vegetarian – Early American Cookbooks

“Vegetarian” timeline

The number of books in the Early American Cookbooks collection which contain the word “vegetarian” in the text increases slowly in the late 19th century and then grows substantially in the years from 1900 to 1920. The vegetarian movement in the United States grew over the same timespan and publishers began producing cookbooks devoted to a purely vegetarian diet. The timeline also reflects the increased number of references to a vegetarian diet not only in books such as How to Cook Vegetables (1891) by the bestselling author Sarah Tyson Rorer, but also in general cookbooks such as Fannie Farmer’s A New Book of Cookery (1917).

Use of word "vegetarian" over time — Use of word “vegetarian” over time

Soy flour as meat substitute during World War I

Government pamphlets during World War I were published to help housewives adapt to wartime food rationing. Many recipes use substitutions to make “mock” versions of traditional dishes. These recipes use soybean flour as a substitute for meat, a technique also used in early vegetarian cookbooks . Modern vegetarian cooking continues this practice with recipes using soy products such as tofu, tempeh, and textured vegetable protein.

Recipe from Use soy-bean flour to save wheat, meat, and fat (Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Office of the Secretary, 1918).

Vegetarian cookbooks

Illustration from Six hundred recipes for meatless dishes by M. R. L. Sharpe (1908).

The American Vegetarian Society was founded in New York in 1850 with William A. Alcott, M.D. as its first president. Alcott was the author of The Vegetable Diet, as Sanctioned by Medical Men, and By Experience in All Ages (1849). Vegetarianism grew in popularity in the United States over the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many new vegetarian cookbooks were published including The vegetarian cook book by Edward E. Howe (1887), Science in the kitchen by E.E. Kellogg (1892), Vegetarian Cook Cook: Substitutes for Flesh Food by E.G. Fulton (1904) and Six Hundred Recipes for Meatless Dishes by M. R. L. Sharpe (1908).

Did vegetarian cookbooks differ markedly from other cookbooks? A text analysis comparison shows some interesting results.

When did the word “vegetarian” first appear in American cookbooks? Check out the timeline chart of when the word appears in the Early American Cookbooks collection