On Wednesday, hundreds of diners, at 40-plus restaurants from Maine to Hawaii, ate in honor of a book.

"Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town," by filmmaker- photographer Douglas Gayeton, was the inspiration for these prix fixe meals made with local, seasonal ingredients. The author himself ate at Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley, Calif., and has collaborated with the restaurant on a menu that will be very particular to Tuscany, his book and chef  Alice Waters' local food movement.

A stunningly lovely volume, "Slow" is a the product  of Gayeton's time in  the small town of Pistoia, Italy. The images are  "flat films" inspired by Caravaggio, DaVinci and other pre-Renaissance paintings that incorporated clever narrative devices. Each sepia-toned image, often created from a series of photographs,  is layered with details. In white ink, floating words, diagrams, arrows, and rays of light emanating from the heads of a "saintly" figure transform the prints into modern-day illuminated manuscripts. The photos do not capture a single frozen moment, but rather move back through time to connect the dots between  people, stories, skills, traditions and recipes.

Below, a sample of some of the inspiring pages.

1 of 10

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