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Like many places in the world, Lebanon has a burgeoning movement known as “slow food.” Its proponents want to ensure that Lebanese don’t lose their food traditions and don’t get sucked in by American style fast-food joints. Yet The World’s Aaron Schachter reports, the slow-moving country seems an unlikely spot for a slow food movement.
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MARCO WERMAN: The drive behind slow food is really kind of a protest movement against fast food. It seeks to preserve local food traditions and to make people more aware of the food they eat and where it comes from. The slow food movement has made inroads just about everywhere and that includes some countries you wouldn’t expect. The World’s Aaron Schachter tells us about one of them – Lebanon – in this report from Beirut.
AARON SCHACHTER: Nothing is accomplished in Lebanon with any great speed. Official business takes hours. A trip to the bank involves chatting about recent weddings or trips. “Shway, shway” slowly slowly is more or less the country’s motto. So what’s the point of a slow food movement in Lebanon?
WALID ATAYA: To remind us so we can stay slow and relaxed.
SCHAHCTER: Walid Ataya owns a bakery called Bread and several restaurants. He says the slow food movement is intended to steer people away from buying cheap produce grown halfway around the world and to keep them in touch with their food heritage. The Lebanese are proud of their food and sing its praises at every possible opportunity. But they’re not cooking it much anymore.
ATAYA: It’s getting harder and harder to find people that cook at home. And now what’s left is the grandmothers are cooking. You know the outside help is learning how to cook at the homes and those people sooner or later will go back to their country and you have restaurant mushrooming left and right you know and they have nothing to do with the local food.
NAYLA AUDI: We have freekeh which is the smoked wheat. We have the Zaatar which is our dry thyme with sesame seeds. We have … . This is really interesting because … .
SCHACHTER: Nayla Audi owns a successful Beirut restaurant called Gruen that serves a mix of western and local fare. She’s also started a line of traditional Lebanese foods called Oslo W. Get it? O-slow. Her current passion is freekeh. It’s a grain from Southern Lebanon often seen as peasant food. But Audi recently started using it in fancy salads and it’s a big hit. She says slow food isn’t either or – traditional or modern. But the craving here for things western is slowly eroding the idea of eating what you or your neighbors produce.
AUDI: I eat sushi. I love everything. Anything you can think of I would eat and crave and love it. But I really think I owe it to myself, to my children, to my country, to how I was raised and who I am to defend that line of thinking and of producing.
SCHACHTER: Around 100 food producers and craftsmen from southern Lebanon gathered a few weeks ago at a home show in a Beirut suburb. The exhibitors were mostly older folks. I visited the exhibition with Barbara Abdeni Masaad. She’s something of a crusader for what’s called mouneh which roughly translates as pantry. It describes foods that are grown locally and preserved or pickled at home. Mouneh has a long history in Lebanon but fewer and fewer people are doing it. Masaad says this tradition won’t vanish over night but it is on the way out.
BARBARA ABDENI MASAAD: We’re not talking maybe about this generation but we’re talking about the next generation and the one after that. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Do you understand? You have to see things coming.
SCHACHTER: One of the Masaad’s favorite producers is Mohammed Na’ameh. He grows organic herbs and produces zaatar, a blend of thyme, other herbs, sesame seeds, and salt. It’s a staple of the Lebanese diet. He can’t get his kids to join the business and says neither can most of the others here.
MOHAMMED NA’AMEH: [SPEAKING ARABIC]
SCHACHTER: Na’ameh says the new generation we were counting on is only interested in things that move fast. They grew up after our civil war so they think life is precarious. They want to get paid a monthly salary, want to eat fast, surf the internet, do everything fast. Lebanon’s slow food movement is trying to well slow things down. Like similar movements in the US, Italy, and elsewhere slow food is gaining a small following among the middle and upper classes here. For most people though it’s still something they either can’t afford or can’t be bothered with. For The World I’m Aaron Schachter in Beirut.
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