"The farmers need to develop a sense of humor!"
This is what was going around as a quote from one of the organizers of Slow Food Nation on Saturday at the farmers market.
What an interesting grasp of the problem! But to prove whoever said this right, I want to share a graphic made by one of my customers. You can click it to see it enlarged:

Slow Food still hasn't really apologized and because of this, the story keeps building steam. Unfortunately, because of their stubbornness, their event is forever going to be tainted with this episode. I doubt many stories about Slow Food Nation will escape the details of Petrini's conflict with local growers.

I'm going to repeat what I wrote in the Comments section of the last entry. My goal is to get people to eat real food. You can imagine how hard it is to get an average person to understand what goes into growing a tomato or a zucchini. Can you imagine how difficult it is to get them to cook dried beans? And then to pay for them on top of that? There's a large portion of the population that is dipping their toes into these waters and to have someone like Petrini come along and confirm their suspicions that they may be getting ripped off, while also making fun of them, is beyond irresponsible.

Slow Food's responses have been obtuse, at best. If pressed, I'm going to continue to ask the same questions. Why did you make up the farmers? Why didn't you go to the market on your own? If the problem really is language, what was the point you were trying to make about the farmer's and the customer's personal lives? If because of prices, the market is really for the wealthy and the very wealthy, at $60 a year for a membership fee and events often costing over $100, who is Slow Food for? The wealthy and the very wealthy?

At this point, fearing that I may be over examing things, I now declare: Oh, shut up and eat!