ISBN 978-1-0903018-58-3 £8.99

Vegetarians have never had it so good. But before the days of aubergines and peppers available at the drop of a hat, the lot of the food reformer was not so exciting. Today, there are new vegetable types, skilled and inventive cooks delivering dishes from cuisines unknown to our parents' generation, and new kitchen technologies that provide freshness and flavour inconceivable to the age of cast-iron ranges and steaming boiling-pots. Anne O'Connell explores the recipes that were developed by, and available to, English vegetarians and food reformers of the last two centuries by means of an anthology gathered from early cookbooks, starting with the pioneering writings of Thomas Tryon from the end of the seventeenth century. While there was sometimes a surfeit of heavy grain-based dishes and fairly bland flavours, those with longer memories will recall that vegetarian cooking could be surprisingly tasty and adventurous (they could work miracles with a nut cutlet). Here is a hint of how they achieved their ends.