The recently launched Macao branch of the global Slow Food Movement celebrated Terra Madre Day yesterday with a celebratory lunch at the new UTM Café at the University of Tourism.
Observed annually on 10 December, Terra Madre Day is regarded as the birthday of the Slow Food Movement, which started in Italy in 1986, and advocates for good, clean and fair food for all.
Slow Food communities across the world celebrated local eating, agricultural biodiversity, and sustainable food production under this year’s theme of “We Are Nature,” emphasising humanity’s deep connection to the natural world, and the responsibility that all share for its stewardship.
[See more: New restaurants to visit in Macao this December]
The Macao luncheon featured heritage Macanese cuisine, and organic wine from Portugal. UTM’s chef Hans Rasmussen, who holds Macao’s only Michelin Green Star, talked about sustainability efforts, and the rolling out of initiatives such as growing herbs and vegetables on classroom roofs.
The event was presided over by the head of Slow Food Macao, Giulioantonio Di Sabato, who is the executive chef of the Mandarin Oriental and has strong links with the movement. He studied at the University of Gastronomic Sciences – the university devoted to gastronomy established in 2004 by Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food. The campus is in Pollenzo, near Bra, a city in the north-west of the Piedmont region – which is close to where Di Sabato is from.
Macao is almost unique in producing none of its own food, but Slow Food Macao members place focus on sustainability, on changing attitudes to food (such as food waste), on encouraging the use of available space for gardening projects, and on building knowledge about local culinary history and culture.
Annabel Jackson is a food and wine researcher, writer and lecturer, and a founding member of Slow Food chapters in both Hong Kong and Macao.
