Lydia Roussos’ childhood revolved around the kitchen table and what was put on it.

“My family and I had home-cooked family meals almost every day for breakfast and dinner,” said Lydia Roussos, senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. Roussos is the vice president of Slow Food Marquette, a campus organization trying to bring back the idea of the kitchen table. Her mother is a dietitian and her father is a chef.

“I’m passionate about slow food because I was raised in an environment to care about knowing where your food came from,” Roussos said.

Slow Food Marquette, part of the international Slow Food movement, is hoping to obtain healthier food options on campus and thus provide alternative choices for students.

Amanda Sellers, president of Slow Food Marquette and senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, saw this group as a way to raise awareness on an economic, social and ideological level.

“We need to be eating food that is both socially and economically better for ourselves and everyone. The idea of Slow Food is just that,” Sellers said.

Slow Food Marquette is intended to influence students to make healthier food choices and to help them understand the impact food choices can have. By purchasing food from local farmers, students can put money back into the pockets of those who produced the fruits and vegetables students consume.

With around fifteen returning members and a long list of students who signed up at O-fest, Sellers is hopeful Slow Food Marquette will expand.

“We want students to get satisfaction of knowing where and how food was grown, instead of just getting it from behind a counter,” Sellers said.

Sellers said American culture is fast-paced. People are moving away from the traditional family dinner and the bonding it contributes. Now families reconnect with each other through texting and e-mail, she said.

“If we cook things in a group, we bring the focus back to eating together instead of eating bad food that allows us to have fast paced lives,” Sellers said.

Slow Food Marquette continues the sense of community by incorporating cooking and eating into their meetings, named Friday Night Gourmets.

From Classroom to Kitchen

Slow Food Marquette began last spring in the Public Relations Campaigns class, now PURE 4997. The class works with a non-profit client throughout the semester.  Last spring, the class’ client was Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast and the project was to create a plan to institute a Slow Food chapter on campus, said Katy Klinnert, 2009 alumna and one of the students who partook in the project.

Klinnert said they gathered information from focus groups on campus. Surveys showed students wanted healthier options, basic cooking skills and help finding readily available fresh fruits and vegetables.

David Brinker, a second-year graduate student and co-founder of Slow Food Marquette, said he believes Slow Food Marquette is a great student organization for its diversity of influence within the academic spectrum.

For example, “economics majors might be interested in how changing to localized distribution might affect cost and efficiency,” Brinker said. Engineers can find interest in food production and agriculture design. Communication students can investigate how the nature of food marketing and how the terms ‘organic,’ ‘natural’ and ‘green’ are impacting consumers, and sociologists can examine the eating habits of a community.

Gee Ekachai, associate professor in the College of Communication and one of the group’s advisers for this project, said she saw the potential in the idea behind this group.

“Students can learn to cook their own food from fresh ingredients, learn cooking traditions and explore the process of food from farm to table. We promote the social aspect of eating together with friends and family. It’s also an alternative for students from fast food and dorm food,” Ekachi said.

‘The freshest fresh can be’

Slow Food Marquette wants more local produce options in the six campus dining halls.

Barb Troy, registered dietitian at Marquette, said the quality of food matters and consumers don’t always know where everything in the grocery store has originated.

“The fresher something is, the higher the likelihood that the content will be superior,” Troy said. “(And) you just don’t know (when buying at the grocery store) as opposed to something that was locally grown.”

Monica Zimmer, director of public relations for Sodexho, the food vendor for Marquette, said Sodexho supplies the dining halls with responsibly grown products to ensure students consume the freshest and healthiest foods available.

“The more local the better,” Zimmer said, “but I understand ‘local’ can have many different meanings.”

Gary Schrubbe, food service manager at McCormick Hall’s dining hall, said in the past they have received local produce from vendors and are now currently compiling a list of where their vendors are sourcing food.

Troy recommends students eat local as often as they can and if possible, grow their own gardens.

“It’s the freshest fresh can be,” Troy said.

Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast was formed in 2003 and encompasses the metro-Milwaukee area. Their goal is to increase the use of local foods that are good for the consumer and for the farmer.

Jennifer Casey, a registered dietitian for the Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center and a board member of Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast, said good, clean, fair food is healthy, does not pollute the environment with pesticides and is fair for growers and producers who are paid a good wage.

Casey said Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast wants to increase the availability of local produce to people who lack access to higher quality foods.

“Good food is a basic human right. We need to take a good look as why our industrial system has not given us good food,” Casey said.

Slow Food Marquette extends their condolences to Brooke Peters’ family. Peters was to be president for Slow Food Marquette this year.