Slow Food Nation Taste Pavillion, San Francisco, California
Being a Bay Area resident, food enthusiast, and foodblogger, I consider attending Slow Food Nation a civic duty. This was the first big Slow Food-organized event that did not necessitate an expensive trans-Atlantic flight and a hotel stay. So, I coughed up the $65 for a ticket to the last four-hour shift at the Taste Pavilion in San Francisco’s Fort Mason. (Good thing I bought my ticket when I did, as they were sold out by the time I asked a friend to join me the next day.)
The purpose of the Taste Pavilion is to “showcase an amazing array of products from across the country” while offering samples of fine American charcuterie, cheeses, wines, spirits, coffee, chocolate, bread, and naturally fermented and pickled foods. To me, the Taste Pavilion should be an opportunity to broaden one’s palette by becoming acquainted with food producers beyond the Bay Area who use traditional methods to produce delicious food. The Pavilion should allow visitors to support these artisans by eating their food and purchasing it, or at least learn more about where to purchase said foodstuffs.
What I found at the Taste Pavilion is not quite what I had imagined. Full disclosure: I have had disappointing experiences with Slow Food in the past, and this time was no different.
A brief timeline:
2006: I am a member of Slow Food. Although I enjoy their annual publication—which includes fascinating articles and scholarly pieces by a variety of people the world over—I find that I can seldom afford any of the events at my local presidia. I justify my membership fee as a donation to a worthy cause that helps poor farmers.
2006: I finally attend an affordable Slow Food event in my area—a one-day movie festival with snacks and drinks. The festival ends less than mid-way through when the organizer announces that the film screening guy has accidentally locked himself out of the projection room and it seems that nobody has the keys. All attendees are promised a follow-up event at which the remaining movies will be screened.
The event never happens, or if it does, nobody tells me about it. I am never reimbursed.
2007: Tired of receiving e-mails about Slow Food events I can’t afford to attend alone, let alone with my husband, I decide to let my Slow Food membership lapse. I love the work that Slow Food does internationally, but I don’t appreciate the seemingly knee-jerk assumption that all San Francisco Bay Area presidia members have wads of cash which they are glad to throw at every Slow Food event. My membership is itself a donation. I don’t feel the need to donate additional small fortunes for every expensive presidium-sponsored event.
In 2008, little has changed. I arrive at Fort Mason via public transit, as instructed by the Slow Food Nation website. There are no signs or instructions directing people to the Fort Mason Center buildings. Along with a number of other Slow Food attendees, I trek up the hill to the top of Fort Mason only to find that the Pavilion is down below. Everyone takes the stairs down the hill and begin walking towards the mass of people crowded around one particular building.
Reaching the Slow Food Nation information booth, I show my ticket and ask whether the long line is for those who have pre-purchased their tickets. It is. The line snakes around several buildings. I estimate it is about two blocks long. It’s hot outside, the line is long, and I’m parched. As I walk toward the end of the line, a smiling baker hands out fresh bread sticks to the people at the front of the line. I wonder whether there’s a big bottle of water baked into each of those bread sticks. (Probably not, as this is a bottle-free event.)
Some twenty to thirty minutes later, I arrive at the front of the line. My ticket is taken by a volunteer and another volunteer gives me a funny money bill called “Slow Dough.” She explains that this bill “pays” for the foods I am about to sample inside. The bill has twenty circles on it. I am to present the bill at each booth where the circles will be marked with permanent pen to indicate my “payment” for each sample I eat. I am told that I can receive another bill when this one is used up by simply returning to the entrance and presenting my used Slow Dough bill. Fair enough. Another volunteer hands me a pamphlet, and yet another gives me a thin book about food producers and a schedule of Slow Food Nation events. Nobody gives me a receipt for my ticket or a hand stamp, and I wonder vaguely whether this careless form of crowd control is effective. I enter the Taste Pavilion area and notice that the first outdoor booth on my left has an enormous, disorganized line. The booth is serving bread and pizza. I skip it and continue on to the booths indoors.
Inside, I find a well-organized pavilion of booths that is easy to navigate. Large signs clearly mark which booths serve meat, cheese, fish, chutney, chocolate, and so on. The booths are beautifully and cleverly built using recycled materials. One of my favorite setups is the fermented and pickled food area, which features a lovely backdrop made of mason jars and lids decorated with names of pickle makers and other food producers. The canopy of mason jar lids that seem to float below the ceiling is breathtaking.
I get on the charcuterie line, which seems less painful than the bread and pizza line outside. It’s a bit of a wait, but I get my bits of beef jerky and a tiny half slice of sausage. The prosciutto serving plate, however, is empty. Everyone in line waits another ten minutes for the chef to slice up enough to refill the plate, then portion out a slice. This costs three check marks. The meats are very tasty.
Next, I go to the chocolate booth. Again, the decorations are lovely, using recycled materials and emphasizing the process of cacao production. The tasting line seems to stretch everywhere, vertically back towards the entrance of the booth and horizontally along the lengthy table where several vendors provide tastes. The woman in front of me is annoyed as she informs me that a large group has just cut ahead in line. I continue waiting when I look down and realize that I’ve lost my Slow Dough billet. I must have held the bill between the brochure and book, or perhaps beneath the wax paper that held the prosciutto. At any rate, it is gone. I retrace my steps back to the entrance but someone has probably found my bill by now or tossed it into one of the many recycling bins.
I approach one of the volunteers at the entrance and explain my quandary. I am told I must wait for a woman named Lakesha*. I ask whether I may be given a single new bill instead of receiving an additional bill by turning in my old one. The volunteer explains that this is impossible, because I need to hand in my old ticket before receiving a replacement. I ask whether it would help to show my ID so as to verify that I have paid for my ticket. She says no. Furthermore, she explains that she is just a volunteer and has no idea how any of this works and that I must wait for Lakesha. I ask whether Lakesha may be reached by cell phone or other communication device. Apparently, she cannot. “You can wait there,” she says, motioning to a spot under the hot sun right next to her shady, covered volunteer booth. With my SF farmers’ market bag, Slow Food brochures, and used potato-plastic fork, I assume that my appearance must be strikingly similar to some clever fiend who makes a living sneaking into expensive food festivals and eating a whole lot of stolen food.
Lakesha never arrives, but Hal* the volunteer coordinator does. He introduces himself with a smile and asks what the problem is. I explain that I was waiting in line at the chocolate booth when I realized that my Slow Dough bill was nowhere to be found. I must have lost it somewhere and would like to replace it. Hal assures me that the billet will be replaced as soon as I remove my sunglasses so that he can see my eyes as I promise him that I really did lose my bill. “Are you kidding me?” I ask with a bemused grin. Hal apologizes, and explains that the organizers have had some trouble with people entering the event without paying, under the guise of being vendor employees. I sympathize, and offer alternative solutions such as a computerized entrance system in which the bar codes on tickets are scanned and entered into a database. This way, mishaps such as mine can be handled by simply matching a person’s driver’s license with their name in the database. Jim explains that they have a database, but that this sort of system is too expensive. He sympathizes with my frustration and provides me with a new billet.
I go back into the indoor pavilion and try to plan the rest of my time. I cannot handle caffeine, so coffee and tea are out. I must avoid seafood for health reasons, and I’m not in the mood for dealing with the large and likely tipsy crowds at the wine, beer and spirit booths. That leaves jam and honey, chocolate, cheese, ice cream, olive oil, pickles, and maybe the bread and pizza booth if I want to wait in line for fifteen minutes. I go to the chocolate booth and taste some of the most delicious and unique quality chocolates I’ve ever tried, as well as one of the worst. The honeys are pleasant enough, with a coffee-infused version that intrigues. The pumpkin preserve is quite tasty, and I appreciate the freshly-baked roll that goes with it (served directly from the oven at the bread booth). The cheese line snakes out the door, and the queue itself appears to move very slowly. I skip it entirely, although I regret not getting to taste any of the cheeses. The ice creams are tasty and creamy. My favorites are pistachio and pawpaw. I try a lemon-flavored fermented milk drink on my way back out to the bread booth. It is refreshing, tangy, and delicious, though a bit sweet. The pickle and chutney line seems to have grown by leaps and bounds, so I skip it as well.
The bread line outdoors is ridiculous. When I finally reach the front of the line, I get some rolls and a slice of pizza. I still have ten circles left on my Slow Dough bill, so I ask about using all my check marks for one small pie. The pizza baker kindly explains that this is impossible, as they had earlier handed out large orders in exchange for more Slow Dough marks. Consequently, they are now running low. No problem, one slice it is.
I go back into the indoor part of the pavilion, determined to spend my remaining marks. Some of the honey people are handing out miniature cupcakes with rosewater honey frosting. They have plenty to spare, and agree to give me several of their tiny treats in exchange for most of my remaining marks. I gladly take a small plateful of little cakes as the woman behind me in line gives me a look that would wilt oregano.
As I make my way among the various food purveyors, I try to buy take-home versions of the products I enjoy. Nobody actually has anything to sell. Some people have a card which they give out when asked. Some have no additional information at all. Some vendors note that their products are not for sale in the Bay Area. One vendor directs me to the Slow Food Nation website, informing me that Slow Food has promised to post a list of vendors by Wednesday. (As of Wednesday, I have not found a list of vendors on the Slow Food Nation website, other than the haphazard partial list of vendors in each food category. The partial lists include no links to vendor sites.) There is no market place where visitors may buy packaged versions of the foods at the Taste Pavilion. It strikes me that this is a huge waste of a financial and marketing opportunity. Slow Food could have profited by charging a small percentage for the bulk of items sold by each vendor. Vendors could have made a profit by selling their wares to the thousands of people who visited the pavilion. It’s all about promoting the food producers. Shouldn’t easing the process of buying their foods be a top priority? How many people will actually ask for vendor business cards or write down vendor names and track down their websites after the event?
On my way out of the Taste Pavilion, a lone volunteer offers to stamp people’s hands so that they can re-enter the Pavilion later. “How useful that stamp might’ve been earlier,” I think.
* Names have been changed for the purposes of anonymity.
Self-Compiled Partial Linked List of Slow Food Nation Taste Pavilion Vendors
