Chateau de Colombieres sur Orb

Terrasses du Haut-Languedoc

The Chateau is the home of the Slow Food Group called the Haut Terrasses Convivium

As the name suggests Slow Food is the exact opposite to Fast Food, one could list many fast food outlets, one could go back to Lord Sandwich and his introduction of the sandwich as a fast break, but it was an Italian Carlo Petrini who decided to do something when a MacDonalds opened close to the Opera in Rome.

What he did to do was to form a movement that would through education and an active membership bring people back to the basics of eating well, using local products and stopping the standardisation of many of our daily food items.

Slow Food has a multi role therefore of not only pointing people in the direction of returning  to basics, but in doing so to encouraging people to eat those fruit and vegetables that are in season, to actively help small growers and producers to maintain very many varieties, races etc which are facing extinction.

These are foods now categorised as Sentinel Foods, and range from our local Navets de Pardailhan, Lentils from St Flour to Argan Oil from Morocco, cheese from Uzbekistan and an increasing number of products from the developing world.

Slow Food based in Bram close to Turin in Northern Italy has established a university where it offers course in a wide range of subjects.

It also organises a major Food Fayre every year to introduce the many thousands of visits to taste which have almost disappeared.  This coming October there will be a major international food Fayre with many hundreds of producers, tasting workshops in Turin, last November it was the turn of the Slow Food European Food Fayre in Tour in the Loire valley.  There is a major Fish Food Fayre every other year

One other very important part of Sow Food’s work is to point people to healthy eating, obesity, better balanced diets and taking time in preparing food.

Pollution is not a specify role of Slow Food, but by encourage locally sourced foods, the result is to discourage moving vast quantities of fresh food for over large distances for example from the south of Europe to Scandinavia vice versa.

It is sometimes considered to be elitist, but that is far from the truth, as many of the basic meals that we all know so well, here in France our Cassoulet, in Ireland Irish Stew, in the UK Lancashire Hotpot, and very close to us here our grilled mediterranean sardines, our oysters, tielles from Sète are all available locally at reasonable prices.

This summer we will be some running some simple cooking experience workshops based at the Chateau, to know more mail us at info@gitesdecharme.biz, or call Chris Elliott on 00 33 4 67 36 66 18