Food+Drink

Food Done Slow

UW-Stout students publish slow food cookbook

Kendra Lamer |

SLOWLY REVOLUTIONIZING FOOD. Cookbook project leads Lauren Mickley, left, and Choua Xiong said they learned a great deal from the area farmers interviewed for the cookbook.
SLOWLY REVOLUTIONIZING FOOD. Cookbook project leads Lauren Mickley, left, and Choua Xiong said they learned a great deal from the area farmers interviewed for the cookbook.

In a world where fast food rules and drive-thrus loom around every street corner, a new movement is changing the status quo: slow food. The Slow Food club at the University of Wisconsin-Stout created the Good Harvest Cookbook, composed of 82 full-color pages that contain recipes, and feature local farmers and producers. The cookbook encourages readers to eat healthy while bringing awareness to where food is coming from and sustainable farming methods.

“When we started Slow Food UW-Stout a couple years ago, we began with a mission to advocate for the accessibility of good, clean and fair food for all on our campus and in our community,” writes Matt Giguere of UW-Stout’s School of Hospitality Leadership, who also acts as the club’s advisor. “This cookbook is a reflection of our dedication to this mandate. Within these pages are the stories of our local farmers and the products they work so tirelessly to produce.”

Club members toured farms and interviewed the local farmers whose livelihood creates the healthy and sustainable products featured in the book.

Lauren Langworthy, who owns a 153-acre farm grass-fed lamb and beef farm with her husband in Wheeler, Wisconsin, is excited that students have taken an interest in not only the food they are eating, but also learning how to cook it. “We want to feed people well,” she says. “It’s fun to see our community supported by this community.”

“Slow Food is all about cutting out the middle man and making sure farmers get fair pay,” says Nicole Dahle, vice president of UW-Stout Slow Food and graduate student in food and nutritional sciences. Not only is slow food healthy, but Dahle also believes it simply tastes better.

All proceeds from the book will benefit the Ark of Taste Garden, which will potentially be constructed on the UW-Stout Campus this summer. The garden will include native, but nearly extinct, foods from the upper Midwest, educating students and community members for years to come.

If you love healthy eating that supports the community and are looking for more, there’s good news for you. UW-Stout Slow Food is planning on releasing two additional cookbooks in the future.

“In a time when our food system is persistently industrialized and globalized, it is imperative to remind ourselves of the arduous work our local farmers do to bring quality food to our tables,” says Giguere. “Together, our community can work to make quality food accessible to all by harvesting sustainable relationships with our farmers.”