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Sue Muncaster and her daughter, Mariela Santelices, 6, bake naan bread, a yeasted Indian flat bread, on Sunday at their home north of Victor, Idaho. NEWS&GUIDE PHOTO / BRADLY J. BONER

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The best response to an increasingly dire financial crisis is to take a deep breath and return to our communities, says the founder of Slow Food in the Tetons.

Rather than gloom and doom, the changing season should inspire people to become more locally self-sufficient, Sue Muncaster says.

“I really think that the whole thing with the economy is evidence that we’ve lived out of control for too long,” said the Idaho-based organizer, writer and mother. “I think about how fast and fierce the ‘global financial crisis’ hit us. Imagine how fast and furious the inevitable global food crisis is going to hit us. It’s time to take action and just say no to fast food, processed food and big corporations.”

Muncaster runs Slow Food in the Tetons, the regional chapter of Slow Foods International, a group that formed in the 1980s in Italy when concerned citizens protested the opening of a McDonald’s next to Rome’s Spanish Steps. The movement, which now has more than 100,000 members in 132 countries, promotes sustainable agriculture, family traditions, school garden and lunch programs,  and reviving heritage foods.

Heritage foods in the Tetons include elk, mushrooms and summer vegetables and fruits, such as huckleberries, potatoes and carrots. These foods, Muncaster said, are endangered, increasingly replaced by packed, fast and to-go substitutes.

Muncaster sees this as a region hungry for a slow-food movement. Land is valued for its development potential, not for what can be grown on it. Slow food could reverse this trend, she said.

“I have found the longtime local community over here in Teton Valley full of stories, inspiration, recipes and traditions that warrant protection and sharing of knowledge,” Muncaster said. “I look out the window as my neighbor climbs into his green tractor. He’s sold some of his land and will never have to worry about money. But, he does worry that the little he has left will soon disappear and never feed another cow or grow another raspberry, rhubarb or bunch of fresh asparagus.”

Simply and healthy

Muncaster and her cohorts maintain hope that the community can foster a local market where farmers can conserve farmland without selling out to corporations or turning fields into suburban grids.

“I have gotten to know many of the old-timers and their children and have tremendous respect for the agrarian lifestyle,” Muncaster said. “It seems so simple. They go back to growing food to sell locally; the farmland and lifestyle that makes this place so beautiful is preserved; the environmental impact of food distribution is mitigated; and we have better taste and health.”

Bringing back the lost pleasures of good taste, healthy food, tradition and the family table hasn’t been an easy task. Muncaster watched last summer as the farmers market in Driggs, Idaho, suffered from a lack of patrons and some sellers backed off.

Muncaster trudges on, documenting personal and group efforts on The Ecogastronomy Initiative blog (eco gastronomy.org), which runs the tagline “A balanced diet of pleasure, health, sustainability and global justice.”

It’s a lot to swallow, but the author, baker, personal chef, international rafting and trekking guide, elite athlete, adventurer and coach said the base ingredient of the Slow Food Movement is enjoyment.

“Instead of preaching environmentalism, we preach a love of good food,” she said. “Preaching environmentalism won’t ‘get us there.’ Appreciation will … hopefully.”

Slow Food in the Tetons’ biggest celebration to date was its annual summer Locavore’s Night Out event, at which local food producers and chefs passed out samples of food grown and prepared within a 100-mile radius. More than 400 people sampled cheese, wine, veggies and fruit at the Driggs event this year.

Muncaster also produces lectures, films and classes with help from Slow Food board members, who include a beef farmer, grocer, photographer and mushroom farmer.

 “Sue has been our completely fearless leader,” said Tye Tilt, owner of Mountain Valley Mushrooms. “It was Sue’s enthusiasm that got me on board. Slow Food in the Tetons is a really positive, fun nonprofit. It’s also really inclusive. Democrat or Republican, you all got to eat.”

Indeed, regardless of Tuesday’s election outcome, mountain town residents face food challenges, especially in winter, when nearly all food is either flown or trucked in.

“I eat what I like and too much of it, probably,” Tilt said. “I definitely believe in the organic movement and getting more sustainable eating on the more local level, but you do the best you can.”

Dale Sharkey, who runs Cosmic Apple Gardens with Jed Restuccia in Teton Valley, Idaho, said at a lecture last year that buying apples from Washington is a good start.

Buying a big crate of them in the fall and storing it in the garage will yield crispy snacks in the off-season. Apple buyers could also make applesauce, she said. She also suggested making vegetable soup during the summer, then freezing it for winter consumption.

Board member Bob Arndt, co-owner of Jackson Whole Grocer, hopes to get more small farmers into the marketplace.

“We try to get producers from our regional backyard – from Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming – into the store,” he said. “On the local front, we’re just trying to get customers connected with farmers and from the national side, the Slow Food movement is starting to advocate more for farmers’ rights.”

Muncaster recommended buying American-made produce as well as seasonally ripe and nonprocessed food. She said it’s important to patronize community-supported agriculture as well as local beef farms such as HD Dunn and Son Angus Beef in Tetonia.

“I think many of us have such high ideals, especially for food and the environment, that we can be paralyzed by the fact that what we think we ‘should’ do and what we ‘can do’ don’t always jibe,” she said. “I try not to beat myself up when I can’t afford organic or splurge on a pineapple from the tropics.”

Even Muncaster, the local spokeswoman for slow food, struggles with food.

“I would love to say that food is easy in my household and that I have warm cookies on the counter and a stew in the oven, but we aren’t quite there,” she said. “I do love to cook, but I find myself nagging my husband and daughter, which, of course, has the opposite effect. Mariela would tell you her favorite foods are boxed macaroni and cheese and hot dogs just to see my reaction.”

Enjoying family meals

Despite familial negotiations, a hail-mangled greenhouse and what she calls a “jungle” garden, Muncaster managed to make peach jams and salsa and sit down for meals with her husband and daughter nearly every day this summer.

“I guess I’m most proud that we do share meals whenever possible,” she said. “Our habit is typically that [my husband] makes breakfast and I do dinner. The joy of my day is hearing Mariela tell stories of first grade during family meals. She loves to help and recently told me she wants to be a farmer when she grows up.”

Slow Food in the Tetons will help the group effort by hosting a variety of events and classes this year, including pie-eating contests, tastings, mushroom cooking class, canning and preserving, beer brewing, bee keeping, raising chickens, making soy products from scratch, soap and body-product making, and growing fruit trees.

The next class, the Baker’s Banter, is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Dec. 15 at the Teton County Library. Pastry chef Monica Seip from Patisserie Seip and Jackson Cake Company will “demystify baking at altitude” while sharing ingredients, recipes and cookies.

Additionally, Muncaster encourages interested citizens to host dinners, visit local farms, plant gardens, cook a traditional family recipe and attend Slow Food in the Tetons events.

She said that the group hopes to improve local public school lunches and facilitate a farm-to-school program where schools can buy more local produce.

She said the models are out there and thriving in other places in the country, but Slow Food in the Tetons needs more people to help make the models a reality.

“Reviving our local food economy has the potential to unite our divided community, save our agrarian heritage, help slow global warming, and preserve the beautiful scenery we treasure,” Muncaster said. “And people are starting to get that they have to return to their community, have to take care of each other and start depending on their neighbors. I’m positive that we can do it.”