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‘Slow Food’ guru keeps it local

By Emily Grosvenor

Ten years ago, farmers called him “The Chef” when he walked the Iowa City Farmers Market. He still takes frequent trips there, but now veteran food guru, creator of the tapas bar Devotay and prominent local food booster Kurt Michael Friese has about half a dozen other chefs to compete with for that title.

The Red Avacado. Atlas. 126. The Motley Cow. Friese couldn’t be happier to have so much competition in his hometown.

“I’ve seen an amazing change for the better in Iowa’s food culture over the last decade,” Friese says. “Twenty years ago, the sign of respect that marked the best restaurants in the big cities was how exotic the food was. Today, it’s how few miles the ingredients have traveled to the table.”

No one has spent more time chronicling that cultural shift in eastern Iowa than Friese — first as a food writer for nearly every regional publication, then as editor-in-chief of the foodie mag Edible Iowa River Valley and now as writer of the first-ever commercial book on the Midwest’s thriving sustainable food movement, A Chef's Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland. Friese will read and sign copies of the book, published this autumn by the Corridor’s own Ice Cube Press, at Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., at 7 p.m. Friday.

Slow Food in the Heartland is a call to action for the growing legions of people who recognize that food is culture and that our current food systems are unsustainable and soulless. But far from being a Slow Food manifesto, or a rehash of Michael Pollan’s eminently readable An Omnivore’s Dilemma, Friese’s book celebrates the people and places behind the movement in the Midwest.

“I’m an essayist at heart. I kind of reach my limit at about 2,000 words,” Friese jokes about his book’s format, which places profiles of farmers, food artisans, farmers markets and local food advocates alongside uncomplicated recipes calling for products traditional to the Midwest. Simply stated, Slow Food seeks to connect food and pleasure with responsibility and awareness of how that food is created.

Readers in Iowa will recognize some of the names and places in the book, though its scope reaches far beyond the state. Iowa City Farmers Market maven Simone Delatay gets a nod with a profile of the artisan bread and the back-to-the-source food experiences she produces at Simone's Plain and Simple at her home in Wellman. Much-hailed prosciutto producer La Quercia of Norwalk, Iowa makes an appearance, as does Solon’s Jordan Creek Bison Farm. These are just some of the food producers in our region who practice sustainable agriculture techniques and see raising food as an ethical, and often a spiritual, act.

“Few people live their lives according to the ideals of sustainability 100 percent of the time,” Friese says. “But these are people who walk the walk.”

Slow Food in the Heartland also offers a “must-eat” tour of the Midwest for travelers who believe that tasting local products represents one of the main pleasures of the journey. The stories paint a mural of Midwestern food culture that stands in stark opposition to the big farms and producers that dominate many perceptions of the region.

And for readers looking for opportunities to shake the hand of the person who raises their food, an oft-stated mantra of the movement, the book is a friendly introduction to those faces and names.

“That’s the whole purpose of the book — bringing people together around food,” Friese says. “There’s a social and spiritual aspect to it.”