Slow-Food Fest Plans Political Mouthful in San Fran

With the slow-food movement taking center stage in San Francisco at a 4-day festival beginning tomorrow, organizers are hoping the momentum carries all the way to Washington, the Chronicle reports. With lectures, garden tours, cooking demos, and restaurant dinners, Slow Food Nation aims to change US food policy by promoting green farming and fair labor. But some say they're preaching to the liberal choir.

"The troglodytes will decry it as 'San Francisco values,' " said a political consultant who likes the idea but knows how critics will view it. Others have issues with the lofty goals—and prices—associated with slow food. "The goal should be to eat right and raise your children well, not buy heritage turkeys for $25 a pound," said one Berkeley writer. (More Slow Food stories.)