Vintage Veg
Recipes for the Past, Ethics for the Future
A quirky, egg-free vegetarian cookbook from 1968 offers unexpected inspiration
When I bought Pegeen Fitzgerald’s Meatless Cooking: Pegeen’s Vegetarian Recipes, it was because it seemed quirky enough. Published in 1968, both the foreword and introduction are staunchly in favor of ethical vegetarianism. “As you know, I am a vegetarian,” she begins. “My belief comes not only from an innate reverence for life but from a love of animals.”
As I read a bit more about the author, I discovered she and her husband hosted a long-running radio show called “The Fitzgeralds” in New York. Their New York City apartment and Connecticut home were overrun by cats that their listeners had bequeathed to them upon passing. Apparently, their radio show acted as a means of finding homes for 3,000 animals per year, and in 1982, Pegeen founded a cat shelter called The Last Post that is still operational. She also worked with anti-vivisection organizations. This was a woman — who was born in 1904! — on a mission.
‘Someday I will write a book about vegans and vegetarians… with no recipes at all… and it will be about man’s longing to be truly kind.’
