ABSTRACT
Slow Food International formed in 1989 when a countercultural group of Italian food lovers led by Carlo Petrini mobilized in opposition to the global industrial food system, the emblem of which had become a McDonald’s franchise that opened on Rome’s Spanish Steps in 1986 (Andrews 29). Twenty-five years later, Slow Food International now counts over one hundred thousand members organized into thirteen thousand chapters, or convivia (Lindholm and Lie 57). While some convivia arguably operate as gourmet eating clubs, the parent organization’s mission is to cultivate what Susie O’Brien terms a “vast networking organization” of small farmers, artisanal food producers, peasant communities, and anti-globalization activists (222).
