Vegetable Diet
- Year
- 1838
- Era
- 19th century
- Origin
- USA · Americas
- Language
- English
- Category
- Vegetarian/Reform
Vegetable Diet, by physician and reformer William Andrus Alcott, is among the foundational American treatises advocating abstinence from flesh foods on grounds of health, morality, and economy. Drawing on testimonials from physicians, clergy, and ordinary practitioners, it gathered arguments circulating within the Grahamite movement into a sustained defense of plant-based eating, and helped shape the antebellum reform culture from which organized American vegetarianism later emerged.
Cooking from this book
Bread of the First Order (Unbolted Wheat Meal Bread)
This is the famous coarse wholemeal loaf championed by Alcott and his contemporary Sylvester Graham, the ancestor of modern Graham bread. The original gives little quantitative guidance, but a workable modern version uses about 500 g of stone-ground wholemeal flour, water, a little salt and yeast, baked at roughly 200 C (400 F) until firm.
Use bread made of unbolted wheat meal, in moderate quantity. Take wheat meal from which the bran has not been separated, and form it into loaves or plain cakes for baking.
Reproduced from the public-domain text via Project Gutenberg. Spelling lightly modernised; the headnote is editorial.
Baked Potato Balls for Dyspeptics
Recommended by Dr. H. N. Preston of Plymouth as one of the most easily digested preparations for those with weak stomachs, this twice-cooked potato ball can be made today by parboiling potatoes, mashing and shaping them, and finishing the balls on a grill or in a hot oven at about 220 C (425 F) until browned.
Take potatoes nearly boiled, then mash them together, roll them into balls, and lay them over hot coals until a second time cooked.
Reproduced from the public-domain text via Project Gutenberg. Spelling lightly modernised; the headnote is editorial.
