3 Classic recipes from a vintage vegetarian cookbook

Looking back over the last few years, when every restaurant has started advertising their brand new vegetarian and vegan options, you'd be forgiven for thinking that vegetarianism was a new-fangled thing in Britain.

Even I, as a long-suffering vegetarian, had assumed that being veggie was a product of the 1960s and 70s.

However, my view changed after my grandma passed away. We inherited a large collection of books, one of which was an edition of Mrs Beeton’s Everyday Cookery from 1908.

That’s right, not only was it 114 years old and full of recipes for parakeet pie and hominy fritters, but there was also a section dedicated to vegetarians. Because, while Mrs Beeton wasn’t explicitly for a vegetarian diet, she did think it was the duty of every good host to be able to feed a vegetarian if you came across one.

I quickly learned that not only were there Victorian vegetarians, but according to Pen Vogler’s book Scoff, vegetarianism as a choice first became popular in Britain all the way back in the 1600s.

So, as an experiment, I decided to try a few recipes myself to see how the Victorian vegetarians ate.

Be careful not to let the cheese curdle when cooking your bowl of cheese soup

In lieu of finding any hominy in Asda, the first recipe I tried was cheese soup. I love both cheese and soup, so this was something I should get along with. Or so I thought.

To start with, thanks to my inability to convert ounces to grams, my onions are swimming in a bath of butter. But, no matter. I learned from Nigella, butter just makes things taste better, so I added the milk and water next.

The layer of butter instantly rose to the top above the milk and the two layers would not come together no matter how hard I tried.

I am told to get the mix to almost boiling then add an egg before it gets too hot, otherwise it will curdle, followed by the cheese.

Unfortunately “almost boiling” is too imprecise and the minute I add the cheese, the mixture curdles into a huge, brainy looking mixture.

I mourn all the nice parmesan I put in before putting my sad cheesy mush on a plate with some toast. Despite the horrific texture, the flavour is decent, so while it is not a recipe I would try again, it has given me inspiration for my next breakfast.

At least then I’ll scramble the eggs on purpose.

Combine curried beans with chopped carrot and apple for a genuine Victorian veggie dish

I can’t waste another dinner on something inedible, so I go for what seems to be the safe choice of curried beans. However, I pair with Mrs Beeton’s bread cutlets. After all, a lot of meat substitutes are made of pure gluten, so I reason it couldn’t be that far off.

To start with I fried some onions and added chopped vegetables. Easy enough, although the chosen vegetables are carrots and apples, which are an unusual combo. I next added flour and curry powder, and then beans and bean water.

This didn’t leave much liquid, so I added more, and then left to simmer.

So far, so good. In the meantime, I soaked slices of bread in milk and coated them in egg, seasoning, parsley and finally breadcrumbs, which felt almost redundant considering the bread interior.

While these fried in a pan, I went back to my beans. The mixture tasted very odd and sweet, so I went against the recipe and added salt and pepper. As much as I wanted to stay true to the recipe, I was also hungry.

Once the bread was cooked, it was ready to serve. After tasting, I’m still not sure what the apple added and the milky bread texture in the middle was not the most appetising in a savoury context, but at least everything was cooked properly this time. And it tasted OK!

Pease porridge makes a high-fibre alternative to oats

For the final recipe, I decided to cheat a little and make pease porridge from Vogler’s chapter on vegetarianism. It is incredibly straightforward—you simmer yellow-split peas in stock for ages until tender. That’s it.

In the end I have to use much more water than instructed and four stock cubes (of slightly different flavours) to fill the pan enough. It also takes at least an hour to cook, which I can no longer afford on my gas hob.

When it is cooked, you are meant to strain it through a cloth, but luckily for my RSI I have a hand blender, so I blend until it’s nice and smooth.

It may not seem like much, but it kept well in the fridge, and I enjoy the “porridge” on toast with crispy vegetarian bacon bits and a fried egg. It’s not until I eat it though that I realise I have spent over an hour and all that stock to make yellow mushy peas. At least I like mushy peas.

So what have I learned? While vegetarians have been around forever, some recipes weren’t meant to be, especially English Victorian ones (I’m looking at you, cheese soup.)

That’s not to say that all old vegetarian recipes are bad, and some of these are definitely springboards for something more exciting (if I can figure out a way to cook with less gas).

It may not be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but it’s certainly the beginning of an interesting one.

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Read more: 10 Nostalgic dishes to make at home

Read more: Vintage recipes from old cookbooks

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