When Alice Waters went to Austria to organize a food event, she specifically requested that local produce be used. But, she later found out the ingredients had all been imported from Italy.

She was not about to make the same mistake again.

That was the reason why verification for the opening banquet of the US-China Forum on the Arts and Culture started as early as July. Waters sent two people over to Beijing and made contact with food writer Lillian Chou, who took the team to visit the suppliers.

They visited 10 farms to make sure vegetables and meat for the dinner were all going to be organic and above board.

"The green vegetables were just great," says Waters and continues with great enthusiasm about the hazelnuts, walnuts and chestnuts in season, and the lovely beans and salad sprouts from the farms.

Her insistence on using food that originated within a certain radius of the banquet is testament to her devotion to Slow Food principles.

For instance, she looked for a source of quality ducks and could not find any, although an organic farmer from Hangzhou did offer her about a hundred birds that she would have to kill herself.

Waters decided to use the organic pigs that were being bred in Beijing's suburbs instead and so the menu for the dinner at the US Embassy in Beijing was changed at the last minute.

"We had people at computers making all the adjustments, just days before the menu was printed."

That was why guests at the banquet got to enjoy braised pork and grilled pork on a red wine sauce, with a turnip mash on the side with organic carrots.

"The bread was made from organic flour from one of the farms, and so was the flatbread."

Waters was obviously impressed by the raw ingredients she worked with. It must have been a great relief, for Waters admitted that she was not sure what to expect. "There were just so many reports in the media "

Courtesy prevented her from mentioning the alarming stories of exploding watermelons, pesticide-contaminated vegetables, and tainted meat, which made the headlines in China and filtered abroad.

But gladly, food activists and organic farmers from Beijing would have helped put everything in perspective and perhaps put her mind at ease.

Appearing on stage with these same people in the forum discussion "Food as Culture" will help strengthen future links between Waters, her championing of the Slow Food movement in America and now China, and many more culinary journeys.

What Waters is crusading for is familiar to most Chinese: Sit down at a table, eat as a family, eat food with taste and tradition, eat food that reflects cultural and ethnic origins, with recipes passed down through an unbroken chain of home cooks carefully guarding the culinary heritage.

Many Americans no longer eat at the family table. Instead they take a plate and eat in front of TV screens or terminals.

China is heading the same way, and it won't be long before this damaging trend, too, erodes thousands of years of epicurean traditions. This is why we have to sit up and listen to Chef Waters when she says: Start educating the children. Take the food out of the cafeteria and into academia.