Mollie Katzen is perhaps best known for her whimsically-illustrated, hand-lettered vegetarian classics Moosewood Cookbook and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.
The author of a trio of popular children’s cookbooks, Pretend Soup, Honest Pretzels, and Salad People, Mollie played a major role in mainstreaming a plant-based diet in modern American kitchens.
Inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2007, Mollie’s most recent book, Get Cooking, was recently nominated for an International Association of Culinary Professionals Award.
I’ve interviewed Mollie for articles about feeding children, where her trademark warm and wise approach to cooking comes through.
She hopes her latest book will encourage eaters everywhere to fall in love with the fine art of making a home-cooked meal.
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1. What inspired you to write a cookbook for beginners?
Lots of people asked for it and I like to write books people need. My son, who is 25, had just moved to his own small apartment in New York City and he and his friends wanted to know how to make simple but satisfying dishes.
So I wanted to do a book that would appeal to young adults who are just setting up their own homes and older adults who hadn’t learned to cook but wanted to now. This book has also found an audience with both the newly married and the freshly divorced. Sometimes you fill a need you weren’t expecting to find.
Learning to cook is key to many human needs: nourishment, health, economic and environmental sustainability, and a quality social life.
A lot of people simple can’t afford to eat out but they want to enjoy the pleasures of the table with a delicious home-cooked meal, a good bottle of wine, and great company. I wanted to help make that happen.
2. This is your first solo cookbook with meat dishes. Why that departure for you?
I include beef, chicken, and fish recipes in Get Cooking because people asked how to cook some classic meat recipes. Beginning cooks often want to know how to roast a chicken, make hamburgers, or pan-fry fish.
I’m not an ethical vegetarian or a crusader for a no-meat diet. I have eaten small portions of animal protein for quite some time. I’ve never prescribed a vegetarian-only diet or spoken out against eating animals.
I do eat a mostly vegetarian diet and I do think most Americans need to learn how to eat less meat in their diet. But I’m not dogmatic about it.
3. I’ve noticed you’ve recently embraced social media. What do you think of Twitter?
My book publisher wanted me to tweet, to reach a younger, wider audience. I resisted it for a long time and then I grumpily, reluctantly started to do it.
It took me a while to find my voice but now I tweet about five times a day. I see it as a way to be of service to my readers. I like to offer useful information, cooking encouragement, and share recipes.
I see my role as a kind of cheering squad for home cooks everywhere. I don’t write tweets telling people I just made a cup of coffee.
And I’ve found Twitter a very supportive community. In January I was featured in a Newsweek story about people who betrayed their vegetarian base. But I was never interviewed for the story and there were a lot of mistakes and misconceptions about my beliefs in the piece.
I received a bunch of hate mail following its publication. The Twitter community provided a lot of support and understanding during a very difficult time for me.
4. What’s next?
I’d like to do a Meatless Monday cookbook. Most Americans do need to find ways to reduce the amount of animal protein in their diets.
I’d also like to do another cookbook illustrated with my graphics or drawings. For me, the visuals are as much a part of the recipe as the words. My son tells me, rather bluntly, that today’s generation of cooks don’t want to see hand-lettering like in the Moosewood Cookbook.
But I think there’s still room for me to express myself in my preferred visual mediums. I’m working on an idea for a book with recipes that have just five ingredients. There are similar books out there, but I’d put my own spin on it. It would feature a lot of vegetables and it might be the perfect forum for my art.
5. What motivates you, after almost 35 years of publishing cookbooks, to keep writing them?
I really care about people being able to cook. It’s so important to have those skills.
That’s why I like the work I do at Harvard University with young students as part of the Food Literacy Project.
Part of the thinking behind the project is that the university wants to turn out bright, well-rounded, citizens who have cooking skills and know how to be at a table. A lot of what happens in the world happens at the table, whether it’s business, or the sharing of ideas, beliefs, and values, or simple social interaction.
It’s really important to me that we keep the table as part of home life.
Photo: Lisa Keating
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Fascinating to learn she is not a vegetarian – I, like many people, always assumed so!
Me too, marthaandme. I thought the same about Deborah Madison (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, ex-Greens etc.) but she, too, is an ethical omnivore.
I enjoyed reading this interview, Sarah. I’ve been a fan of Moosewood Cookbook for many years. Molly’s new cookbook sounds wonderful. Even though I “know” how to cook, sometimes it helps to simplify!
I’ve heard of this chef – but I’d like to check out the Moosewood Cookbook. Nice interview.
I’m always interested in basic cookbooks and, lately, ones that reduce the meat. Thanks for letting me know about this.
You’re welcome, Nancy. As you’ll see from Mollie Katzen’s cookbooks, she’s all about lots of greens and whole grains.
Everybody has a right to make their choices about diet. I think it’s best if they are very well informed choices, as Mollie’s are.
As much as I’d like to spread the good word about vegetarian choices, after all these years, I get it that most people are not going “all the way,” so cutting back and choosing clean is better than nothing.
Mollie did so much for the veg cause with her books, she will always be a hero.
Well said, Robin.
I think it’s great when a confirmed vegetarian can calmly and kindly acknowledge the important role of a modest meat eater in advancing the cause of a mostly plant-based diet.
I really love Mollie Katzen and have been using her cookbooks for years. I’ve never seen a picture of her. She’s so gorgeous. THANK YOU for this interview, I really enjoyed reading it and am in awe that you know her Sarah! Oh–and I went to college at Cornell where Moosewood is located. I miss it!
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