ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on vegetarian/vegan discourse of 14 vegetarian cookbooks written between 1977 and 2017 through a methodology framed as a kairology in her work on the rhetoric of health and medicine. A kairology, according to Segal, traces dominant cultural and rhetorical themes in history—in this case, the Moosewood Cookbook collective. The books central to this analysis were created by individuals working at the Moosewood restaurant in Ithaca, New York, a restaurant that has been in continuous operation for 45 years. I contend that the collection acts as a field narrative that reflects the general feelings on vegetarianism at the time. This particular field narrative's work as a genre ecology can help us to better understand the shifting discourses, motivations, and ideologies of veg(etari)anism in the United States over a specific period of time.
