Vegetarian Cookbook Project

            “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet”, wrote Albert Einstein.  Vegetarianism in its most basic definition is a diet excluding meat; from these basic guidelines stem many different variations of vegetarianism.  The arguments for a vegetarian diet vary widely, and here are just a few of the reasons: religion, animal rights, cultural preferences, money or even feminism.  One of the most popular arguments for a vegetarian diet is the positive health effects.  These health effects are not just based on the health of the individual vegetarian, but on the environmental health of the world. Although the argument for the health of the individual has been around for a while the overall health of the environment argument is one that has grown from the industrialization of the food system.

            To get a better understanding for the argument supporting the health benefits of vegetarianism, vegetarian cookbooks are good resources to look at to find a variety of arguments.  Vegetarianism for the Working Person is a cookbook/guidebook for how to cook simple vegetarian dishes and it is also a guide of where to find vegetarian options on the go.  This book was written in the mid 1980’s; it argues, almost exclusively, about the individual health benefits.  The author’s goal was to inform the reader that vegetarianism can be an actual long-term diet.  “The American Dietetic Association has affirmed that a vegetarian diet can meet all known nutrient needs” (Stahler).  The prevailing thought amongst most people during this time was that meat products were needed to have a complete diet and to eat a meatless diet would be bad for your health.  The cookbook makes no arguments about environmental health benefits. During the, mid-1980’s the industrial food system was booming, but the negative externalities of the system had yet to be fully realized.  The cookbook actually supports the use of the industrialized food system; the first quarter of the book is devoted to finding vegetarian options at different places, mostly fast food restaurants.  The industrialized food system was in full swing during this time, but the harmful short term and long term effects had not been realized.

            To find out how the health argument had changed since the mid-1980’s, two other cookbooks were analyzed.  One from 1995, Linda’s Kitchen: Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meatless Meals ,and the other was a book originally written in 1997 called Student's Vegetarian Cookbook: Quick, Easy, Cheap, and Tasty Vegetarian Recipes.  Both of these cookbooks present the argument of health as the main reason for becoming a vegetarian, but they present their arguments to a different crowd and in a different manner.  Student’s Vegetarian Cookbook was written for students who are beginning their journey into vegetarianism who are looking for quicker and more simple recipes to make while balancing the life of a student.  The cookbook’s author mostly talks about the negative environmental health effects of eating meat, and how if you eliminate meat from your diet it can help the world, as well as yourself.  The cookbook has a strong underlying tone portraying the “evilness” of the current food industry, arguing that it is not sustainable and it uses many statistics to show its negative effects.

            Linda’s Kitchen argued much of the same as Student’s Vegetarian Cookbook, except it felt as if it was geared to a more sophisticated crowd than students.  The recipes seemed gourmet and more complicated to make than the previous two cookbooks.  The author Linda McCarthy stressed that becoming a vegetarian was a great new way of life that not only would help to save your life but also the planet’s.  She rejected the industrial food system, and made sure the reader knew that the current way of producing food specifically meat was unsustainable.

            The most interesting part of the three cookbooks is the addition of the environmental health argument from the earlier cookbook as opposed the two cookbooks from the mid to late 1990’s.  The earlier cookbook actually advocated using the industrialized food system to help be a “working person” vegetarian, by using fast food restaurants to eat vegetarian.  A lot of knowledge was gained in that ten year period between the books and that can be seen.  Although there is still some skepticism, mostly among staunch meat eaters, of a vegetarian diet being a complete healthy diet.  The latter two cookbooks featured environmental arguments for becoming a vegetarian rather than just strictly the individual health.  The vegetarian diet, according to the health argument presented in the cookbooks has become an anti-industrial food movement, pushing vegetarians to reject the food industry.


Works Cited

McCartney, Linda. Linda's Kitchen: Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meatless Meals. New York: Arcade Pub, 1995. Print.

Stahler, Charles, and Debra Wasserman. Vegetarianism for the Working Person: Quick and Easy Vegetarian Recipes. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Vegetarians, 1986. Print.

Raymond, Carole. Student's Vegetarian Cookbook: Quick, Easy, Cheap, and Tasty Vegetarian Recipes. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003. Print.

3rd Food Ethnography

            A tavern to the average American is a restaurant where people mainly go to drink alcoholic beverages, enjoy some decent food, and gather with friends.  For the most part in my twenty years of living, every tavern I have gone to has been almost exactly as I just described. The classic tavern that I had grown accustomed to was not what I found on my visit to Tavern 109, in Williamston, Michigan.  One of the biggest growing trends in the United States restaurant industry is the use of fresh-local sourced food.  Tavern 109 is one of the restaurants that believes in local ingredients making better food.  My family and I made the trip down Grand River to Tavern 109 to experience first-hand what it was like to eat at a locally sourced restaurant.

From the moment I walked in I could tell this was not your typical downtown tavern, there was a smell of fresh food being made (I think it was some sort of apple dessert) instead of the traditional beer and peanuts scent.  The tavern is located in a restored historic bank building in downtown Williamston and the architecture definitely added to the whole experience. When we walked in the immediate feeling I got was comfort, the old brick walls, a fireplace dividing the two sides and a semi-open kitchen gave the restaurant a cozy feeling I could not deny.  As I was feeling all cozy, I realized that the restaurant was different from all of the prior food ethnography locations.  This was the most “upscale” location I had been, not in the fifty dollars for a steak upscale sense, but Tavern 109 was “upscale” in the sense that it was somewhere that people go to have a relaxing locally sourced meal and sip on a craft beer.

The most important part of the whole experience was the food; I had gone to “Fork in the Road” before so I had high expectations for Tavern 109 being a restaurant with locally sourced meal options.  The menu had a plethora of options that I thought sounded delicious, and many of the dishes they featured had me excited to eat.  I was deciding between the shrimp and grits (locally sourced Okemos farmed shrimp) or the P.G.L.T (prosciutto, goat cheese, arugula, and tomato) pizza, eventually I settled on the pizza.  The menu conveyed Tavern 109’s commitment to creating traditional tavern dishes with a creative spin and local ingredients when possible.  Every dish I saw being brought out from the kitchen looked delicious from the fish and chips to the barbeque burger.  As I was reflecting on all the food I went back to some of the original thoughts I had about Tavern 109 being “upscale”.

I use upscale in quotes as I had mentioned above not because of the prices, because everything on the menu had a “fair” price entrees around fifteen dollars and burgers around eleven dollars.  Now these prices are a bit expensive relative to some of the local taverns, the overall environment is what made Tavern 109 “upscale”.  The people in the tavern were mostly white middle to upper-middle class adults with only a small handful of kids.  At least this was my perception from the attire of all the customers, generally dressed in clothing described as business casual.  I felt almost underdressed in my jeans and Michigan State crewneck sweatshirt, but I did not feel as if I was out of place.  Some of the customers seemed to be out on a date while others seemed to be meeting their friends for dinner minus the kids.  The lack of kids is one of the largest reasons Tavern 109 seemed “upscale”. Most restaurants on a Tuesday at 6:00 PM will have all kinds of kids running around, Tavern 109 did not.   

As I am writing and reflecting back on the “upscale” theme that I have been talking about for most of the paper I connected thoughts in my head to much of what I have been learning about in class.  The local sourced food movement is still relatively small and also considered to be a sort of a Foodie movement for the middle to upper class to have fresh healthy food when they want it.  Tavern 109 is one of those places that has magnified this thought of locally sourced food being an option for the middle to upper class citizens.  The lack of kids to me can be explained by much of our discussion in the beginning of class on how the typical Americans believe most kids only like “simple” foods, like hot dogs, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese.  By this American logic, taking your kids to a restaurant like Tavern 109 seems like a waste because they would not appreciate the great unique tastes that are associated with many of the dishes.  Tavern 109 had the “upscale” feeling to me because of the above mentioned things, but I believe as the local food movement continues to grow Tavern 109 will just be seen as another great place to enjoy locally sourced food.