Being called a "snob" or "elitist" by a lout is a compliment and should be seen as such.

...like McDonald's, instead of healthy, local, organic food -- you know, the kind that everybody used to get (including the poor) before World War II.  The reason food in Whole Foods or wherever is more expensive (besides some monopoly profits) is inflation.  The "regular" food is worse than it used to be.  This silent inflation is not reflected in economic statistics, although it should be.  Beef from CAFO feedlots is inferior to the beef our grandparents had, and the same goes for fruits and vegetables.

Slow Food may be a tad too focused on the gourmet, but the origins of local food are inherently based in the rural and often impoverished. The reason why we have species diversity in fruit and veggies is not so much because people wanted different flavors and tastes, but because they needed varieties that could grow in their respective climates.

Slow Food is also not about the uber-expensive so much as about using whole foods (no, not Whole Foods, but the unprocessed). And raw food materials are relatively cheap (except for imported produce and ocassionally meat). Purchasing whole grains and growing your own veggies is pretty damn cheap in terms of money. The expense is in time.

McDonald's actually started out as something for the more well-off (my parents remember getting McD's as an occasional treat, because it was expensive) and with the rise of agribiz and agribiz subsidies, degenerated into cheap, low-quality, high-quantity trash.

Maybe we should invest the money from agribiz subsidies in small family farms and urban and suburban community gardens. Then everyone could afford fresh, local, varietally diverse produce.

Besides, what could be more elitist than a super-rich, multinational, corporate monopoly? As opposed to localized, democratized, diversified food production and consumption?

For some reason the person who appreciates the inner workings of an internal combustion engine is not a snob, but someone who likes a well-made buerre blanc is.

Right.  That other person is called a geek, or a nerd. :)