Chef Alice Waters Makes the Case for “Slow Food”

ALICE WATERS, AUTHOR, “WE ARE WHAT WE EAT: A SLOW FOOD MANIFESTO”: Thank you for asking that question, because it’s very important to me that we understand that, when we eat, we eat a set of values that comes with that food. And so, when we eat fast food, we’re not only not nourishing ourselves, but we’re eating the values that tell us that more is better, and time is money, and cooking is drudgery, and everything should be fast, cheap, and easy. And that’s what this book is about, because I have wondered how we have lost our humanity in the last 60 years. What happened? We have completely changed the way that we grow food and the way we eat it.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Yes, the way you put that is really quite profound. And, obviously, during COVID, many people have gone back to actual cooking, to caring about what they put in their bodies, to what they source. And they have — from what we read anyway, there’s been quite a shift towards that kind of more sustainable and healthy food. But I want to ask you to go all the way back 50 years. What made you decide this? It was at the time of protests, obviously, anti-Vietnam War. Berkeley was the center of the counterculture protests there. And there you were with your counter-food revolution. What brought you to that then?

WATERS: At that time, I was just naively in the background listening to what Mario Savio was saying, and so concerned about civil rights, about free speech, about stopping the war in Vietnam. And I was empowered, in a way. I felt like, if we got together, we could do anything. And, strangely, I still feel that way. I still feel that, if I wanted to, I could change what I was doing, that I could gather a group of people together who believed what I believe and make dramatic change.