We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto

Waters (Coming to My Senses), legendary chef and founder of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, delivers an impassioned manifesto on how food and its quality impacts society and the planet. The back-to-the-land advocate outlines the threat that fast food culture poses on farmers, agriculture, and consumers’ health, and argues that pivoting to local, sustainable food can negate it. If it’s not confronted, she writes, “our well-intentioned work to solve the problems of our world will ultimately fall short.” Waters refers to the source of these problems as “fast food values,” among them that everything should be available all the time, more is better, speed is paramount, and that choices are free of consequences. She offers cogent, well-reasoned analyses of the price of convenience, blind trust in advertising, and cheapness, all of which seduce “us into losing our desire, confidence, and ability to do things for ourselves.” As an alternative, she underscores the virtues of slow food culture, highlighting biodiversity, environmental stewardship, and collective accountability. Along the way, she shares details of her Edible Schoolyard Project—which teaches children critical thinking around food—and shows how others, such as Slow Food International’s Carlo Petrini, are putting in the work. Highly convincing and incredibly inspiring, Water’s fervent entreaty is sure to open eyes and change minds. (June)