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BY
MRS. BOWDICH
AUTHOR OF “CONFIDENTIAL CHATS WITH MOTHERS”
WITH PREFACE BY
ERNEST BELL, M.A.
TREASURER OF THE LONDON VEGETARIAN SOCIETY
LONDON
GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN
AND NEW YORK
1892
CHISWICK PRESS:—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.
There are already a good many vegetarian cookerybooks, ranging in price from one penny to half-a-crown,but yet, when I am asked, as not unfrequentlyhappens, to recommend such a book, Iknow of only one which at all fulfils the requirements,and even that one is, I find, rather severelycriticised by ladies who know anything about thematter.
To have to live by some of them would almostmake a vegetarian turn meat-eater. Most are compilationsfrom other books with the meat dishesleft out, and a little porridge and a few beansand peas thrown in. All of them, I believe, containa lot of puddings and sweets, which certainlyare vegetarian, but which can be found in anyordinary cookery book.
What is required is a book that will enable usto provide something to take the place of meat,which, while nourishing, shall at the same time bepalatable. This the present book aims at doing.Of the 221 recipes given, upwards of 200 areviabsolutely original, having been carefully thoughtout and tested by the author herself, and not hithertopublished anywhere. Many of them are as nourishing,weight for weight, as ordinary dishes made withmeat, those containing beans, peas, eggs, and thevarious sorts of grain, being the most nourishing.If they are not all found to be palatable, the faultmust be in the individual cook, who cannot haveput in the important ingredient of feeling, withoutwhich no work can be wholly good.
The thorough-going vegetarian, to whom abstinencefrom meat is part of his ethical code and hisreligion,—who would as soon think of taking hisneighbour's purse as helping himself to a slice ofbeef,—is by nature a man of frugal habits andsimple tastes. He prefers a plain diet, and knowsthat the purest enjoyment is to be found in fruitsof all kinds as nature supplies them. He needsbut little cookery, and that of the simplest. To himthis book will be of little use, except when he wishesto entertain his friends.
But there are others who, while not feeling thatany moral principle is immediately involved in thematter of diet, yet would like to be relieved fromthe necessity of eating flesh, possibly on æstheticgrounds, or it may be from hygienic reasons, or insome cases, I hope, because they would willinglydiminish the sufferings involved in the transportand slaughter of anim