慢餐来了:抵制城市快餐文化

慢餐宣言：城市的快节奏生活正以生产力的名义扭曲我们的生命和环境。我们要以慢慢吃为开始，反抗快节奏的生活。

Outside of Beijing, far from noisy cars and crowded sidewalks, Beijing's newer trend of Slow Food is picking up the pace in popularity. Managed by Israel's Ohad Tiktinsky, this lovely restaurant is engulfed in the fragrant smell of fruit, herbs, fresh air and Mediterranean culinary refinement. The Orchard grows its own fresh, crisp, daily-picked vegetables for discerning customers who want the middle men, processing, and suppliers left out of their diets.
"Slow food started as a movement in 1986, to promote-as an alterative to fast food. The goal of the movement is to preserve traditional and regional cuisine as well as encouraging farming, which is not as common as we would like it to be. There are many other goals as well. At the Orchard we are focused on growing our own vegetables and herbs in order to control their freshness. By controlling their quality and freshness, you can control your dishes. The taste, the flavors, the freshness, which makes the dish different from any other."

The Orchard was started by a German, an American and its long standing Chinese chef, He Deli, and is now in its ninth year. While most chefs go to a wet market first thing in the morning for ingredients, he can just step outside. Tiktinsky adds that the premise holds three greenhouses filled with herbs such as thyme, mint and oregano while their leafy gardens are filled with lettuce and greens. Around 1000 trees provide fresh apples, pears and other fruits.

A culinarian of thirty-five years, Beijing's own He Deli has been exploring Western cooking styles for decades with special focus on France, German. He explains that this concept of food preparation is quite different in China but is now catching on with local Chinese. In the past, raw, fresh items such as salads, were not generally consumed.

"The main differences between Chinese and 'Slow food' cooking styles are the cooking speeds and ingredients chosen. Chinese food is typically prepared very quickly. Western food is particularly famous for its careful choice of ingredients, so we collect them very carefully. We use only the best ingredients, so if we promise it's a Shandong potato, then it is; we don't lie. Our restaurant is well received, so we go through most of the ingredients within one day. It not, we don't reuse them, we give them to our staff to consume the rest. The other thing is our preparation is professional. If our featured thirty dishes have sold out, we won't prepare extra ones in a hurry. We will honestly tell the customers the truth".

In general, many restaurants serving upscale healthy Western dishes cater to foreigners. Tiktinsky says this was originally the case with the Orchard. But over the years, the customer dynamic has changed substantially. Chinese now make up 70 % of the clientele.

"The changes come first of all, from money. People now have more money than they used to have and can afford a good meal at a Slow Food restaurant like ours, with our atmosphere, with the lake, and the garden, beautiful flowers… And now, another thing, now a lot of Chinese are going abroad. They are going and tasting food from all over the world, from Europe, Australia, America, and South America. And now, they want to taste the same things they tasted anywhere else, over here- at home. And I believe we are almost the closest thing to the source."

The menu has a general Mediterranean theme, but Chef He explains that he has also integrated different countries' styles of food. This is something he learned from his previous German and American colleagues who constantly invited guests of all backgrounds.

"During this period, I came to understand that only one-country's dish cannot do for everyone. So we added French cuisine, German cuisine, Italian cuisine and Mediterranean cuisine to our menu. It can also caters to the needs of our German or Italian customers."

But as most of the clientele is Chinese, sometimes they aren't familiar with the Western menu items. To accommodate those who aren't sure, the menu descriptions have been carefully translated by the staff so that the Chinese customers have a better idea of dishes they may not know.

One of the wait staff, Xiaoya, says the customers usually have questions such as how the food is prepared and where the owner is from.

"The most popular item in our restaurant among our Chinese customers is our home-made bread. Also, they really enjoy the salads made from our garden- fresh vegetables. But the main favorites with our Chinese guests are the mushroom noodles with veal, German pork hock, T-bone steak and our antipasti platter. These dishes already look appetizing to begin with, but the customers also realize how tasty they are. "

The interior is wooden and appears homey, as the food would imply-no one here is in a hurry. The guests are urged to relax in the lounge area over a glass of wine or a coffee while listening to the old melodies of Billie Holiday.

In a city such as Beijing filled with days of frantic lunches, putting on the brakes with a bit of Slow Food may be exactly what's in order.

For CRI, I'm Andrea Hunt.