Shane Holland

“Borough Market’s been here for a thousand years in many different shapes.”

“We weren’t farmers, but many of the people we knew were. We were surrounded by good food. We went fishing, we went crabbing, we grew vegetables – that’s just what you did. It was only when I moved to London that I suddenly realised I’d been eating amazing food, because it was only then that I discovered what bad food was! Good food is far more than just calories. It’s about love and connection and a sense of place. Throughout my career in food, I’ve always aspired to that sense of connection and meaning. It’s my belief that everyone should have access to good food – the kind of food that makes us smile.”

It was Shane’s wish to connect people with artisan farmers and producers that led him to the Slow Food movement which was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986 in the aftermath of a campaign against the opening of a McDonalds near the Spanish Steps in Rome, and has since spread worldwide. Its message is that food should be hugely valued, grown by farmers who are closely connected with their land, soils and animals, and prepared with care and respect for the local food heritage. Slow Food strives to preserve traditional agriculture and regional cuisines and to encourage farming of plants, seeds, and livestock in symbiosis with the local ecosystem. It promotes local small businesses and sustainable foods and focuses on food quality rather than quantity. The Slow Food message is the exact opposite of globally-traded, processed food grown with chemicals and monocultures which destroys rural communities, damages natural habitats and badly affects peoples’ health.

As Shane Holland says, “So often we think of food as about being calories or macronutrients. They’re important, but there’s so much more to be gained from sharing food around the table, sharing food with someone that we love and thinking about where our food comes from. What we really need to do is to get back to actually supporting our farmers, and we do that by eating genuinely local, genuinely seasonal food. If we do that, it’s going to be better for our health, it’s going to be better for the planet.”

Carlo Petrini,  ““The quest for slowness, which begins as a simple rebellion against the impoverishment of taste in our lives, makes it possible to rediscover taste.”

On 22 May Slow Food announced that Carlo Petrini had passed away at his home in Bra, Piedmont, Northern Italy, the ancient market town surrounded by small farms, terraces and wooded hillsides where he was born and from where he inspired the Slow Food movement into a worldwide campaign for locally produced, healthy and traditionally prepared food.