FOR MOST PEOPLE, the word vegan is even more off-putting than “vegetarian”.
Big mistake: just look at the pictures on this page… delicious, yes?
It’s the kind of tasty stuff you can find at the admittedly oddly named Free From Festival.
The organisers say it means a fest at which “intolerant visitors can sample food that is free from gluten, dairy or sugar” yet tastes delicious.
And before you make the crack, no, “intolerant visitors” does not mean, eg,
tourists who belong to the Ku Klux Klan. (Incidentally, are those thugs still active, or has their outfit, like smallpox, been virtually destroyed?)
Enough digressions… who’s tempting you with nibbles, if not offering freebie samples (more, please)?
The list of tempters includes Green’s (gluten-free) Beers; Kafoodle, which has developed an app that supplies diners with menu information direct from commercial kitchens; Tiger Nuts, Rebel Kitchen’s dairy-free drinks; Emily Fruits Crisps, Paradise Unbakery cakes and savoury tarts; Sweet Rebellion’s lactose-free ice-creams, Bute Islands Foods’ dairy-free cheeses; and Dee’s veggie sausages.
Live music will accompany the hipsterian guzzling and gulping.
Still on vegan lines, at an Old Street station pop-up, low-alcohol cocktail sorbets described by maker Lushice as “ideal for dairy-free diets, vegetarians, vegans and anyone else looking for guilt-free indulgence”, happen to be on offer to weary commuters.
The pop-up, Kitchen Table Projects, is a café-deli set up to help young food entrepreneurs.
Hamish Scott 180815
* Free From Festival, Old Truman Brewery, Old Boiler House, 152 Brick Lane E1 6RU, Monday 31 August 2015, 10.30am-6.30pm. Entry (sorry) £3.50 or you can register. For more info, press.
* Lushice is at Kitchen Table Projects, exit 2, Old Street station, Shoreditch EC1Y 1BE. The pop-up opens on weekdays until at least 8pm.
* Backstory: My big fat pie; A year of Hackney vegetarian bargains and recipes
* Emboldened underscored words in most cases indicate a hyperlink, a reader service rare among websites. If a link does not work, it is probably because the site to which the URL refers has not been maintained. Most photographs can be visually enlarged by pressing on them.