"Think about how many great and important innovations we owe to the Italian people, from Leonardo da Vinci on, in arts, music, philosophy. The last wonderful Italian invention is the slow food. Now, I expect Italians invent even the slow thought."

It was 2010 and Zygmunt Bauman, with his usual acuity, shared with the audience of the International Communication Summit this reflection that is unexpectedly and currently relevant, thanks to the centrality the Expo is giving to the food theme and more generally to the new and more sustainable development models.

If it is true that the great protagonists of Expo are the hundreds of cultures around the world, with their different styles of food, production and consumption, it is also true that Italy, in this great show, plays a special role. Of course as the host country, but also as the place where measure and respect have always been key and utterly distinctive values of the topic of nutrition.

So, Bauman is right. The idea of a "slow nurturing" could have been born only here. But it is also right to call Italians and Europe in general to the task of finding in this slowness a way out for the process of thinking, too. A way to catch their breath in front of the acceleration of the digital age and find the right rhythm. Especially in the vortex of communication, that has to take a new shape of "sustainability", too.