Episode Details

In 1986, a McDonald's opening near Rome's Spanish Steps sparked protests, and that anger grew into the global Slow Food movement. This episode follows Carlo Petrini's push to defend local food culture, the 1989 Slow Food manifesto signed in Paris, and the idea that food should be good, clean, and fair, which the movement calls eco-gastronomy.

We look at how local chapters called convivia run the movement, how the Ark of Taste and Presidia projects try to save endangered foods by getting people to eat them, and how programs in Australia, Latvia, and the Netherlands adapted the model. We also cover the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Slow Food Nation in San Francisco, the Chipotle partnership, charges of elitism, and the membership losses after 2008.

• What good, clean, and fair mean in Slow Food's approach to eating
• How more than 1,300 local convivia keep the movement decentralized
• How the Ark of Taste and Presidia projects protect endangered foods
• Why Slow Food USA's 2014 Chipotle partnership caused controversy
• How critics call the movement elitist, and how the 2008 recession hit its U.S. membership