Vegan Summer Day Leipzig 2014

                              

On Saturday Chris and I went along to the local Vegan Summer Day. It was a great festival although no where near as big as the one in Melbourne. This is not surprising as World Vegan Day in Melbourne has been running for over 10 years and last year had over 10,000 people so it's hardly fair to compare as this is Leipzig's second Vegan Day. I went along to WVD last year in Melbourne and found the whole experience intensely stressful. MASSIVE crowd and queues everywhere. 

By comparison this was lovely and relaxed. Once we worked out that the venue was at a  park we cycled along and caught up with some friends, looked at stalls and lots of food. 

The food was plentiful, lots of stalls with the usual suspects, burgers, curry, smoothies etc. Lots of seitan based mock meat dishes. Only one tofu dish that I could see and no tempeh which is an interesting difference. Chris tried a seitan roulade served with red cabbage, potatoes and a wine sauce which he enjoyed. 

                                        

 I had food from an Asian stall which reminded me a lot of food I've eating in Shanghai. Vinegar based eggplant and a saucy vegetable dish (5€). I've had serious cravings for good Asian food and this was good. We also had chocolate cake (2€) which was nice and reminded me of the chocolate cake the used to be sold at the Food Coop at Melbourne Uni Student Union! I also had a kombucha based drink which was nice enough although I was dying for water. It's really hard to get tap water to drink in Europe, as in you have to know and remember to ask for tap water (Leitungswasser bitte).

                                

The vegan sushi stall was really popular. Inspires me to make some! Haven't made sushi for ages

                                         

I saw lots of dogs!

There was also cooking demonstrations. They had cameras but they were positioned at people's faces rather than the food so I couldn't entirely see what was going on. I've done cooking lots of  demonstrations myself and I know how hard it can be to get the configurations right! 

                                        

Wilmersburger Käse also had a stall selling their cheese, with cheese tastings. They also sold vegan croissants and cheese rolls. I bought some of their pizza cheese last week to serve with my quesadillas and it kind of tasted of....nothing. Really bland. Here's what it looks like.

                                           

The ingredients are water, non-hydrogenated coconut oil (23%), potato starch, modified starch, salt, stabilizer: sodium polyphosphate, sodium citrate, flavoring, preservative sorbic acid, coloring agent: beta caroten, separating agent: potato. I guess I thought it might be closer in flavour to the biolife cheese everyone in Melbourne raves about that I never had a chance to try before I left. 

                                    

 I'm really keen to buy some lupin based products, we tried these and they were delicious! 

There were also lots of activist stalls including Animal Liberation, Sea Shepherds and BUND (The German version of Friends of the Earth). I would have chattered to them but my German is not good enough yet! Same for picked up many brochures. I did buy some nutrtional yeast though. 

                       

                                            

                            

Really pleased to see some gardening stalls, I miss having a garden!

I was disapppointed not to have my fliers back from the printer for the Apartment Supper Club Leipzig to hand out as the next two dinners are both vegan including a vegan Octoberfest extravaganza but I will be doing the rounds next week! I'd like to make them all vegan if I can get enough people to cover costs.