"We are enslaved by speed and have succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes, and forces us to eat Fast Foods." From the Slow Food Movement Manifesto

Who would pick the laconic snail as their symbol, their mascot? A football team? No way. An NBA team? Hardly — their sky-bound acrobatics are about leaving terra firma, not adhering to it. An auto racing team? Nothing else could be more opposite the slow, deliberate pace of the univalve. Who then? There are two organizations. First, the Slow Food Movement.

Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food Movement over a long lunch in his native Bra (in the province of Cuneo, Italy) in 1986 after he witnessed the opening of a McDonalds in Rome's Piazza di Spagna. From this grass roots beginning, Slow Food has grown to over 60,000 members in 35 countries. Its basic tenets remain: to return to the pleasures of the table, to resist homogenization and globalization of food products, and to support sustainable agriculture.

Slow Food puts its energy where its mouth is. To help preserve traditional foodstuffs particular to a specific region or culture, Slow Food instituted the Ark of Taste. Members can nominate foods that originate from a particular region, especially those in danger of extinction. Examples of United States Ark foods are Dixie Red Delight apples (Alabama), Shelburne Farms cheeses (Vermont), and the Blenheim Apricot (California).

And in an event that makes Philadelphia's Book and the Cook festival pale in comparison, the Salone del Gusto is a celebration of food. The 2000 Salone, held in Torino, Italy, welcomed over 12,000 visitors who tasted hundreds of cheeses, cured meats and cakes (and over 1,500 other products), accompanied by over 800 types of wine from all over the world!

Members of Slow Food receive a quarterly periodical, Slow. Recent issues have covered GMO foods, transgenic vines, and ritual in dining. The editorial bias is decidedly toward organic, sustainable agriculture. Members are also automatically put in contact with a local chapter, or convivium, that has its own schedule and agenda. Locally, the Philadelphia chapter has been active since Fall 1999.

Oh, the other group that uses the snail in its campaigns? Well, it has 25,000 offices in 115 countries, and it opens a new one every five hours. It isŠMcDonalds!

For more information about Slow Food, contact John or Karen Karwoski, 610-970-1564, kvkarwoski@earthlink.net. Informative internet sites are www.slowfood.com, www.theatlantic.com/issues/99mar/eatwell.htm, and www.slowfood-philly.bigstep.com.