Vegetarian Oatmeal Burgers from 1927

This recipe of Vegetarian Oatmeal Burgers is found in the booklet “Lacto-Vegetarian diet recipes” (Lacto-vegetarische dieetrecepten) from the plant-based butter, or margarine, brand “Planta”.

In Belgium this Margarine is still for sale with the name “Planta”. Due to the “Planta-scandal” around 1960, it is sold in the Netherlands nowadays under the name “Bertolli”.

During that time “Planta” had added the anti-splatter emulgator ME-18 to it’s margarine. This led to 100.000 people having a rash and fever-like symptoms. 4 people died and hundreds of people needed to be admitted to the hospital. In 1962 around €567000/$623000 was divided between 8000 people for compensation for their pain and suffering. ME-18 is not used anymore ofcourse.

The history of Oatmeal Burgers.

Around the end of the 1800’s you start to see recipes of Oatmeal Burgers appear in cookbooks. This alligns with the increasing popularity of the vegetarian lifestyle in this era. The popularity picked up again during the second world war. It was a cheap and tasty alternative for the hard to aquire meat.

When I read about Vegetarian Oatmeal Burgers for the first time it did not sound appetising to me at all. But much to my suprise it actually tastes like minced meat! It has the same mouthfeel. In the future I wil definitely add more historical Oatmeal Burgers recipes to this website.

Vegetarian Oatmeal Burgers from 1927

Recipe by Chef Labecaque

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

40

minutes

Cooking time

40

minutes

Ingredients

• 

• 150 gram (3 teacups) Oatmeal

• 3 Eggs

• 1 Onion

• 1 teaspoon Salt

• 1/2 teaspoon White Pepper

• 1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg

• 1 teaspoon Marmite/Vegimite

• 3 tablespoons Milk (or Water)

• 1 full tablespoon Tomato puree

• 100 gram Margarine

Directions

• Beat the eggs and add the salt, pepper and nutmeg.
• Dissolve the marmite and tomato puree in the milk (or water) and add this mixture to the beaten eggs.
• Pour this over the oatmeal and leave it soaking for 30 minutes.
• Cut the onions in rings. Cut the rings that aren’t pretty in tiny pieces and add it to the oatmeal.
• Make 4 burgers of the oatmeal mixture.
• Warm up the butter in a pan and brown the burgers quickly on both sides on high heat.
• Add a teacup of water and loosen chunks that are stuck to the bottom. Add the onion rings and let it stew for 40 minutes on low fire with the lid on. Sprinkle some gravy from the bottom on the burgers now and then.

Modern interpretation of the recipe for Oatmeal Burgers.

To add this recipe to your day-to-day cooking repertoire I would increase the amount of spices used. Maybe just use the herbs and spices you usually put in the minced meat for burgers. Replace the marmite gravy for regular gravy or another sauce you like to eat with your burgers.

You could use half of the butter, or maybe even 1/4 th. They have written so much butter in the recipe because the needed to sell their “Planta” margarine ofcourse.

You can make the cooking time wáy shorter. Only the eggs needs to be done, which kinda already happens when browning the burgers. It needs to stew for a while though so it gets the same moist texture as minced meat.

I usually make it like this: Brown the burgers in a pan like in the original recipe, but make sure that the pan can also survive the oven. Put it in the oven on 180C/355F with a lid on. If you do not have a lid; sprinkle some gravy from the bottom on the burgers now and then. I let it stew in the oven untill I am ready with the rest of the dinner. With the mashed potatoes and vegetables for example. This is often short then 40 minutes, but long enough for the Vegetarian Oatmeal Burgers to get nice and moist.