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Famous Vegetarians & Their Favorite Recipes
by Rynn Berry
With ecumenical thoroughness, Pythagoras and the Buddha are placed in the vegetarian ranks, and so is Leonardo da Vinci, whose favorite dishes (Chick-pea Soup, Almond Pudding, Fried Figs and Beans) Berry has tracked down with admirable enterprise.
Wearing his learning lightly, Berry cites the Dead Sea Scrolls to establish a strong case for Jesus Christ as a vegetarian who probably partook of the Essene Sprouted Bread whose ancient (and modern-sounding) recipe is included here.
Ranging through history, Berry shows that veggie-addicts had many motivations, from Shelley's desire to be totally unlike his hated father to Tolstoy's belated reformation from debauchery to virtue.
From Gandhi's Chapatis to George Harrison's Dark Horse Lentil Soup, this is a book that stimulates your brain and your digestion.
From the book jacket:
More than just a cookbook author, Rynn Berry is a literary detective and
scholar adventurer. He is the first to have found and published the vegetable
recipes favored by Leonardo da Vinci, which he translated from medieval
Latin into English.
He is also the first to have discovered vegetarian recipes for Louisa May Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott, which he found written in his wife Abigail's hand-written recipe book. Berry has worked similar feats of research for such vegetarians as Paul and Linda McCartney, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Swami Prabhupada.
Recipes were culled from cookbooks left behind or from the notes of family members and housekeepers. Other recipes were gleaned or carefully recreated from historical accounts.
Famous Vegetarians' more than 70 recipes include soups, grains and pastas, soyfood entrees, vegetable entrees (nearly two dozen), salads and sandwiches, breads, and desserts.