For about the same price as a breaded chicken sandwich and waffle fries, some UW-Madison students skip the dining hall and choose to eat food like veracruzana chicken stew with winter squash and fresh lemon bars Monday nights at Slow Food UW’s Family Dinner Night held in a church near campus.
Slow Food UW, a chapter of the international Slow Food organization, hosts the dinner to promote access to local, sustainable food and fair treatment of farmers. The group supports using food from Madison-area farmers and grocery stores instead of food from large, far-away farms. Compared to organic food that may be produced far away, local food travels a shorter distance and uses less energy.
While locally sourced food may have earned a reputation for being expensive, Slow Food UW serves three courses at Family Dinner Night for $5 per person.
“We’re creating demand by enabling food to be fun and affordable,” Slow Food UW co-director Jen Bloesch said. “We’ve got it pretty easy in that our message is attractive to people [because] who doesn’t want tasty food that isn’t very expensive?”
Anyone can volunteer to help prepare Family Dinner, and doing so earns volunteers a free meal.
The group offers the task of planning the menu to anyone who’s interested, inviting community members to sign up to design the menu and coordinate the meal. Previous guest chefs include UW-Madison students as well as professionals from upscale restaurants such as L’Etoile.
“I want to defy the stereotypes and show that everyone is invested in good foods no matter who you [are],” Bloesch said.
Family Dinner Night, which now serves about 130 people each week, began with 20 people making dinner together once a month. As Family Dinner Night attendance grew, the group opened up the Slow Food Café, which serves about 200-250 people each Wednesday. Slow Food UW is now one of the largest campus chapters in the world.
Expanding off of campus and into the community, two Slow Food UW members started Celebrate South Madison two years ago to encourage healthy eating in an area where access to nutritious food is limited.
On a regular basis, a group of Slow Food UW members give cooking lessons to kids at Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs in South Madison. To encourage kids to eat fresh vegetables as opposed to fast-food meals, the group has helped kids plant their own gardens so they can produce their own vegetables.
“We’re basically a 10-minute drive away, and yet it’s so separated,” Bloesch said. “And we’re bringing that together and trying to foster a sense of goodness about [healthy eating] as well as get people [in South Madison] interested in food.”
Between Celebrate South Madison, Family Dinner Night, the café and workshops open to the public, the group now feeds about 400 people around Madison each week.
“We get to people through their stomachs,” Bloesch said. “It’s the best message.”
