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The Cornucopia Cookbook

Buy the Cornucopia Cookbook from AmazonMy sister gave me the excellent Cornucopia At Home cookbook for Christmas, and it’s definitely inspired my New Year resolution to eat more healthy – and cheap – vegetarian food.

This outstanding restaurant Dublin’s on Wicklow St., just off Grafton, has become an integral part of the city and its folklore. Since 1986, it has served vegetarians and non-vegetarians from all walks of life. This place could legitimately claim to have begun transforming Irish attitudes to vegetarian food, showing it to be so much more than dry old lentil nut roasts. It’s always enjoyable to go to the counter there and explore what invariably delicious dishes are on offer today. And it always makes me think anew about veggie food.

At last, Cornucopia has released a cookbook. It’s full of stories about the history of the restaurant, how the chosen dishes were created, information about traditional food from across the world, and practical advice on vegetarian food, dietary requirements, and sourcing ingredients. The Cornucopia bookbook has sections on soups, salads, main courses, breads, and desserts.

Vegetarian food happens to be the best cheap eat of all, as vegetables and pulses are naturally inexpensive, especially compared to meat. I’m not a veggie, and I don’t intend to become one, but I am cutting back drastically on my meat consumption, mostly for environmental reasons. At this time of year, vegetarian meals are probably the most heart-warming comfort dishes you can find.

7 Comments

  1. I’ve been eating at Cornucopia on and off for years and for the longest time it was the only place to get decent veggie food in Dublin. I got their cookbook a few months back and it is indeed a wonderful book – it’s a bonus that a lot of the veggie food happens, by its nature, to be cheaper to produce (and using that book will make sure it’s tasty too!)

  2. Cornucopia is a great spot alright, really good comfort food, and their salads are excellent. One small nitpicky thing that annoys me though, is that they charge €3.40 for tea for two…which is a bit cheeky for two teabags and hot water.

  3. Hey guys. Love the site! I am gutted (or at least deseeded) that no one bought me the Cornucopia book for Christmas. I tried karma to get it, by buying it for my brother in law, but it didn’t work. I thought karma always worked with vegetarian cookery books. Do us a favour and infringe more copyright by putting recipes up here. I can’t afford to buy the book now and anything I make will contain vegetables from 2008.

  4. hi peter love the site and I did not know cornucopia had a cook book

  5. Hi Maria, glad you like the site and thanks for the comment. The Cornucopia cookbook was only published quite recently, I think. It’s great for people who aren’t hugely familiar with vegetarian food but are interested in making more of it, and most of the ingredients are easily sourced.

    The Cafe Fresh Cookbook, from the brilliant eatery in Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, is another really good vegetarian cookbook. I hear that Cafe Paradiso – a vegetarian restaurant in Cork that’s a contender for the best overall restaurant in Ireland – also have a great cookbook.

  6. hi i love the book the choc brownies were amazing. i was a bit disappointed with how some of the salads worked out. also i made the thai green curry which i LOVE in the restaurant but it was soooo time consuming to make, basically, i had to cut up all the veg, blanch them and refresh them under cold water as well as loads more. i was sick of the dish by the time i was finished!

  7. Cornucopia is most wonderful food and your sister have presented a precious gift for you keep safe that cookbook and make all kind of Cornucopia…