Traditional Mexican fast food has always come in the fatty, yet delicious, form of the taco. On every street corner in Mexico tiny shops and impromptu taco stalls overflow with people enjoying potentially scary meat combinations, wrapped in warm tortillas and doused in eye-watering amounts of chili.
Yet globalization has recently been affecting this most traditional form of cuisine, particularly among the middle classes. Mexico is the world's largest consumer of Coca-Cola and its obesity rate almost matches that of the US, whilst the number of new diabetes cases is growing even faster. Shopping malls filled with fast food franchises have been mushrooming all over Mexico for years- as in most developing countries, eating here is a status symbol.
Even as fast food as increased in popularity, the good food squads have gone on the warpath. The Slow Food movement began in Italy in the late 1980s as a protest against a new Macdonald's in Rome's Piazza di Spagna. The aim of the slow food groups is to preserve and revive traditional regional ingredients; the movement arrived in Mexico in November 1997 when the 8th International Slow Food Congress was held in Puebla. It was the first time the congress was held in a non-European country, since then membership in Mexico has soared.
The main players in Mexico City are chef Alicia Gironella and her husband/co-proprietor Giorgio De'Ángeli (Mexico's Slow Food representative) of El Tajin. El Cardenal, Nicos, El Bajio Azcapotzalco and Azul y Oro are also temples of the organic, anti-Mcdonald's brigade. Pallawatsch in Cholula and La Conjura in Puebla are major Slow Fooders outside of the Distrito Federal, although the movement is also growing in cities like Morelia and Oaxaca.
These restaurants promote specifically Mexican dishes, made with traditional ingredients such as mole verde and huitlacoche. A 2004 project led by El Tajín restaurant succeeded in certifying Baja California lobsters, with the aim of regulating fishing quotas and encouraging sustainable conservation of the oceans.
The overall goal is not so much a return to tacos, but rather an emphasis on the consumption of natural, local products as opposed to imported, mass produced food-stuffs.
All this, unfortunately, doesn't come cheap - prices per person for mains are generally between $15 and $30. On the price side, KFC and Burger King are likely to continue to lure the tummy rumbling masses. Nonetheless, with Slow Food's projected vision of investing in developing countries, educating young people on the benefits of organic, local products and supporting farmers, gastronomes from all over the world should cross their chilified fingers that the movement will be able to take a big bite out of the love for fast food.