Cafe Vegetaria, Edinburgh 1911

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

I went to see an exhibition about the women's suffrage movement
in Edinburgh today (at the Museum of Edinburgh in the High Street,
formerly Huntly House). Pretty crappy display considering the
effort they'd put into publicizing it, but one interesting note.

The suffragettes organized a boycott of the 1911 Census, on the
logical grounds that if the state wasn't going to let them vote it
didn't need to know they existed, either. They arranged places
for women to spend the night away from home so the census counters
couldn't record them (various kinds of entertainment like board
games were laid on). One of these places was the "Cafe Vegetaria".

It seems logical that that was a vegetarian cafe. But Hendersons
(Edinburgh's longest-running vegetarian eatery) claims to have
been the first, in 1963. Looks like they were wrong by 50 years.
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria? Was there a
widespread vegetarian movement before WW1 that produced similar
establishments elsewhere?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l: j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mob [phone] <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Richard Tobin]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
It seems logical that that was a vegetarian cafe. But Hendersons
(Edinburgh's longest-running vegetarian eatery) claims to have
been the first, in 1963. Looks like they were wrong by 50 years.
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria? Was there a
widespread vegetarian movement before WW1 that produced similar
establishments elsewhere?

It's mentioned 29 times in the Scotsman, all between 1909 and 1912.
From the examples I looked at it seems to have been a common venue
for radical meetings incluing the Fabian Society. There's also
a report of a wedding there.

On October 22 1912 there is a report that the annual business meeting
of the Edinburgh Vegetarian Society was held there - apparently quite
a large organisation since it had a committee of 16 members. The
secretary of the London Vegetarian Association also gave a talk there
including "the history of the children's dinner movement started by
the London Vegetarian Association".

Its address was 3 Nicolson Street.

-- Richard

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria?

It's mentioned 29 times in the Scotsman, all between 1909 and 1912.
From the examples I looked at it seems to have been a common venue
for radical meetings incluing the Fabian Society. There's also
a report of a wedding there.

Interesting set of connections. The building dates from the 1790s,
and had become the Edinburgh Temperance Hotel by 1849. By the 1990s
it was Nicolson's Cafe, which is where J.K. Rowling started writing
the first Harry Potter book.

Feminism, Fabian socialism, then Harry Potter. It's surprising some
American fundie hasn't bombed it yet. (It's now Suruchi, a Japanese
restaurant).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l: j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mob [phone] <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria?

It's mentioned 29 times in the Scotsman, all between 1909 and 1912.
From the examples I looked at it seems to have been a common venue
for radical meetings incluing the Fabian Society. There's also
a report of a wedding there.

Interesting set of connections. The building dates from the 1790s,
and had become the Edinburgh Temperance Hotel by 1849. By the 1990s
it was Nicolson's Cafe, which is where J.K. Rowling started writing
the first Harry Potter book.

And it looks like it's changing again...

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh/New-cafe-at-building-where.5783933.jp

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l: j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mob [phone] <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Graeme Wood]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria?

It's mentioned 29 times in the Scotsman, all between 1909 and 1912.
From the examples I looked at it seems to have been a common venue
for radical meetings incluing the Fabian Society. There's also
a report of a wedding there.

Interesting set of connections. The building dates from the 1790s,
and had become the Edinburgh Temperance Hotel by 1849. By the 1990s
it was Nicolson's Cafe, which is where J.K. Rowling started writing
the first Harry Potter book.

And it looks like it's changing again...
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh/New-cafe-at-building-where.5783933.jp

It may be but that isn't 3 Nicholson Street. Number 3 is on the opposite
side of the road and is half of the Edinburgh Arts and Picture Framers.

[Richard Tobin]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
Interesting set of connections. The building dates from the 1790s,
and had become the Edinburgh Temperance Hotel by 1849. By the 1990s
it was Nicolson's Cafe, which is where J.K. Rowling started writing
the first Harry Potter book.

Isn't that on the opposite side of the road?

-- Richard

[Ronald Raygun]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria?

It's mentioned 29 times in the Scotsman, all between 1909 and 1912.
From the examples I looked at it seems to have been a common venue
for radical meetings incluing the Fabian Society. There's also
a report of a wedding there.

Interesting set of connections. The building dates from the 1790s,
and had become the Edinburgh Temperance Hotel by 1849. By the 1990s
it was Nicolson's Cafe, which is where J.K. Rowling started writing
the first Harry Potter book.

Isn't it the Elephant House on George IV Bridge which lays claim to
being the birthplace of HP?

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

Post by Ronald Raygun

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria?

It's mentioned 29 times in the Scotsman, all between 1909 and 1912.
From the examples I looked at it seems to have been a common venue
for radical meetings incluing the Fabian Society. There's also
a report of a wedding there.

Interesting set of connections. The building dates from the 1790s,
and had become the Edinburgh Temperance Hotel by 1849. By the 1990s
it was Nicolson's Cafe, which is where J.K. Rowling started writing
the first Harry Potter book.

Isn't it the Elephant House on George IV Bridge which lays claim to
being the birthplace of HP?

The Elephant House *opened* with a xerox of a rave review framed on
the wall. That should tell you something about their attitude to
historical fact.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l: j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mob [phone] <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Ian]

Interesting set of connections.  The building dates from the 1790s,
and had become the Edinburgh Temperance Hotel by 1849.  By the 1990s
it was Nicolson's Cafe, which is where J.K. Rowling started writing
the first Harry Potter book.

She also started writing it at the Elephant House ... and probably
every other café in Edinburgh by now.

Ian

[William Black]

Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:

Was there a

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
widespread vegetarian movement before WW1 that produced similar
establishments elsewhere?

There seems to have been a reasonably well developed Vegetarian Society
in London and several restaurants.

Vegetarian food was, for example, available at the Inns of Court.

See M K Gandhi's (Yes, that Gandhi) autobiography 'My Experiments With
The Truth' for more details, he was the Vegetarian Society secretary in
London in about 1890.

[Zimmy]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
I went to see an exhibition about the women's suffrage movement
in Edinburgh today (at the Museum of Edinburgh in the High Street,
formerly Huntly House). Pretty crappy display considering the
effort they'd put into publicizing it, but one interesting note.
The suffragettes organized a boycott of the 1911 Census, on the
logical grounds that if the state wasn't going to let them vote it
didn't need to know they existed, either. They arranged places
for women to spend the night away from home so the census counters
couldn't record them (various kinds of entertainment like board
games were laid on). One of these places was the "Cafe Vegetaria".
It seems logical that that was a vegetarian cafe. But Hendersons
(Edinburgh's longest-running vegetarian eatery) claims to have
been the first, in 1963. Looks like they were wrong by 50 years.
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria? Was there a
widespread vegetarian movement before WW1 that produced similar
establishments elsewhere?

Shock horror, there have always been vegetarians and Henderson's didn't
invent it. What I want to know is why when a vegetarian comes to a
restaurant with me, they can have the vegetarian option, but when I go to
Henderson's with them and ask for the meat option, they look at me as if I'm
mad?

Z

[Toom Tabard]

Post by Zimmy

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
I went to see an exhibition about the women's suffrage movement
in Edinburgh today (at the Museum of Edinburgh in the High Street,
formerly Huntly House).  Pretty crappy display considering the
effort they'd put into publicizing it, but one interesting note.
The suffragettes organized a boycott of the 1911 Census, on the
logical grounds that if the state wasn't going to let them vote it
didn't need to know they existed, either.  They arranged places
for women to spend the night away from home so the census counters
couldn't record them (various kinds of entertainment like board
games were laid on).  One of these places was the "Cafe Vegetaria".
It seems logical that that was a vegetarian cafe.  But Hendersons
(Edinburgh's longest-running vegetarian eatery) claims to have
been the first, in 1963.  Looks like they were wrong by 50 years.
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria?  Was there a
widespread vegetarian movement before WW1 that produced similar
establishments elsewhere?

Shock horror, there have always been vegetarians and Henderson's didn't
invent it. What I want to know is why when a vegetarian comes to a
restaurant with me, they can have the vegetarian option, but when I go to
Henderson's with them and ask for the meat option, they look at me as if I'm
mad?

Well - have you ever heard of mad lettuce disease?

Toom

[Zimmy]

Post by Zimmy

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
I went to see an exhibition about the women's suffrage movement
in Edinburgh today (at the Museum of Edinburgh in the High Street,
formerly Huntly House). Pretty crappy display considering the
effort they'd put into publicizing it, but one interesting note.
The suffragettes organized a boycott of the 1911 Census, on the
logical grounds that if the state wasn't going to let them vote it
didn't need to know they existed, either. They arranged places
for women to spend the night away from home so the census counters
couldn't record them (various kinds of entertainment like board
games were laid on). One of these places was the "Cafe Vegetaria".
It seems logical that that was a vegetarian cafe. But Hendersons
(Edinburgh's longest-running vegetarian eatery) claims to have
been the first, in 1963. Looks like they were wrong by 50 years.
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria? Was there a
widespread vegetarian movement before WW1 that produced similar
establishments elsewhere?

Shock horror, there have always been vegetarians and Henderson's didn't
invent it. What I want to know is why when a vegetarian comes to a
restaurant with me, they can have the vegetarian option, but when I go to
Henderson's with them and ask for the meat option, they look at me as if I'm
mad?
Well - have you ever heard of mad lettuce disease?

No, but quite a few people have died from E. Coli growing on lettuce.
I'll take my chances with a nice, super-heated steak.

Z

[Sam Wilson]

Post by Zimmy

Post by Toom Tabard
Well - have you ever heard of mad lettuce disease?

No, but quite a few people have died from E. Coli growing on lettuce.
I'll take my chances with a nice, super-heated steak.

Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

Sam

[Ronald Raygun]

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

Uhh, gross.

But that's OK, it won't feel any pain. At least that's what these
cruel vegetarian sadists would have us believe.

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

Post by Sam Wilson

Post by Zimmy

Post by Toom Tabard
Well - have you ever heard of mad lettuce disease?

No, but quite a few people have died from E. Coli growing on lettuce.

Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

And eating lettuce could be blasphemy:

http://home.c2i.net/blinge/Essays/mishaf.html

You gotta hand it to a religion that came up with an origin myth
for Adam's arsehole.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l: j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mob [phone] <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Lee Rudolph]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Sam Wilson

Post by Zimmy

Post by Toom Tabard
Well - have you ever heard of mad lettuce disease?

No, but quite a few people have died from E. Coli growing on lettuce.

Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

http://home.c2i.net/blinge/Essays/mishaf.html
You gotta hand it to a religion that came up with an origin myth
for Adam's arsehole.

I almost wish I hadn't followed the link (wonderful as it is),
so that I could have continued to believe that your two extracts
from the text, about lettuce and Adam's arsehole, were (1) continguous
therein, and therefore in some manner (2) the origin of the idiom (now
again as mysterious to me as it was before my brief moment of fallacious
insight) "to toss s.'s salad"="to perform analingus on s."

Lee Rudolph

[Richard Tobin]

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

"Vegatables aren't food. Vegatables are what food eats."

-- Richard

[Opinicus]

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

"Vegatables aren't food. Vegatables are what food eats."

Or as a billboard for a restaurant once put it:

"There's plenty of room for all God's creatures. / Right next to the
mashed potatoes."

[Zimmy]

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

"Vegatables aren't food. Vegatables are what food eats."

My favourite:
"If God didn't want us to eat animals then he wouldn't have made them out of
meat" :-)

Z

[Halmyre]

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

"Vegatables aren't food.  Vegatables are what food eats."

If you're not at the top of the food chain, you're just food.

--
Halmyre

[Sam Wilson]

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

"Vegatables aren't food. Vegatables are what food eats."

<Loading Image...>

Sam

[Ian]

Post by Sam Wilson

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

"Vegatables aren't food.  Vegatables are what food eats."

<http://www.ucs.ed.ac.uk/~ercm20/pix/veggies.jpg>

That's the window of the butcher's shop in Machynlleth - there to
provoke the trustafarian drop-out community (George Monbiot lives
there) as much as sell meat.

Ian

[Richard Tobin]

Post by Ian
George Monbiot

The poor chap has a name that sounds like a multinational agrichemical
corporation.

-- Richard

[Sam Wilson]

In article

Post by Sam Wilson
<http://www.ucs.ed.ac.uk/~ercm20/pix/veggies.jpg>

That's the window of the butcher's shop in Machynlleth ...

Well spotted, sir!

Sam

[John Hunt]

Post by Sam Wilson

Post by Richard Tobin

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

"Vegatables aren't food. Vegatables are what food eats."

<http://www.ucs.ed.ac.uk/~ercm20/pix/veggies.jpg>
Sam

reminds me of a wedding I was at. The guy in front at the buffet was being a
pain asking if everything (ham, pork pies) were veggie then giving the poor
people serving the food a hard time. His g/f apologiesed to us as he'd just
become a veggie. I said it was ok, I was a secondary vegetarian and only ate
animals that didn't eat others. She found this very funny, he just scowled
and went into a sulk. We got served a bit quicker after that.

[Windmill]

Post by Sam Wilson
Remember, a nice fresh salad is still alive when you crunch into it.

Hence the 'Vegetable Rights' movement. I have a copy of their
manifesto.

[Windmill]

Post by Zimmy

Post by Toom Tabard
Well - have you ever heard of mad lettuce disease?

No, but quite a few people have died from E. Coli growing on lettuce.
I'll take my chances with a nice, super-heated steak.

I doubt if it was actively growing on it. Relatively few living things
can live on lettuce; certainly not people.
But maybe I now understand what's behind these 'wilted lettuce' recipes
which tell you to pour boiling water over.

[charles]

Post by Zimmy

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
I went to see an exhibition about the women's suffrage movement
in Edinburgh today (at the Museum of Edinburgh in the High Street,
formerly Huntly House). Pretty crappy display considering the
effort they'd put into publicizing it, but one interesting note.
The suffragettes organized a boycott of the 1911 Census, on the
logical grounds that if the state wasn't going to let them vote it
didn't need to know they existed, either. They arranged places
for women to spend the night away from home so the census counters
couldn't record them (various kinds of entertainment like board
games were laid on). One of these places was the "Cafe Vegetaria".
It seems logical that that was a vegetarian cafe. But Hendersons
(Edinburgh's longest-running vegetarian eatery) claims to have
been the first, in 1963. Looks like they were wrong by 50 years.
Anybody know anything about the Cafe Vegetaria? Was there a
widespread vegetarian movement before WW1 that produced similar
establishments elsewhere?

Shock horror, there have always been vegetarians and Henderson's didn't
invent it. What I want to know is why when a vegetarian comes to a
restaurant with me, they can have the vegetarian option, but when I go to
Henderson's with them and ask for the meat option, they look at me as if
I'm mad?

In my primary school days (around 1950), some of my class-mates came to
lunch. While most of were given "normal" food, one was given a salad.
When we looked surprised he said "We're vegetarians.", to which another
said@ "Really, we're Presbyterian."

[Windmill]

Post by charles
In my primary school days (around 1950), some of my class-mates came to
lunch. While most of were given "normal" food, one was given a salad.
When we looked surprised he said "We're vegetarians.", to which another

What religion is practised in the Vega system, then?

[Windmill]

Post by Zimmy
Shock horror, there have always been vegetarians and Henderson's didn't
invent it. What I want to know is why when a vegetarian comes to a
restaurant with me, they can have the vegetarian option, but when I go to
Henderson's with them and ask for the meat option, they look at me as if I'm
mad?

They're missing out on a good thing, then. Because if you take a
vegetarian anything, over which much effort has to be devoted to make
it tasty, and _just_ _add_ _meat_, it becomes utterly delicious!

[Halmyre]

Post by Windmill

Post by Zimmy
Shock horror, there have always been vegetarians and Henderson's didn't
invent it. What I want to know is why when a vegetarian comes to a
restaurant with me, they can have the vegetarian option, but when I go to
Henderson's with them and ask for the meat option, they look at me as if I'm
mad?

They're missing out on a good thing, then. Because if you take a
vegetarian anything, over which much effort has to be devoted to make
it tasty, and _just_ _add_ _meat_,  it becomes utterly delicious!

Someone who obviously didn't know any better gave my wife a copy of
Linda McCartney's Recipe Book some years ago. I take great delight in
serving some of the recipes as accompaniments to a nice juicy steak.

--
Halmyre