This recipe comes from Vegetable Cookery, one of the earliest completely vegetarian cookbooks. It was first published in periodical form in 1812, then went on to be published as a book. This recipe comes from the fourth edition published in 1833. Since the word “vegetarian” wasn’t popularized until the 1850s, Vegetable Cookery doesn’t actually use that term and refers to a “vegetable diet” instead.

Vegetable Cookery was written by Martha Brotherton, although it was published anonymously and attributed only to “a lady” (a fairly common practice at the time). Martha Brotherton was an active member of the Society of Bible-Christians, an English religious sect that required its members to follow a meatless diet. In her introduction to Vegetable Cookery, Martha explains some of the reasons why the Bible Christians do not eat meat, including that they believe a vegetable diet is healthier, it is inhumane to kill animals, and, most importantly, that God did not intend for humans to eat animals (this last point is backed up with several pages of scriptural quotations). To me, the most interesting argument for vegetarianism is one that Martha mentions very briefly; she notes that it takes more land to produce animals for food than it does to produce vegetables, so if everyone abstained from eating animals, England would be able to support a larger population and would be less likely to experience famine. I’ve seen similar arguments for vegetarianism made today, so I find it interesting that this was also a concern as much as 200 years ago.

Although the Bible Christians did not eat meat, they did seem to be ok with using other animal products; many of Vegetable Cookery’s recipes include butter, eggs, and milk.

Pumpkin Soup:

• 1 medium-large pumpkin or 2 small pumpkins
• 1-2 turnips
• 1/2 onion
• 2-3 stalks celery
• butter
• salt
• 3 (imperial) pints milk (1,705mL or 7.2 cups)
• pepper
• bread

1. Pare off the outside of the pumpkin and scoop out the pulp. Cut the remaining pumpkin into about 3/4 inch cubes.
2. Peel the outside of the turnips and cut them into 3/4 inch cubes.
3. Dice the celery and onion.
4. In a large pot, fry all the vegetables together in butter until they start turning brown around the edges. Season to taste with salt.
5. Meanwhile, heat the milk in a separate pan until it just comes to a boil. Add to the pot with the vegetables and simmer until the vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Cut bread into small pieces and toast them. Put the bread pieces at the bottom of the serving bowls, and pour the soup over them to serve.

Tasting notes:

I love pumpkin, so I thought I would like this soup, but I found Martha Brotherton’s decision to use 3 pints of milk very questionable. The texture and flavor just seemed a bit off to me; part of this might be because I accidentally let the milk come to a boil when it was supposed to be just simmering, but I think even without that mistake using this much milk would just make the soup too rich. I think this would be a lot better using a vegetable broth or even just water instead of milk; there are several recipes provided for vegetable broths in the same chapter of the book, so I’m not sure why Martha chose to put milk in this soup instead of using one of those. I was not a fan of this soup as written, but I might try it again using one of her vegetable broth recipes instead.

References:

A Lady. (1833). Vegetable cookery. London: Effingham Wilson. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Vegetable_Cookery_with_an_introduction_r/kbzOfS2D9TIC?hl=en&gbpv=0

Shprintzen, Adam D. (2013). The vegetarian crusade: the rise of an American reform movement, 1817–1921. University of North Carolina Press.