Vegetarian Chervil Soup From 1897
This Vegetarian Chervil Soup is from a recipe book from the Dutch Vegetarians Society (De Nederlandschen Vegetariërs-Bond).
On 30 september 1894 this Dutch Vegetarians Society was founded, and it still excists today. Vegetarianism looked very different back then, then it does now.
It was inspired by the Vegetarian Society founded in the United Kingdom.
Vegetarian Societies in the 19th century were heavily influenced by religion. Most often Christian branches that believed in temperance. A lot of ideas how to live “pure” were inspired by Budhist monks visited by doctors and Christian pilgrims and/or missionairies. These ideas fit well with the Christian branches of religion that believe in a plain and simple life and humility to please God like for example many Protestant branches.
The first members were doctors that believed eating meat-free was the healthiest diet, Christian religious leaders that believed it was spiritual the most healthy diet and people that just did not like hurting animals.
Members were often also member of; total absence societies (teetotalers a.k.a. people that do not drink alcohol), anti-tobacco societies and diverse church groups.
The vegetarian diet was also often used to try to prevent or cure indigestion, cancer, tuberculoses, ADHD and other illnesses and bodily inconveniences.
This lead to a bunch of rules and visions that we might frown upon today.
The rules and visions of the vegetarian diet in 1897.
The following ingredients and actions are named by the Dutch Vegetarian Society to “maim your organs”:
Meat (also fish), alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, icecream and sorbet or anything frozen, soup, leaving less than 5 hours between meals, eggs, milk, salt, morphine, butter, nutmeg, mace, letting the neighbours smell what you are cooking, white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, lombok pepper, Spanish pepper, ginger, mustard, vinegar, cinnamon, cumin, cloves, baking powder, bitter almonds, rowan berry’s, vanilla, all oils, sugar, syrup, figs raisins, currants, drinking during a meal and finally fresh bread.
These following visions are found in the books and explain a lot of the ingredients that you are not allowed to consume as a vegetarian:
Spices contain poisons that cause temporary and chronic illnesses.
Humans, our instincts and our sense of smell are rotten due to flawed science (all science is flawed) false cookery and the slow-wittedness of most humans.
Parents force children to swallow food and drinks they are naturally disgusted by. If these children grow up they yearn for stimulants like cigars and alcohol.
Meat, even from an healthy animal, contains poison. Butchered animals are noticably decomposing; but we can’t smell the decomposing cadaver because of our rotten sense of smell.
More and more mothers can’t wean their baby’s because they eat meat, milks, eggs and broth.
It is proven that salt is poison because when you drink one glas of water with 1 tablespoon of salt you get sick and need to puke.
If there did not excist salt, cancer would not excist.
Vinegar makes women less able to wean their baby’s, and if young girls consume vinegar it ruins their most precious virgin blossoming.
It is normal to have pain and a fever when you start a vegetarian diet.
People who convert to a vegetarianism and fail or cheat, harm the vegetarian community in the most worst way possible.
Spanish and German vegetarians are not allowed in the community because they want to use the vegetarian diet to create vegetarian colonies to breed a vegetarian master race.
The recipe of Vegetarian Chervil Soup.
If you read this recipe and have remembered the previous part where it stated what you are not allowed to eat; you will notice that you are supposed to almost eat nothing that is in this dish.
The Dutch Vegetarian Society had as opinion that fruitarianism (only fruit and nuts) was thé best way to live. Since this was not possible for a lot of people; vegetarian was okay too. Pescetarianism (eats fish) and lacto-ovo-vegetarianism (consumes milk and eggs) were seen as lesser “half-vegetarians”.
But to get people easilier excited and easy more in the vegetarian lifestyle they also made recipe books with lacto-ovo-vegetarian recipes like this one.
Vegetarian Chervil Soup From 1897
4
servings2
minutes15
minutesIngredients
1 liter Buttermilk
50 gram Raisins
50 gram Currants
A handfull of crushed Oats or Oatmeal
2 hands of chopped fresh Chervil
1 tablespoon of sugar
Directions
- Cook the raisins and currants in the buttermilk for 10 minutes.
- Add the oats and cook another 5 minutes.
- Add the chervil and sugar and stir untill the sugar is dissolved.
- Done!
Notes
- The Dutch Vegetarian Society recommends cane sugar.
- You can also eat this cold.
Modern interpretation of the recipe for Vegetarian Chervil Soup.
I would not call this a soup nowadays, but more a breakfast.
This was only one of the two kinds of sorta exciting recipes in their recipe books. The most recipes were like this: Cook potatoes or rice without salt and cook a vegetable without salt; enjoy!
I am very happy how far we come today. Thanks to 175 years of effort of all kinds of vegetarian societies and other enthousiastic groups and individuals we have loads of delicious vegetarian and vegan foods and recipes today.
I will never make this again and I would absolutely not survive being a vegetarian in the 19th century. I would be bored to tears and become one of those “most hurtful” cheaters haha!