This vegetarian cookbook can make you forget meat and fish

Salma Hage writes that when she was growing up in a small village (population: 200) in Lebanon, and for the first two or three decades of her life, her diet, by necessity, was mostly vegetarian.

“During and after [the second] world war, you would eat whatever you could lay your hands on and you would just thank God that you had any food at all. By the 1960s, the variety of food available had increased a lot, but we still weren’t really eating much meat and we didn’t feel that we were missing anything.”

In the intervening decades, Hage has married, had children and grand­children, moved to London and written a cookbook (the excellent The Lebanese Kitchen). Cooking and eating meat and fish became common­place in her life. But what goes around, comes around.

“Over the last four years, my cooking has changed significantly. My son Joe and my grandson George cut out the meat and fish from their diets and I wanted to continue preparing delicious, healthy and satisfying meals for them, but admittedly, I felt per­plexed. I used to really love making all of those dishes so it was a big upheaval to cut out meat and fish from my home-cooking and cook only with fruits, vegetables, legumes and grains. At one point Heni [her husband], who is now 84, said, ‘Here, take some money. Go and buy some meat!’ I replied, ‘I have money, I just don’t like to cook meat anymore.’”

Fortunately for us, Lebanon and the other Middle Eastern countries have an excellent tradition of vegetarian food, with dishes so hearty, varied and satisfying you won’t miss the meat. She gives recipes for manoush (flatbread) with various toppings; breakfast eggs with tomatoes; fava bean and mint falafel; chickpea kibbeh; okra with pearl barley and tomato; roasted butternut squash with spicy tahini dressing; asparagus and feta quiche; stuffed grape leaves with lentils and rice; and baklava rolo.