Slow Food Chef's Alliance is a network of chefs and cooks from different parts of the world who are committed to defending biodiversity, to promoting local cultures and traditional gastronomic skills, and to supporting virtuous food producers who believe in the preservation of traditional knowledge and techniques and who work with respect for the environment and animal welfare.
The Slow Food Chefs’ Alliance project already has hundreds of members in over twenty countries (Albania, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Iceland, Italy, Kenya, Morocco, Mexico, the Netherlands, Uganda, United Kingdom and Russia, United States, South Africa).
Chefs' Alliance in South Africa
In South Africa, the complex history and the diversity of peoples’ food cultures, as situated in its very varied landscapes and climatic zones, are only in a small part reflected on restaurant menus or at street vendor stands. Sadly, traditions from foreign countries are generally better represented.
Many local and ancient food traditions have already virtually completely been displaced while others, particularly from rural areas, are increasingly under threat.
The Western Cape, with its remarkable but underutilized edible biodiversity, is the site of innovative work by chefs and cooks. Their range of innovative skills are revealing potential regenerative and climate change solutions for the province. They are ensuring that a diversity of meat-based traditions as well as innovative plant-based practices are being promoted in both formal as well as informal establishments and settings. Local versions of distilling, brewing, fermenting, culturing and processing are being nurtured to life by professionally trained chefs as well as experienced cooks, who are all determined to keep alive or to restore the diversity of farming as well as culinary practices, the heritage of the indigenous peoples in their local environments.
Chefs joining the Alliance are called to make key commitments:
Establishing a direct relationship with producers who supply ingredients, wherever possible, respecting the seasons when choosing ingredients, promoting and supporting Slow Food campaigns (Slow Meat, Slow Cheese, the campaign against food waste, etc. ) and consequently making choices in line with the aims of these campaigns.
Chefs with Compassion
Chefs with Compassion is a non-profit organization that partners with chefs, companies, individuals and organizations to rescue surplus food. The food is then prepared or sorted and donated to feed the hungry.
"It is criminal that we have such a thing as FOOD WASTE when we have children going to sleep hungry, especially when there are tons of food per annum being destroyed at Joburg Market but thousands of hungry people within a 20km radius of the Market.”
– Caroline McCann (Founding Director)
