If you love food and care as much about the health of the people who grew and raised it and of the soil and air it was grown in, chances are strong you encountered the ideas of Carlo Petrini, who died May 21, 2026 at 76 at his home in Bra, Italy–his birthplace and the birthplace of Slowfood International, the movement he founded in 1986.

Petrini went beyond uniting people who wanted to find and eat the best of a region’s and country’s produce and cuisine. He showed them that they couldn’t fully enjoy that without recognizing the dignity and well-being of the people who make food, the importance of tradition and human contact, and social and environmental justice. Chapters of Slow Food opened around the world. Those chapters, the dozens of books and guides Slow Food published, and University of Gastronomic Sciences, the university he founded near Bra, in the region of Piedmont, changed lives and careers. And changed mine. He turned my concerns and priorities upside down when I went to my first Slow Food meeting in Italy in the fall of 1998. Skeptical, I went for the food but stayed for the values. Stayed for good: my Atlantic piece about the movement led to my book, The Pleasures of Slow Food.

For several wonderful years Carlo and I did a double act when he lectured in America and England, and he would pretend to get mad at me because my translation wasn’t word for word. But the spirit was true. And no one was more spirited on stage. He was mesmerizing and passionate.

A few clips and videos below, and a fond retrospective interview he recently gave to an Italian newspaper. His spirit animates every choice of Food & Society’s Food Leaders Fellowship, and I had the chance to tell him on our yearly visits just why he would fall in love with all 72 (and about to be 90!). How proud he would be of what he inspired.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/doing-well-by-eating-well/377485/ https://vimeo.com/29441810 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgjlwm https://www.unisg.it/lintervista-a-carlo-petrini-sul-corriere-della-sera-sabato-13-dicembre-2025/