Who was Carlo Petrini?
Born in 1949 in Bra, in the province of Cuneo, Carlo Petrini — Carlin to everyone — was a gastronome, journalist, writer, and promoter of a sustainable and just food system. A popular intellectual capable of transforming food into a universal language, and the table into a political act.
Slow Food and the "good, clean and fair" revolution
From his great vision and love for the common good came Slow Food in 1986, the international Terra Madre network, and the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo in 2004.
His intuition was simple and revolutionary: food is not just any commodity. Behind every product there is territory, biodiversity, labor, memory, and dignity. Hence the "good, clean and fair" manifesto, which has become an international flag over the years.
The voice of small producers
Petrini gave a voice to those who had none: small farmers, peasants, wine artisans, producers destined for economic and cultural extinction. Slow Food Presidia, Terra Madre, and the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo were the concrete tools of a battle that united environmentalism, agriculture, and the pleasure of the table.
Named a European Hero by Time in 2004, in January 2008 The Guardian included him, the only Italian, in the list of fifty people who could save the world.
His greatness perhaps lies here: in making taste political without making it ideological; in defending slowness without making it immobility; in speaking of tradition without turning it into a museum.
As he loved to say: "He who sows utopia, reaps reality."
