The Chron‘s “Inside Scoop” reports on the continuing food fight between Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini and representatives of the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. We commented on the foodie fracas yesterday; today, “Scoop” describes the meeting last Saturday between Petrini and a group of Ferry Plaza merchants that included Nigel Walker of Eatwell Farm and Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo. The upshot? In his book Slow Food Nation, the Italian journalist and Slow Food founder blasted the Ferry Plaza as hopelessly elitist: too expensive, and people with dilettante farmers who take advantage of their workers.
Here’s “Scoop”:
“The meeting, by all accounts, didn’t end in a happy kumbaya moment. Walker says Petrini first said the farmers were overreacting, then blamed the translation. ‘I came out of that meeting as angry as I’ve ever been,’ Walker says. And he stayed an hour longer than Sando of Rancho Gordo, who had a lively exchange with Petrini in Italian and then left, feeling that Petrini’s response was unsatisfactory.”
Whatever happens, we hope the folks at the market can at least acknowledge the truth of Petrini’s remarks, as exaggerated as they may be. Sadly, organics are food for the well off.
