AFTER STARING WIDE -eyed at the astronomical Web fares to Los Angeles last weekend, I was lucky enough to catch a ride down south at the last minute with a coworker. When we stopped at McDonald's (which, incidentally, was offering a Caesar salad with some respectable-looking mixed greens) and I didn't want to eat anything, my colleague's wife asked if I was on a diet. How was she to know I was saving myself for the four days of meals awaiting me at my mother's table? Nor did I want to wax moralistic about the ethics of eating at McDonald's, remembering all too well a drive some years back with a raw foodist who brought her guitar into Burger King and sang protest songs while the rest of us ordered fries.

Over a feast of roast duck with baked apples and potatoes, and a sauce of blood oranges from the Santa Monica farmers' market, my mother and I discussed Karl Marx's problem with hemorrhoids, and, more palatably, my mother's recent trip to Italy. Somewhere near Bologna she attended a couple of wine tastings hosted by the local Slow Food convivium. When she asked an Italian friend what "Slow Food" is in Italian, he replied, "Slow Food." I couldn't believe Italians would let anything get away with not having an Italian name and vowed to get to the bottom of this suspicious aberration.

Turns out that Slow Food is a movement – instigated, to my surprise, in Italy, in 1986, by one Carlo Petrini, as an "eco-gastronomic" response to the industrialization and homogenization of food and taste. Why did an Italian start the movement (aren't Italians supposed to be good at the whole slow, homegrown, passed down from generation to generation food thing already? ... ) and then name it in English? To protest the phenomenon of fast food, of course. (McDonald's invasion of Rome was Petrini's legendary inspiration.)

The Slow Food USA manifesto reads, "May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency." By the time I've done "sensual pleasure" and "long-lasting enjoyment," I'm too far off in fantasyland to object to the "contagion of the multitude" bit: "Looks like the masses have the plague again, honey – hoist up the drawbridge and let's eat cake. Or do I mean let them eat cake?" As you might imagine, the movement certainly attracts a fair share of critics who dismiss it as an elitist club for rich foodies.

Despite its professed disdain of the multitudes, Slow Food is swelling in numbers, currently boasting more than 60,000 members in 48 countries (although half the members are in Italy). Its main projects are dramatically titled the "Ark of Taste" and "Presidia." Besides the names, these do seem worthwhile – at least to a person who gets excited about preserving Peruvian potato varieties. The Ark of Taste works to "identify and catalogue" endangered foods: fruits, veggies, cheeses, regional specialties like goat-meat ham, and other such delights. Several of the products on Slow Food USA's Ark list, such as the pixie tangerine (one of my favorites), red abalone, and dry Monterey Jack cheese, are local to California. Each product has a little blurb explaining its inclusion on the list. The description of the Monterey Jack also has an edifying account of the cheese's history.

The Presidia project's mission dovetails with the Ark of Taste as its "operational offshoot," funding and helping to promote groups or companies that produce or protect an Ark-listed product. You can even nominate an endangered food to the Ark list yourself! I wonder if my mother's borscht qualifies, as it indubitably provides "a unique, pleasurable, high quality gastronomic experience" and is "at risk of extinction" – two Ark nomination criteria.

Preserving "at risk" produce is not just about pleasing the discriminating palate. Like the Chihuahua leopard frog and the Elfin tree fern, such regional varieties of produce as the Stone Pippin apple and the New Mexican native chile are endangered species. Their extinction threatens biodiversity. Over the last three decades, many regional varieties have faded away in favor of high-yielding, hardy (read: flavorless) varieties. As usual, you can do your bit by eating what's locally and sustainably grown – and you'll give your taste buds a treat in the bargain.