Now in its fifth year, Terra Madre Day – Slow Food’s annual worldwide celebration of local food held on December 10 – will take place in communities across the globe. We invite everybody, whether you are a member or not, to join this international day of celebration. For one day, whoever and wherever you are, you can put local food in the spotlight through a myriad of different activities: From community picnics and food festivals, to film evenings, rallies and farmers’ markets, or even a simple dinner with friends.
The theme of Terra Madre Day 2013 is saving endangered foods. All around the world traditional foods are disappearing, including fruit and vegetable varieties, animal breeds and cheeses, as a result of an increasingly industrialized food system and fast modern life. Slow Food is working to list and protect these at-risk products on the Ark of Taste online catalog.
This Terra Madre Day we want to use December 10 to raise awareness of these products, along with the knowledge, techniques, cultures and landscapes behind their production, and let everyone know that they are at risk of disappearing.
You are free to celebrate Terra Madre Day in any way you want, but if you wish to embrace the theme, you can do this in a number of ways – either by celebrating an existing Ark product; or hunting down local endangered foods, adding them to the Ark of Taste and putting them at the centre of your celebrations. Once your have your product, you could ask a local chef to cook it, put it on the menu at local restaurants, present it to the community or hold an amateur cooking competition using it as an ingredient, or anything you wish.
If you are nominating a new product for the Ark, remember to nominate it using the online form. Actions speak louder than words!There is no better way to highlight the foods in your area that risk disappearing than dedicating a day to them along with all the other products being celebrated around world on the same day.
Together we’ll paint a picture of the incredible food biodiversity that surrounds us and by creating a symbolic map of these foods, we’ll send an even stronger message about its fragility. So get involved this December 10!
Find an event near you or create one of your own, as simple or complex, big or small as you wish. Get inspiration from past editions and download graphics on the Terra Madre Day website. And don’t forget to register your event – you will join the world map and be published alongside all the other initiatives happening at the same moment in a truly global celebration.
www.slowfood.com/terramadreday
Find the event on Facebook or follow #TMD2013 on Twitter
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