At the beginning, there was little more than a matinee. In September 2009, the Museum of Science scheduled a Wednesday afternoon showing of “Food Inc.,” wondering if it would draw an audience.

“Surprisingly to everyone around here, the auditorium was full, with a huge waiting list,” said David Sittenfeld, manager of the museum’s forum program. “What we realized was that we needed not just a few programs about food but a full and discrete program.”

What has resulted is “Let’s Talk About Food,” which debuted with a slate of events on Columbus Day weekend, has three events remaining this year, and will fill a second set of programs beginning in the fall and extending into 2012.

So far, guests have included Mark Bittman, Jody Adams, Tony Maws, Ana Sortun, Corby Kummer, and Annie Copps. A forum on health and nutrition included Dr. Jennifer Sacheck, a Tufts University researcher, and Jaime Corliss, the director of Shape Up Somerville, a communitywide effort used as a model for Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” program.

The next event, in early April, was supposed to be about fisheries, but David Rabkin, the museum’s director for current science and technology, said they’ve found the subject so broad that they will instead approach it from several directions next year.

That leaves a film on decades of trial for North Carolina sharecropping families (May 15) and a forum on food and sustainability (May 26), and a first-year valedictory “Let’s Talk About Food Festival,” which will stretch out June 25 on the Charles River Greenway, caddy-corner to the museum behind the Royal Sonesta Hotel.

A highlight of the festival will be the “endless table,” a cascading series of discussions of food issues conceived by local food figure Louisa Kasdon, who moderated the discussion that followed “Food Inc.” and has guided the series throughout.

“It was an idea that I had originally with Jody Adams about a table that would stretch from end to end with people coming together around all aspects of the food question, from all disciplines — amateurs, professional chefs, scientists, moms, gourmets, vegans, GMO activists, economists, farmers, what have you. ... It was our metaphor for the fact that there we may sit at one table, but have endless conversations," said Kasdon, chef, restaurateur, and food editor of Stuff Magazine.

The festival, cosponsored by Boston, Cambridge, and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, will include cook-offs, talks, activities, and cooking demonstrations, both with and without a nutritionist providing commentary, such as why that meal would be great for an athlete, for example.

I attended the nutrition seminar and admired the format. After the three presenters set the table, attendees were asked to address one of three questions, each delivered in a sealed envelope to each table. Discussion ensued, as it did in a second period during which each table was asked to devise up to three public policies that would fight obesity.

Perhaps not surprising for a crowd gathered on the edge of Cambridge, many of the suggestions invoked government authority, such as taxing sugary drinks, implementing tax rebates for joining a gym and incentives for attending nutrition classes, and strong sentiment for banning vending machines.

I found it, as well as the discussion that followed a showing of "Lunch Line" two days later, valuable for the discussion points, but also for letting me be among people who approach food issues with the same passion I feel, even if not in accord on every issue. Ban vending machines? Really?