Five things to check out at Montreal vegan fest
I used to dream of white bread.
And peanut butter with sugar. I don’t mean peanut butter with extra sugar sprinkled on top — that’s gross. I mean what most people consider normal peanut butter: Kraft, Skippy, Jiffy. We used to scoop our peanut butter — which consisted of plain, crushed peanuts — out of a bulk bin at the health food store.
Speaking of Kraft, processed cheese slices seemed exotic to my impressionable child mind. Basically, anything normal seemed exotic and awesome. Growing up vegetarian in the ’70s meant being weird.
On a trip to the States with our dad, I remember being in an area with almost no restaurants around, stopping at McDonald’s and ordering a cheeseburger, “hold the burger.”
You should have seen the look of confusion on the cashier’s face.
When we went to birthday barbecues, we would bring along our mom’s homemade veggie burgers, which made us feel almost kinda normal.
Almost.
The fifth Montreal Vegan Festival takes place Saturday and Sunday at Palais des Congrès, a sign of the increasing normalization of meat-free life.
But let’s be honest, vegetarianism has a long way to go, especially in Montreal. Our much-ballyhooed restaurant scene is desperately lacking in vegan options. (I became vegan a decade ago.)
Yes, Aux Vivres has recently set up an outpost in Westmount, alongside the Copper Branch chain. La Panthère Verte and Lola Rosa have been keeping it real, with various locations. On the trendy tip, there’s LOV; for Indian, there’s Pushap; and for Thai, Chu Chai.
Yet, scroll through the menus at any of our celebrated, socalled foodie eateries, and you’ll be hard pressed to come up with anything resembling an actual selection, as opposed to being stuck with the one or two vegetarian/vegan options. And if you actually wanted protein? Don’t get me started.
That’s where it gets tricky for vegans — remove cheese from the equation and the possibilities shrink exponentially.
Cities like Toronto and New York are far ahead of Montreal in terms of vegan eats. A recent visit to Berlin revealed a haven of vegan restaurants.
So my wife and I don’t eat out much. But save your pity, we eat like royalty. From June through November we pick up a weekly vegetable basket from a local farm, which we supersize with all kinds of extras, leaving even our farmer impressed.
“What do you do with all those greens?” is a question we get asked a lot.
Um, eat ’em?
Vegans can be foodies, too, you know.
We soak nuts and put them in our sprouted buckwheat cereal. We have a great quinoa sushi recipe, make a killer dal, “chili con curry,” and spicy black bean burgers. I could tell you stories about our farm-fresh tomato sauce. Our version of almost every recipe is to follow it for starters, then add extra herbs and spices, plus a ton of fresh veggies.
I see your eyes glazing over. I know, sounds weird. And that’s OK. I’ve eaten weird my whole life.
On that note, here are five things to check out at the not so weird Montreal Vegan Festival, which features more than 160 exhibitors:
General Tao Tofu and vegan
■
Mac ‘n’ Cheese (In French, Saturday, 1-2 p.m., Auditorium)
Known as The Buddhist Chef ■
(thebuddhistchef.com), Quebecer Jean-Philippe Cyr’s cooking videos have been seen over
75 million times. His cookbook La cuisine de Jean-Philippe is a bestseller.
■ The Rise of Animal Rights Law in Canada: Why You Don’t Need a Law Degree to Play a Part (Saturday, 3-3:30 p.m., Auditorium)
Animal rights lawyer Camille Labchuk of the group Animal Justice talks about what regular people can do in the legal fight to better protect animals in Canada.
■ Gourmet Vegan Appetizers
( bilingual, Saturday, 4:30-5:45 p.m., Workshop Room #2)
Vegan burger company VG Gourmet founder Chantal Bekhor shows how to make Asian dumplings from mushrooms and tofu, plus an olive tapenade.
■ Sriracha “Meatballs” dish
(Sunday, 1-2 p.m., Auditorium)
Hipster chef Gaz Oakley demonstrates a recipe from his cookbook #Vegan100, in which he transforms a block of tofu into spicy “meatballs,” and how to “jazzy up” and “plate up” vegetables.
■ Plant-Based Cheesemaking
(Sunday, 3-4 p.m., VG Workshop Room)
A demonstration of how to make a variety of vegan cheeses with no animal by-products.