This book has been compiled by special and repeated request. Otherwise, I should have hesitated to add to the already existing number of vegetarian cookery books. It is not addressed to the professional cook, but to those who find themselves, as I did, confronted with the necessity of manufacturing economical vegetarian dishes without any previous experience of cooking.
An experienced cook will doubtless find many of the detailed instructions superfluous. The original idea was to compile a cookery book for those vegetarians who are non-users of milk and eggs. But as this would have curtailed the book's usefulness, especially to vegetarian beginners, the project was abandoned.
At the same time, non-users of milk and eggs will find that their interests have been especially considered in very many of the recipes. All the recipes have been well tested. Many of them I evolved myself after repeated experiments. Others I obtained from friends. But all of them are used in my own little household.
Owing to repeated requests from ordinary vegetarians, who find the book useful, I am now including recipes for yeast bread, cheese dishes, nutmeat dishes, etc. I have put all these in the chapter entitled "Extra Recipes." To go to the opposite extreme there is a short chapter for "unfired feeders." Other new recipes have also been added. The note re Salads has been borrowed from E.J. Saxon, and the Vegetable Stew in Casserole Cookery from R. & M. Goring, in The Healthy Life.