Its name is an intended contrast to ''fast food'', the globally recognized symbol of which is the US-based restaurant chain McDonald's. But Slow Food's activities and ideas are wide-ranging, encompassing a variety of dimensions of life - beyond meals.

Local Slow Food groups are known as ''convivium'', a Latin term meaning ''banquet'' and which gave rise to the English word ''convivial'' - fond of feasting and merry company - and the French ''convive'' - dining companion.

There are at least 560 convivia in 45 countries, with some 60,000 members in all, according to the Slow Food website (www.slowfood.com).

The movement rejects the ''globalization of a taste that does not belong to the people,'' explained Jorge Ossanai, a doctor in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. His interest in ethnic food and his travels as an international consultant brought him into contact with Slow Food, of which he is now an active member.

The protest against hurried and solitary meals has expanded to include efforts to protect the culinary culture of each community, explained Margarida Nogueira, a food consultant and organizer of the convivium in Rio de Janeiro.

Conservation of this sort of culture occurs through recovering traditional dishes that are threatened with disappearing forever, such as the 'lardo de Colonnata,' an Italian bacon prepared in marble Carrara boxes, Nogueira told IPS.

''We have a tendency to kill traditions,'' which impoverishes gastronomy, lamented the expert. To fight this trend, she has plans to recover some of the typical dishes of Rio de Janeiro state. One of her concerns, for example, is the ''disappearance'' of a purple sweet potato from supermarket shelves, a vegetable she frequently enjoyed in the past.

Along those lines, the Rio convivium, founded last November, meets monthly and is promoting meetings with farmers who grow produce that does not always reach the larger markets.

Traditional food products, often hand-processed by a community or by a family, are far from the consumer market, and so are relatively expensive, Nogueira pointed out.

To save certain foods from oblivion, Slow Food created the Ark of Taste, an evocation of Noah, as a mechanism for the preservation of taste diversity and biodiversity.

At first, the Ark was intended to identify and catalogue nearly forgotten fruits, vegetables, herbs, and sweets - and to promote their consumption.

When the movement discovers that a dish is at serious risk of extinction, its takes action to support the preservation of the food - or drink -, as was the case of Sciacchetra white wine, produced in the Italian mountains of Cinque Terre.

The movement also engages in social projects through its ''fraternity tables,'' which provide food to impoverished or conflict-ridden communities.

In Brazil, the Slow Food Hekura Project is in charge of the hospital kitchen at Porto Velho, capital of the Amazon state of Rondonia, a health center that provides medical attention to the region's indigenous population.

The mission there is to ensure that indigenous patients who are undernourished or have a slow recovery process ahead of them are provided with their traditional foods, so that they do not have to adapt to the food available in the predominantly ''white'' cities, Nogueira explained.

Ossanai, for his part, said that within the Slow Food movement another parallel philosophy has arisen, known as Slow City, with the intent to protect the heritage of smaller urban centers as a means to foment local cultural identity and to preserve the environment.

In Italy, the program already involves a network of 36 cities. Slow City activists in southern Brazil are attempting to launch similar efforts in Antonio Prado, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, home to 48 wooden houses built more than 125 years ago by Italian immigrants.

To preserve this sort of heritage, which ''the local population is sometimes ashamed of,'' the movement provides technical advice, mobilizes local resources and seeks international financing, reported the Porto Alegre physician.

Each convivium attempts to spread the ideas behind Slow Food through public presentations, visits to farming areas and ''taste education'' activities targeting children, so that they might learn to use their senses ''as an instrument of knowledge'' and to appreciate food as an important part of their culture.

As of last year, the movement grants a Slow Food Award for the Defense of Biodiversity to five food-related projects around the world. An international jury of 460 people, selected from among journalists, anthropologists, sociologists and chefs, made the selection for the first-ever awards.

One of the recipients was Raúl Manuel Antonio, leader of a Mexican indigenous community, for his efforts to maintain vanilla and cacao crops after they had nearly disappeared from the region of Chialta, in the southwest state of Oaxaca.

Another prizewinner was Nancy Jones, of Mauritania, who convinced the livestock herders in her country to produce cheese using camel milk, something local residents had formerly rejected because they considered the milk sacred.

For this year's Slow Food Award, to be presented in the Portuguese city of Oporto this October, Brazil's convivium leader Nogueira nominated Sitio do Moinho, a farm near Rio de Janeiro that grows a broad range of organic produce, meaning no agro- chemicals are used.

Manoel Dantas Vilar, a rancher in northeast Brazil who produces cheese from a local species of goat, an animal resistant to the region's many droughts, is another candidate.

And yet another Brazilian aspirant for this year's prize is Kimio Shimitsu, of Japanese descent, who prepares food - as well as homes, furniture and water filters - using bamboo, in Mogi das Cruzes, near Sao Paulo.

Copyright 2001 IPS

###