This post about fast food reminded me of the supreme arrogance of so many people I've come to tolerate and even love.

This sort of trade-off between short-term pleasure and long-term welfare is not irrational. It is necessary for living a good life. And it helps explain why people do things like smoke, have extra-marital affairs and vote for Howard Dean. Yet instead of acknowledging that such a rational trade-off is taking place, Spurlock & Co. are genuinely disgusted by the thought of liking McDonalds. Rather, they live in a world where basic choices about personal consumption must reflect profound ethical commitments.

This is classic Bobo thinking. One might even say that it is Bobo religion. Everything must be organic. Instead of instant coffee, there is cappucino made from fair-trade Colombian beans. Instead of low-priced mega-stores, over-priced boutiques. Instead of SUVs, gas-electric hybrids. (NB: Brooks identifies the SUV as the ultimate Bobo vehicle because of its pseudo-ruggedness, but I think he'd now agree that the smart set has come to regard SUV's as a guilty pleasure. Someday, it will loath them as it does McDonald's.)

What prevents the Bobos' condescension from exploding into utter loathing and contempt is the sense that America's primitive majority is not responsible for its crude and ignorant behavior. Instead of contempt, there is a certain pity. If you watch Super Size Me, I think you'll agree that Spurlock betrays a definite affection for all of the misguided McDonalds' lovers he interviews. He wants them to live better and healthier lives, but he would hate himself if he ever became like them.

A typical example is to be found in the so-called "slow food" movement. (Closely linked to the "sustainable development" folks.)

Slow food may not be for everybody, but then, hey, not everyone is superior enough to care about the little people. Besides, not everyone can afford to:

Slow Food's aim is to promote food and wine appreciation. One doesn't imagine soft-middled Barolo-sniffing gourmands as being manifesto-thumping radicals, but they are. The SF manifesto states, at www.slowfood.com, "We are enslaved by speed and have all 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."

Certainly, North American urban infrastructure thwarts the average eater from revelling in lovingly selected local produce and leisurely prepared meals eaten at a sun-dappled pace. Highways and megaplexes and job stresses turn victual pleasures into vital pressures.

As Slow Food fan and chef Marco Canora of Hearth, New York City, writes in a Q&A on egullet.com, "The movement encourages people to stop eating at fast-food restaurants where the food has little or no nutritional value and to cook at home instead... I think it is unrealistic to expect people who have been working long hours to keep clothes on their children's backs to come home with raw ingredients and spend an hour preparing a meal for their entire family. When faced with the option of going to the store and buying a tomato, onion, lettuce, and ground meat so you can go home and make tacos, or taking your kids to Taco Bell where the tacos cost 59 cents each, I think most people are going to choose the latter."

Canora says slow foodies are idealists. Eating conscientiously takes time, and time - the suspicions are true - takes money.

A recent Slow Food Québec tea tasting cost $45 for non-members - out of reach for many (though the Scots in me balked at the price, I was sorry to miss it). Marc-André Cyr, whiz baker for Olive & Gourmando, catered the event. He said the crowd was mostly women, generally 45-50 years old.

"We can see where they need to do their canvassing," Cyr said. "I think the younger they start, the better - in Italy they're all about the kids." Cyr told me that in Italy, SF sponsors inexpensive tables d'hôte for under-25s, and collaborates with schoolteachers to convey the importance of food. He'd love to see similar youth outreach programs here.

Though SF is perceived as a club for gourmets, it also fights for food heritage. Carlo Petrini said in an interview with wine authority Jancis Robinson, "The relationship between gastronomy and ecology is very close. A gourmet who eats and eats and eats but does not appreciate where his food comes from is a fool."

The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity was created to help protect global gastronomic resources through - among other ways - seed banks, education on the risks of big agribusiness, and documenting and promoting artisanal food production knowledge. An alarming 75 per cent of European food product diversity has been lost since 1900, as has 93 per cent of America's.

Speaking of such extinct food products, whatever happened to Kellogg's Concentrate© cereal? Where's the EPA now that we really need them?

As an effete champion of Classical Values, I feel a special duty to remind readers of the old days. And the fact is, the Romans knew how to do slow food!

Here is a sample ancient Roman menu:

Dormouse stuffed with asafoetida and fish purée
Dolphin balls with rue berries
Boiled ostrich on the bone
Jellyfish omelette
Wild boar poached in seawater
Stuffed pig’s womb and crunchy sow’s nipples
Rabbit-flavoured cheese

Hell, the Romans practically invented slow food!

the Romans were remarkable, inventive cooks who would surely have looked upon the mass-produced, tasteless slop we eat today with deep disdain. Everything the Romans ate was organic, fresh, without additives or colourings, and usually home-produced and home-cooked.

I say, let them eat peacock brains!