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Vintage Veg
The ‘Horn of the Moon Cookbook’ Deserves Its Place in the Vegetarian Canon
Ginny Callan’s 1987 cookbook takes a seasonal, local approach to meatless cuisine that’s still refreshing over 30 years later
Ginny Callan ran the Horn of the Moon café in Montpelier, Vermont, from 1977 to 1990 — quite a run for a vegetarian space outside a big city, and she has two cookbooks to show for it: Horn of the Moon Cookbook: Recipes from Vermont’s Renowned Vegetarian Restaurant and Beyond the Moon. That first one came out in 1987, a decade into the restaurant’s run, and documents a specific seasonal and local approach to meatless cuisine.
“The café has struggled financially over the years,” she writes in the introduction. “It has had to compete with other restaurants that use cheap and easy options. The fresh produce that we buy costs more than the canned or frozen foods many restaurants use, and it takes more time to prepare. … We also try to help support local farmers by buying their products.” Any sacrifice in profit, she notes, is made up for in “good feeling.”
As a farmer recently told me on Twitter that vegans don’t care about where their food comes from, it’s mentally soothing to go back to the historical record and remember that when one’s nourishment depends on produce, one recognizes the significance of eating seasonally and locally. Both mean the fruits, vegetables, and grains are more fresh, of course, but it also means the people eating them are in sync with their environment in a powerful way.
Why eat tomatoes and corn in a cold winter when the sweet potatoes and kale are growing, when we can be nourished by what surrounds us? That’s the approach Horn of the Moon Cookbook reminds us of, one that shouldn’t be thought of as “trendy” or “fashionable” but as an act of political and ecological will to support local economies.
When one’s nourishment depends on produce, one recognizes the significance of eating seasonally and locally.
What is fun about the cookbook is seeing which ingredients were considered “less common” in the late-’80s, like nutritional…
