Fania Lewando

Fania Lewando (, , 1888–1941) was a Polish-Jewish vegetarian chef, restaurateur, nutritionist, and cookbook author from Vilnius. She operated a vegetarian restaurant called and in 1938 was author of the first known Yiddish language vegetarian cookbook in Europe.

Biography She was born in 1888 or 1889 in Włocławek, Warsaw Governorate, Russian Empire (today located in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland).

Lewando came to be well known in Vilnius for her vegetarian restaurant which was located on Niemiecka street 14 (present-day Vokiečių Street) in the Jewish Quarter; it had a number of bohemian and celebrity guests including the artist Marc Chagall and the songwriter Itzik Manger. It contained a number of Jewish cooking recipes adapted for a vegetarian diet, and was exported to England and the United States. She attempted to market the recipes to the H. J. Heinz Company.

Cookbook

Original Yiddish version: . Vilnius: Druk. Inż. G. Kleckina, 1938. English translation: The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook. Garden-Fresh Recipes Rediscovered and Adapted for Today's Kitchen, translated by Eve Jochnowitz, with a preface by Joan Nathan. Schocken Books, New York City 2015, . Polish translation: Znak, 2020, .