Better Meals for Less. By George E. Cornforth.

Takoma Park [Md.]: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1930.

Octavo (19.5 x 13.5 cm.), 128 pages. Illustrated. Includes index. Advertisements inside wrappers. Evident FIRST EDITION. An important and attractively organized document of advocacy for Christian vegetarianism, by the chef of the Seventh Day Adventist New England Sanitarium. Two hundred recipes–including a number of accompanying black-and-white photographs–divided in to chapters introduced by an essay summarizing health benefits. Worthy of notice: Tampa Bay Soup (with peanut butter and nut-cero, a manufactured food available in the early twentieth century made from nut meats and wheat); Lentil Headcheese (with sage and savory); Princess Loaf (with rice and walnuts); Asparagus with Olive Sauce; Ambassador Salad (with celery, endive, and radishes); Honey Squash Pie. ~ The Seventh Day Adventists actively interrogated the medical community for advice on healthy eating habits, and promoted what today what be called a natural foods diet and abstention from alcohol as part of their missionary brief. A number of sanitaria founded and supported by the Church incorporated dining halls with specialized menus as an essential component of the therapies offered. The New England Sanitarium, in Melrose, Massachusetts (in Middlesex County, that is, in the greater Boston area), was one of the oldest such institutions, founded in 1899 by the founder of the Church herself, Ellen Gould White. ~ George Erastus Cornforth (1876-ca. 1950) had been the contributor of the monthly column "Healthful Cookery" in the magazine Life and Health before World War I, and in 1920 published a cookbook to which the present title may be considered an introductory version. Good Food, How to Prepare It was also published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association, the house of Adventist Review, the Church's official organ. ~ An abridgement of Better Meals for Less (with 96 pages) was also published, of which a German translation (for German Americans) appeared (Iß Dich Gesund [=Eat Healthy]) in 1931. A parallel Canadian edition was printed twice, in Oshawa, under the imprint of Canadian Watchman Press, in 1931 and 1934. Review and Herald reissued it in 1960, and a revised edition (with 116 pages) appeared in 1975. ~ One small stain to the bottom of pages 95-96. Bound in paper wrappers with red lettering and an image of a family with a colorful cornucopia of food in the foreground; corners and back lightly bumped; fore-edges of upper aged; lower with small stains and a vestige of an adhesive tape. Very good. [OCLC locates twenty five copies of this 1930 edition (and two copies of the 1960 reissue, and five copies of the 1975 revised edition); Driver 0664.1; in neither Brown nor Cagle].

Price: $35.00

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