Ferrara Vegan Festival
The stalls were held in the main cathedral square, the first row was mostly beauty and skincare products then there was an event tent for talks and demonstrations and then the food tents at the end.
As we arrived at lunchtime we headed straight to the food tents to see what was on offer.
There was lots of choice including hot and cold food, cakes and biscuits. The stalls that caught my attention the most were Naturasi, an organic supermarket, La Vegana, a Ferrara based vegan restaurant, Circo Dei Sapori Vegan Streetfood and a middle eastern food stall.
I had eaten at La Vegana before and although I really enjoyed it, I decided to try something different this time and went for a hot dog from Circo Dei Sapori.
The hot dog was Tofu based and served on a bun with vegan mayo, mustard, ketchup and grilled vegetables. It was really tasty and just what I fancied on a sunny day.
My friend decided to try the middle eastern stall instead and got this mezze platter of vegetables, houmous, bread and falafel. She said it was also really tasty.
We got some deliciously fresh pomegranate juice to go with it.
After exploring and doing some shopping in Ferrara, we went back to the festival before heading home. I saw that L'Era Glaciale, a local Ferrara gelateria, had a stall offering lots of vegan flavours. I decided on dark chocolate and coconut. The lady serving me said I could have another flavour, she was very helpful in letting me decide by giving me some taster samples. I went for blueberry, elderflower and lemon in the end and it was deliciously unique.
Looking around the stalls, most of the food was fresh and best eaten on the day. However, I did buy some of this chocolate hazelnut spread from the NaturaSi stall, after trying a sample I decided I had to have it!
I really enjoyed Ferrara Vegan Festival and it is so nice to see more Vegan promotion in Italy. I would have liked to have seen more snack food available to take away, although it was lovely to see lots of fresh, local produce too.