Real Food, Slow Food: Championing sustainable food

November 17 — 21, 2008

Andrew Whitley, Carlo Petrini

15% summer discount for applications made before 31st July 2008

Hundreds of participants have enjoyed their involvement in food preparation during their stay at Schumacher College. Bread has, like so many other foods, become industrialised and de-natured. The Slow Food movement has gone from campaigning for quality food, to demanding food that as well as tasting good, is produced in environmentally and socially responsible ways.

Course Overview

This course brings together two champions of real food. Participants will focus on the art of baking real bread and link this with a discussion on the ways our food system needs to be changed. Andrew Whitley will teach bread-making skills and explore with participants the ways in which a return to small-scale production would be beneficial. With Carlo Petrini, participants will look at broader food production issues within the context of the aims of the Slow Food movement.

This course is intended for: people who want to gain hands-on experience, with a world expert, of how to bake real bread, and have the opportunity to discuss in depth the components of a sustainable food system. Schumacher College is always proud of its delicious homemade and wholesome food. On this course, participants explore these areas in an exceptional way.

Course Details

Sesions with Carlo Petrini:

Understanding the complexities of food production means that we have to find a new, integrated approach to food policy. This goes beyond agriculture to include a whole range of issues, which Carlo Petrini will address. When discussing the future of food and agriculture, he argues one needs to also consider: the environment and public health; poverty and social justice; intellectual property rights and gender and generation issues; land reform; and the energy crisis. Many people are involved in all these spheres of activities, and the challenge for each man and women on the planet is to understand the importance of networking these different groups in order to achieve effective action. This is the current focus of Slow Food.

Sessions with Andrew Whitley:

Andrew Whitley will be exploring territory that he first mapped out in his award-winning book Bread Matters, in which he links the emergence of widespread intolerance to wheat, yeast and bread in general to changes in wheat breeding, milling and baking technology. Industrial bread is now produced very efficiently (in terms of labour input) but customers recoil from its hidden additives, flaccid texture and apparent indigestibility. What can be done? Andrew will present his Real Bread Campaign which aims to bring British bread back to life. And in his workshop sessions he will help participants to find out just how easy – and fulfilling – it can be to make bread by hand, using flours chosen for their vitality and combined with due deference to that key ingredient so fatefully abandoned by industrial baking – time. Specifically, students will make breads with organic rare-breed grains and natural fermentation methods, never forgetting that the end product always aims to be both enlightening and delicious.

Teachers

Andrew Whitley founded and ran the Village Bakery, which is famous for its high-quality organic bread baked in wood-fired ovens. In 2002, he founded a new company, Bread Matters, which runs bread-making courses, and he is currently involved in launching, with others, the Real Bread Campaign.

Carlo Petrini founded an association called Slow Food in 1986 which grew out of a protest against the opening of a McDonald’s in Rome, and dedicated itself to the protection of traditional foods and agricultural biodiversity. Since then, Slow Food has grown to become an international organisation with 80,000 members. Carlo is the author of Slow Food: The Case for Taste.

Course Fees

For businesses: One week £1,200
For individuals, NGOs & Educators: One week £700
These include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

15% summer discount for applications made before 31st July 2008

How to make an application – click here

For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College

New feature – reserve your place now

To provisionally reserve a place for 5 days, email us your contact details and the name of the course admin@schumachercollege.org.uk

We will hold the place for five working days for reservations – three weeks before a course or earlier. After five days we will automatically offer your place to someone else if we have not received your application.

Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Hall Trust, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and as a charity (company no. 1485560, charity no. 279756). Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL, UK.