Introduction to Slow Food

It would seem self evident that slow food is the opposite of fast food. This is part of the truth. Slow food is actually a bit more than just an opposite though.
The word slow food is taken from the Slow Food Movement, which is an international organization that opposes fast food and advocates a return to more traditional foods and methods for feeding ourselves. The Slow Food Movement actually goes a bit deeper into the idea that the frenzied speed of modern living is totally destroying the quality of human life and may even be leading to worse consequences for our future. In many ways, a return to the slow food traditions of the past are but the cutting end of the Slow Food Movement's attack on the pace of modern life.
Slow food might be defined as the traditional and regional foods that have sustained human life for thousands of years. It is locally produced in many cases, and slowly and carefully prepared and cooked. It is also eaten in slow and relaxed meals that are often an important part of daily life, rather than a chore that has to be quickly done to get it out of the way.
A science fiction story that was popular in the 1960's made note of the fact that human beings were the only creatures in the universe that had made an art form out of the basic intake of food. This can certainly be seen just on our own planet. The human is the only animal that has taken eating, which is a basic function of life, and turned it into something more. To understand this, compare a dog quickly consuming the food in his dish or a lion ripping apart the corpse of a recent kill with a human eating a gourmet meal prepared by a world famous chef. In both cases, the basic point is to take in food which can be converted into the things that are needed to sustain life. The human is doing this with a bit of style and making it enjoyable rather than just necessary.
So, slow food is really food that is carefully, and even artfully, prepared. Its purpose, ultimately, is to provide nutrition, but it has other roles as well. It gives us pleasure and stimulates our senses of taste and smell. Its consumption can often be a time for social interaction. It encourages variety and helps to create a sense of cultural identity through the preservation of regional cuisine.
Slow food is a very broad umbrella term that encompasses many things beyond just being the opposite of "fast food." It is a view of food and food consumption that looks beyond the simple need to fill the stomach as quickly and as cheaply as possible in order to hurry on to something more important.