. In fact, he was against this idea that food isn’t being savored, both in the preparation and in the execution and in the tasting. He conjured up this brilliant movement called the slow food movement. Really, the way to think of it is take the recipes from old, from yesteryear, we’ve spoken about it in the previous podcast, La Cucina Povera, those elements, but bring them to the forefront of our imagination again. We spoke last week about the polpette in a sauce. Now, that is slow food. All of these things which are classical home and rustic dishes, that’s what the slow food movement started to bring back to our imaginations. It was moving away from this capitalistic drive, and a lot of people see it as this anti-globalization movement.

In terms of food, it actually is because it’s taking the local ingredients, local chefs, and bringing it altogether. I speak with a smile in my voice because it is a fantastic, fantastic movement, and one which I think can be unique to every nation.

It’s absolutely amazing, and I think if you were to look at, for example, there’s a … Can I say his name? The celebrity chef?

Jamie Oliver with his Ministry of Food. That is almost going into the slow food movement in some regards. That’s about actually growing your own food, about making things basic in the kitchen, and giving people cooking lessons, which is what the slow food movement has become in Italy with Petrini’s latest Eat Italy.

It’s that one world Eat Italy, all is one, Eataly. These are big complexes where people can go to learn about how you grow your food, how you eat your food, where your food chain comes from. It’s all part of this movement which is really, like you said, it’s trying to dig back into the past and say, “This is what it is, fantastic to have it.”

Every two years.

Yeah, I remember reading something about like how it was they have all these competitions of regional cuisine and some of the things. In your experience, fast food in Italy, apart from the burger of the 80s, how is it regarded? How do you see it as being considered?

Yeah, I mean, this is probably for another podcast about service station meals.

Yeah, there’s a whole podcast in it, but the one thing that I will always get for my friends who travel to Italy, if they’ve ever had to drive a car, there will always be stories, firstly, how they were scared for their lives whilst driving, and the second one is how well they ate.

It is amazing. You get such a variety, and it’s so cheap, which is the complete opposite to, well, in England where you look and get four times a price of what it would normally cost and it taste absolutely awful.

I noticed there’s more McDonald’s in Italy.

I think people have become more accustomed to it. McDonald’s has had to change its menu for Italy. It’s now offering pasta, which you won’t find in England. I think it’s trying to cater for the local palate.

Yeah, and I think as long as the market demands it, there will always be a McDonald’s or a Burger King. I keep on saying McDonald’s but I think-

A generic fast food equivalent, which is why Spizzico has come about. People want a piece of pizza. It’s great idea. It’s a grab and go. It is what it is. It’s not the pizza which might be which my pizzaiolo makes.

Admittedly also, I get much better customer service from the Spizzico than I do from my pizzaiolo (laughs).

I’m usually getting a lot and lots and lots, into a lot of trouble with my pizzaiolo…

Oh, that’s even another podcast… Yeah, we got service station, customer service.

Yeah (laughs).

I don’t think it’d be hard to improve.

So much. We’ve spoken at large about really the slow food movement. We’ve touched upon the fast food moment. Where do you see Italy now? Do you see it turning more towards the slow food or do you feel that we’ll be a cultural shift to more fast food orientated mentality? What do you see happening?

I certainly agree. I certainly think coffee, it’s not that I don’t think I’ll ever see a Starbucks, but I don’t ever think I’ll see the fruition of Starbucks or all the large chains. I think one of big thing would be trying to make people queue for their coffee. I can’t see that in Italy. I don’t think it would go down well, because of the culture where you walk in, you stand at the bar, within a minute, you’ve got your espresso.

The word espresso means quick. This morning I went to have a coffee in a chain and it took me nearly 8 minutes to get served and there was only one person in front of me. It is like, that just couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t.

As my granddad always say to me I many occasions, most things in Italy are slow, apart from the cars and the coffee. I think that’s different. Coming back to where we see Italian food moving, I think what would might be successful is something which is almost marks it really on a slow food ideology of the produce that we get is from a ten-mile radius from here. Things like that. I think that would see more success.

Yes, yeah.

Take care.