Moosewood and the Vegetarian Revolution

In a nineteen twelve brick schoolhouse on North Cayuga Street, a building that once held Ithaca High School, a small restaurant opened its doors in January of nineteen seventy-three and quietly changed how America eats. It was called Moosewood, and it was vegetarian at a time when that word made most Americans think of rabbit food. For decades it was run as a worker collective, owned and operated by its own staff rather than a single boss, until a new owner took over in twenty twenty-two.

What made Moosewood famous far beyond Ithaca was a cookbook. Mollie Katzen, an early member of the collective, compiled, illustrated, and hand lettered a book of the restaurant's recipes. Published as The Moosewood Cookbook in nineteen seventy-seven, it went on to become one of the best selling cookbooks in American history and was later inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame.

Through that book, home cooks all over the country learned that meatless food could be hearty, generous, and delicious. The recognition kept coming. Bon Appetit named Moosewood one of the thirteen most influential restaurants of the twentieth century, and it earned a James Beard America's Classics award.

Not bad for a worker owned vegetarian spot in an old schoolhouse in a small Finger Lakes town.