Slow Food Nation was good times. I entered a bit apprehensive - crowds at Fort Mason tends to be a bit intense, and i heard that they would be issuing “slow bucks” of some kind that you spend as you collect samples.  It all sounded a bit controlled. 

As i turns out, they did a nice job of managing crowds, and it was wasn’t too packed.  Plus they expanded outside, including my (obvious) top choice of the beer tent.  As Eli and I entered, I was immediately greet by 21st Amendment‘s Jesse Houck at the bottle station (there was also a cask station, a draft station, run by Toronado, and a meet the brewers table)  Jesse poured me a few great sour beers including Russian River’s Temptation, Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout, and Jolly Pumpkin’s La Roja.  There were non-brett beers being poured there too – but time was short, so I had to make some hard choices about what to try.  It was a happy problem to have too many great artisanal beers that embraced the Slow Food ideal.

 

 

 

Then we checked out the cask section – every beer order was being individually tapped by Jay Brooks from the casks in the cooled trailer.  Looking at the overall section of beers available, there was a great embrace of the ideals of slow food from the brewers.  A dedicated cask section (and the wide range of brett beers) was perfectly representative of the Slow Movement’s effect on beers – a return to old and slower ways of creating a beer, resulting in a more unique, location specific product. 

 

 

 

 

From there we headed inside.  Each “pavilion” had its own decorated eating area in keeping with the theme, and vendors from their respective farms and businesses – the result was everyone handing out food was incredibly informative about what they were serving you.  In addition, all of this themed seating area also meant you could take a plate of samples and sit down to enjoy it at table for a few minutes and relax – a great change for an event in Fort Mason.  Each booth also took a different tack to how to approach what they were serving.  For example, the wine booth was offering a flight tasting of Mendecino Wines.

 

  

 

Other highlights included the cheese pavilion, which handed out three different samples (rotating what they were serving as the day went on), and had the charming Victor of Hope Creamery handing out samples of his butter in line (it was delicious.)  We enjoyed our cheese sitting on haystacks during a presentation from a photographer on a set of photos from various creameries. 

 

  

 

As the day wore on, the crowds grew thicker.  Samples began circulating on plates.  I grabbed a pork belly confit dish as we headed into the demo kitchen, where were saw Chef David Chang present a tofu and tomato dish twice. Once as a rustic presentation, then in a more refined secondary presentation that used the same ingredients and flavor profile in a more sophisticated plating. He added that he likes to skin and peel the cherry tomatoes for added textural contrast when he serves this in his restaurants. (A small murmur went through the crowd at this comment – some San Franciscans seemed scared by this idea.  I liked it.)

 

 

  

 

Other highlights of the day: A sauerkraut sampler from the pickling pavilion, the charcuterie station, everything at the seafood station, and a cocktail of grape brandy and pineapple gum. 

 

   

  

 

By now, we were full. But as the clock struck three and the lines began shutting down, we were able to get in at the last round of coffee tastings. In a small group, we were treated to three distinct beans and three very different cups of coffee.  Each coffee was careful explained to us by a roaster from Ritual Coffee.  He did a great job of not only explaining what were were tasting, but the process that created it.  The last sample, an ethiopian bean, was particularly great, with an aroma of blueberries from the painstaking process of drying the fruit with constant stirring immediately following harvest. 

 

 

   

 

 

And with that, they begin shutting down the pavilion and reloading it for the evening feast.  Overall, I think the event was a success.  The crowds were thick, but manageable, and each counter managed to create a small mini atmosphere to enjoy their wares in.  My fears about them tracking how much people sampled were also unfounded – many vendors didn’t worry about it too much, and sample sizes were mostly generous.  But it was the people who made it really great – everyone seemed to be in very high sprits, from the tasters to the vendors.  The energy was infectious, and made for an environment where it was easy to get be absorbed into the moment where you sip a small sample of coffee, and feel like you can imagine you are tasting the Ethiopian sun. 

 

PS – Want more pictures?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 6:24 am and is filed under Reviews, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.