Slow food: Slowly with feeling

Slow Food presidia are projects that assist artisan producers to save unique, traditional and/or endangered food products, recipes and livestock from extinction.

These projects "defend our heritage of agricultural biodiversity and gastronomic traditions". South Africa has just one Slow Food presidium: the Zulu sheep.

Richard Haigh has almost singlehandedly taken the Zulu sheep - imvu - from obscurity to the world stage. "I spent many years working in deep rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal and sheep were conspicuous by their absence," he says. "There might have been small flocks, no more than five or six, dotted around but nothing of any significance. I've always liked the idea of farming with a story and so when I left my job in rural development I decided to create a mixed farm based on agro-ecology principles." He and his partner Dave Brennan started Enaleni, a farm between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, and began their quest to source indigenous sheep. They were scarcer than he'd imagined, having been cross-bred almost out of existence.

Haigh spent hours driving around the province, offering to buy from the isolated pockets of flocks he chanced upon. "What makes them special is that they have adapted to a humid climate and are hardy. The best animals came from deep rural areas around Pongola, whereas inland, Mooi River or the Berg for example, they are more likely to have bred with other strains of sheep."

The quest for the sheep was eminently practical: Enaleni is in a rain-shadow area where tick-borne diseases are prevalent. "It's nice to be able to farm in an area under this type of pressure with a species that has inherent resistance. We are matching the land to the breed. For me, this is an important ecological principle."

Haigh started breeding seven years ago, keeping careful records so as to control the gene pool. "You don't want to make it too narrow but at the same you need to maintain the genetic integrity of the sheep - it's conservation alongside production."

He has been remarkably successful. The sheep are fecund and healthy and because they are not artificially fattened, taste exceptional: when Johannesburg Slow Food held a "blind" mutton- tasting last year, Enaleni's meat came out tops.

Producing animals within the Slow Food principles of good, clean and fair includes farming with compassion and ensuring the animals are slaughtered humanely. "We host groups. Schools, NGOs and city people who have no access or have an interest in these farming practices."

Enaleni is actually an integrated mixed farm with cropping, bees, orchards, orchids and of course indigenous livestock - Kolbroek pigs, Nguni cattle, Zulu sheep and a variety of poultry breeds.

"Farming is changing," says Haigh. "It is increasingly about small farms with niche, diverse markets that are ecologically sensitive. We only have 10hectares and we are a working example of the viability of agro-ecology based on indigenous breeds."

Being a Slow Food presidium means being part of a global movement that offers an alternative way of being in the world. The focus of this particular presidium is to keep genetic diversity alive. Globally, says Haigh, "farm breeds are under threat. If you lose a breed or a varietal or a recipe, you lose stories and culture and culinary practices." Enaleni hosts group visits. For information, visit www.enalenifarm.co.za.

Round the world slowly

SLATKO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Slatko is a fruit preserve produced in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. It has the consistency of something between a jam and a syrup and is served to guests by the spoonful with coffee after a meal.

The labour-intensive art was practised only by the elderly until a group of young enthusiasts in the village of Filipovici in Bosnia-Herzegovina revived it.

KOLA NUT, SIERRA LEONE

The kola nut that grows wild in Sierra Leone is used as a medicine and an ingredient in ceremonies. Production collapsed after the civil war but today 48 small-scale producers make the product.

In 2012, Italian artisanal beer company Baladin launched Baladin Cola. No preservatives or colorants means it is the rose-red colour of the nut itself.

FREEKEH, LEBANON

Freekeh is a green wheat that is harvested before it is completely ripe and then roasted. It is found all over the Middle East but freekeh from the Jabal 'Amel region of Lebanon was long celebrated for its high quality.

Lebanon's civil war, the government's widespread cultivation of tobacco and industrially produced Syrian freekeh has put at risk production of this aromatic grain.

As a Slow Food presidium, co-financed by the region of Tuscany and supported by Oxfam Italia and Slow Food Beiruit, remaining producers are getting together to make a high-quality product.