Food, food culture, food as culture and the cultures that grow our food

Fortunately the food was slow and dry

June 10, 2005

When the ’slow’ is the Slow Food Movement and the ‘dry’ is Dutch design collective Droog Design, the combination of slow and dry is a good thing. In Dutch, droog means ‘dry’, and it refers to the dry humor of many of the collective’s designed objects. Droog is celebrating their Amsterdam Staalstraat location by hosting a temporary ‘fastfood’ restaurant to showcase their food-related design items (open until Sunday 12.06.2005). The menu is quintessential fast food; burgers, chips, shakes, but all the ingredients are sourced from local ingredients, made by artisanal suppliers and prepared with the love and attention of Slow Food Movement volunteers. I decided to be a lady who lunches and give their grub a try.

The foodstuffs arrive in round-bottomed ceramic bowls - all of which you may take home with you after eating! The strawberry shake contained a goodly portion of fresh, local strawberries. The burger bun was made from brioche dough, the burger, real chopped all-organic beef, dripping real meat juices! And so the story goes, good ingredients prepared with love from barnyard to burp. The restaurant is primarily about letting folks try out design objects in a real food context so not surprisingly the portions are mini-petit. This sweet and small design choice reminded me of the way Pee Wee Herman used to eat baby corn on TV; kernel for kernel typewriter style! After finishing my slow fastfood lunch, I wasn’t hungry but I did have a little hunquering to take home some more of those cute little round-bottomed bowls.



droog Design - Slow Food
Slow and Dry guests wiping out their dirty dishes to take with!

Droog Design - Slow Food
The frying section of the Droog Design kitchen

Droog Design - Slow Food
Sink with cool faucet and vases built into the tiles

Menu, Slow and Dry at Droog Design
The menu is a flow chart that communicates the provenance of all of the ingredients

Droog Design - Slow Food

And this is what the Droog kitchen looks like. The design is based upon the most generic of non-designed kitchens and is the very expression of Dutch Practicality. Just the way the Dutch like it. One of the SlowFood cooks had a few complaints about the uneven heating of the burners and the vase tiles seem like they would be a raging pain in the tochas to clean, but at least the faucet rocks. And anyway, it’s just outta beta.

debra at 0:17 | | post to del.icio.us

1 Comment »

  1. jammer dat ik dat toen niet gezien heb - gaa-af!

    Comment by sue — October 30, 2007 @ 22:02


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