The Gradual Vegetarian

The Gradual Vegetarian grew out of experiences with really good vegetarian food in the East Village in the early ‘70s. Up until then, I had pretty much hated vegetables, since mostly they were boiled to death.

The idea for the book itself came out of sleep. Henri Poincare talks about sleeping on a problem to get the solution. I’d been trying to be a vegetarian for months, maybe even years. And I’d do it, and then I would start hanging out with people who weren’t, and I’d want to cook for them, and the next thing you know it was veal stew and vegetable beef soup and all that.

So I woke up out of a sound sleep one day with the words “The Gradual Vegetarian” hanging in my mind like a fragment of a dream. The result was the book that was published in the United States and Canada (Dell), Britain, Sweden and Italy, and today is considered a classic, along with Frances Moore Lappe’s “Diet for a Small Planet.”

The good and new news is that a new GRADUAL VEGETARIAN is in the works. Visit the website for tips on nutrition, allergies and how to structure a vegetarian, vegan, or even partially vegetarian diet with recipes at www.thegradualvegetarian.com.

Find the book here.

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