By Ann Duwe

Slow Food has been anything but slow when it comes to attracting an international following of 80,000 members in 100 countries. The snail is the organization’s symbol, yet the group has been quick to influence the way we think about food.

Founded in 1986 by Carlo Petrini, a native of Italy’s Piedmont region, Slow Food embraces all that is local, seasonal, traditional and, above all, pleasurable in world food cultures. The idea for the organization arose from Petrini’s sense of outrage over news that McDonald’s was opening a franchise at the foot of Rome’s famed Spanish Steps.

Initially the organization emphasized the pleasures of the table. But early on, Petrini realized that protecting edible plants and animals was integral to the group’s mission. Slow Food devotes resources to conserving biodiversity as well as ensuring sustainable agricultural practices.

In a speech delivered in April to America’s Kellogg Foundation, Petrini decried the loss of biodiversity, pointing out that “if all these species are disappearing, so can man.”

Unless we make important changes in our thinking and behavior, he argued, we might kill the things that sustain us - including those leisurely gatherings around a shared meal. Petrini clearly recognizes the benefits of science, technology and industry. He is not averse to profit. Yet he insists on putting science and technology to work to achieve quality and sustainability instead of sacrificing those values in pursuit of quantity and profit.

Slow Food is organized into several related endeavors:

• The Ark of Taste - A list of endangered food plants and animals.

• Presidia - Projects around the world that receive the organization’s support because of their efforts to promote pleasure and sustainability of foods or food traditions. Presidia projects often involve setting up protective standards for products and finding ways to market them to ensure the commercial viability of products that may otherwise disappear.

• Awards - Given to people whose work aligns with Slow Food principles.

• The University of the Science of Gastronomy - In Pollenzo, Italy.

Slow Food Editore is the organization’s publishing company. Located in Bra, a tiny town in the Piedmont region, it produces the quarterly magazine “Slow” in five languages. This branch of the organization also publishes annual guides to Italian restaurants and winemakers. Illustrated with photos Los Altans would recognize, a recent issue of Slow described the conversion of Olson’s cherry orchards in Sunnyvale into Apple’s high-tech campus and a clutch of condos.

Slow Food USA publishes the quarterly “Snail” for distribution in the United States, along with restaurant guides for cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Such established authors as Wendell Berry (”The Art of the Commonplace”) and Michael Pollan (”The Botany of Desire”) as well as farmers and homemakers contribute to the “Snail.”

Local membership organizations, called Convivia, continue to spring up and they are responsible for regional events. There are now 120 in the United States, including the Silicon Valley Convivia for Peninsula residents.

Alice Waters of Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe is among Slow Food’s most visible Bay Area members. The Berkeley chef’s recent projects include drives to make school gardens part of the curriculum and to transform school lunch programs along Slow Food lines.

Last year Slow Food invited the world to Turin to attend Terra Madre, an idea exchange for farmers, fishermen, breeders and nomads. Five thousand people representing 1,200 food communities from 130 countries turned out.

In his opening address Petrini said: “We are firmly convinced that food communities, founded on sentiment, fraternity and the rejection of egoism, have a strategic importance in designing a new society, a society based on fair trade. The communities you represent are depositories of ancient and modern wisdom. They are an important and strategic factor in human nutrition, in the delicate balance between nature and culture that underpins our very existence.”

Author Pollan captured the essence of the Slow Food movement when he declared, “The best place to preserve biological and cultural diversity is not in museums or zoos but … on our plates.”