SAN FRANCISCO – Slow Food Nation, the so-called "Woodstock of food" celebrating American food and the people who produce it, spread across the Bay Area and beyond over the long weekend.

The Associated Press

Sustainable-agriculture advocate Alice Waters answers questions as author Michael Pollan listens during a news conference Friday.

The event is national in scope – Mozzarella Co.'s Paula Lambert of Dallas showed her cheese and was one of the speakers – but was weighted heavily with the bounty of California. Serious discussions about the politics of food alternated with hands-on tastings of artisan food products. Berkeley restaurateur Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse fame, has been a presence throughout.

Here, some highlights of the event.

On Thursday night, 500 guests filled Civic Center Plaza for Come to the Table, the opening dinner. They crowded in at two long tables lining either side of SFN's Urban Victory Garden. The table held bowls of tiny summer tomatoes, California olives and roasted almonds. Entrees consisted of grilled Soul Food Farm chicken with herbs and spit-roasted Berkshire porchetta, potato and green-bean salad and garden lettuces.

A Friday press briefing included Ms. Waters, authors Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, SFN executive director Anya Fernald and Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini (whose remarks were charmingly translated from Italian). They put the whole event in context.

Much of the panel's talk had a political tone. Mr. Pollan said he believed Slow Food Nation "will be a coming-out party not just for Slow Food USA but for the whole-food movement in this country."

He wants people to know Slow Food's not "a Diners Club for well-heeled foodies," but rather is driven by "concern about agricultural policies in this country," with the ultimate goal of providing "healthy food for everybody."

Ms. Waters said that "we're trying to bring food back into the area of nature and culture," something our society has fallen away from over the past couple of generations.

"When we eat food that's fast, cheap and easy," she said, "we're digesting the values of Fast Food Nation."

She'd rather see us give our money for "wholesome affordable food grown by people who care about what we eat."

On Gough Street in the Hayes Valley section of San Francisco, you realize you are not in Dallas any more when you spot a Mexican restaurant selling sautéed tofu tacos.

A couple of blocks away, the 30-year-old Hayes Street Grill hosted a "Slow Dinner" event, but the special guests were not famous chefs or cookbook authors. They were the fishermen whose family-owned boats brought in the evening's dinner supply of albacore, black sea bass and white sea bass. They were applauded like Hollywood celebrities.

Saturday's "Slow Food Nation" seminar was standing room only. Atlantic Monthly writer Corby Kummer (The Pleasures of Slow Food) moderated an all-star lineup that received a raucous welcome: renowned writer and Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry; Mr. Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma); Mr. Schlosser (Fast Food Nation); Ms. Waters; Mr. Petrini; and Dr. Vandana Shiva (Stolen Harvest). "Food and justice" was the dominant topic. As Mr. Schlosser put it: "I don't care if the tomato is heirloom and local and organic, if it was harvested with slave labor."

That evening's Slow Dinner at MarketBar was, coincidentally, a benefit for the California Food & Justice Coalition.