COOKBOOK WATCH

Two very different views of vegetarian cooking emerge in the just-released “Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven” (Hyperion, $27.50) and Paola Gavin’s “French Vegetarian Cooking” (M. Evans, $14.95), which was first published in 1995 and has just been reissued in paperback.

Gavin, author of “Italian Vegetarian Cooking,” demonstrates with more than 200 regional recipes that French cooking doesn’t have to mean foie gras and duck legs. Of course, it often means butter and eggs--this isn’t a vegan cookbook--which means the recipes are sometimes rich . . . and delicious.

Katzen, author and illustrator of “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest” and other cookbooks, is a pioneer of what many think of as the California style of vegetarian cooking, which evolved in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Though many dismissed her nut loaves and brown rice dishes as hippie food, Katzen’s “Moosewood Cookbook” practically became essential reading for college sophomores throughout the country, and the book has been credited by some as being among the 10 best-selling cookbooks of all time. In her newest book, Katzen shows she’s moved beyond nut loaves and paid attention to food as it has evolved in the ‘90s.

Tuscan bean and pasta stew, Tunisian tomato soup and kung pao lettuce cups are a few of the book’s often ethnic-inspired recipes. But Katzen hasn’t forgotten the past; she includes a recipe for basic soyburgers (“don’t knock ‘em till you try ‘em” is the recipe’s subtitle) and shows familiar cutesy touches: Her name for guacamole is “GuacaMollie.”