Lorna J. Sass

Lorna Sass's The New Vegan is, without a doubt, my favorite cookbook. I've made about 75% of its recipes, and I have yet to be disappointed with any of them. With most cookbooks, I end up altering the recipes, sometimes heavily, but with Sass's book, I follow recipes exactly because I can't imagine them (that I've tried, at least) tasting much better.

The recipes, which cover the usual areas--appetizers, side dishes, main dishes, and sweets--are rather eclectic, with influences from all over show more the globe. Sass also includes helpful tips for new cooks or people who are unfamiliar with vegan cooking. I appreciate that she pays attention to wastefulness--that is, if she doesn't find a place for unused portions of ingredients in a recipe, she often encourages the cook to save leftover ingredients for stocks or other recipes.

Most of the recipes are easy enough to prepare, although several require some time and patience. That said, the fancier dishes are great for entertaining. Whenever I cook for guests, I almost always turn to Sass. This is a great cookbook for someone who wants to show friends that vegan cuisine can be flavorful and interesting, or for a novice cook who wants to branch out a bit and try some more creative and adventurous cooking. show less

I'm a fan of historical cookery, and I stayed up way too late last night reading all these recipes. I want to make them all!

I think, though, that one Christmas feast per year is about all I can manage (OK,in addition to the usually Christmas day stuff that's traditional in our family).

So! This year I am hoping to do "Saturnalia" between Christmas and New Year's, assuming people can come- it's a busy time of year, of course, but a belated Saturnalia would be better than none at all!

And in the show more next 4 years, the next 4 feasts.

The recipes all look do-able for a modern cook, though sometimes there are multiple things that need the oven at the same time but at different temps. Also, some new insight into cooking can help with that scheduling problem.

Please do note that if we had a Roman or a Victorian or whatever come- after cooking the whole feast- they'd probably wonder if we were poor! Standards have changed; we no longer have a kitchen staff, plus we tend to curate meals. I think this cookbook gives fascinating ways of providing a Christmas feast that is evocative of the period, but actually possible for us moderns.

I can hardly wait for Saturnalia!

While i think this would work best for a fairly experienced cook- especially if one is trying to do the whole feast- the individual recipes are very manageable and look enticing. show less

Considering how meat-centric this book is, I think the target audience would do well to get some extra fiber in their diets by way of the whole grains featured in this book! (Seriously, even some of the pancake recipes call for bacon. Gross.)

I was hoping that this cookbook would give me (a vegan) some ideas for incorporating some more whole grains into my white pasta and white rice centered diet. Although I was turned off by a lot of the flesh-centric dishes, I did get a few good ideas from show more this book. I'm looking forward to trying out some new grains and giving my diet a bit of variety! show less

This cookbook has over 100 historical recipes from the approximate era of the novel "Tom Jones", all chosen for both period flavors and techniques, and ingredients that are mostly accessible and- importantly- not toxic. Even the Victorians used some pretty toxic stuff in their cooking, especially when it came to coloring the food. (Some of that was discussed in the book I read recently on the Victorian home.)

This was particularly interesting to me because while the timespan it covered was a show more minimum of 50 years earlier than the Victorian era, a lot had not changed. In particular the traditional way of serving meals was very similar, and the diagrams from one book on where to place the 8+ dishes per "remove"- and there were usually a couple of "removes"- are quite similar.

Plus- the recipes look tasty! This is not always the case for historical recipes. I have not yet tried to make any of them, but I admit I am eying one of the first ones, the almond soup- though to me it looks more like a dessert than an appetizer!

The ingredients in the various recipes are fascinating, both in whet is similar, and what is really different for us. For example, oysters were almost considered filler... and now they're luxurious! It makes me wonder what foods that we take for granted now might be exotic and "fancy" in 100 years or so...

There was a good amount of context throughout. Each recipe had the original first, then notes and comments, then the modernized version. Note that since this book was published in 1977 it predated food processors, which would make many of the recipes far easier!

It is not as hardcore as a couple of "modernized" historical cookbooks have been, but it's also more accessible, and more of the recipes had me saying "Ooo! I want to try that!" I am impressed by the curating.

Very recommended, especially for those of us who are not into hardcore historical cooking, but would like to try some of the flavors and techniques. show less