Vegan food at Keltfest and Castlefest

[EN/NL]

Week 4 of the Vegan Month of Food was about special occasions and holidays. This got me reminiscing about my favourite meals of the summer, so I thought I’d share the excellent vegan food I had at Keltfest and Castlefest earlier this year. These are two separate festivals (Keltfest is smaller and focuses on Celtic culture, while Castlefest has more of a medieval/fantasy theme) but they’re similar in a lot of ways — and both events have great vegan food. :)

Keltfest food

I’ve been to Keltfest three times now, and I’ve always found plenty of vegan options. Here’s what we ate this year:

My boyfriend and I shared a falafel plate from Bakblik, which included some incredibly delicious beer-battered mushrooms. I believe the sides were hummus, smoked tomato sauce and a beetroot & bulgur salad.

We also shared this delicious tofu satay bowl and a plate of deep-fried bananas. According to Keltfest’s website, the name of this stall was Grill-Zilla. They’re not exclusively vegan but they did have a separate stall serving vegan Indonesian dishes. These were both so good!

Wietse’s pies offered two vegan options: a mushroom pie and a curry lentil pie. I’ve tried and enjoyed both. This was the curry pie.

Finally, I bought a fruit salad from a smoothie stall and a slice of red velvet cake from another stall (unfortunately I don’t remember what they were called). I always love a fruit salad, especially on a hot day, and I was excited to find vegan cake!

Castlefest food

This was my second time visiting Castlefest. Last year, I remember having a delicious vegan kapsalon by the Seitan Chefs. This year, we mainly ate at a German stall called Vegan Spirit. I’d tried their food a few years ago at Keltfest and I really like them! These dishes were all from Vegan Spirit:

This was a cheese and spinach toastie served with mango sauce and tomato sauce (because I couldn’t pick one). The filling was nice and melty — I think they used Wilmersburger cheese — and the outside had been battered and fried, which, it turns out, is an excellent idea. This was a delicious lunch/snack.

For dinner, I had Vegan Spirit’s paella plate and my boyfriend had their Thai curry. Other options included chilli, falafel, and an Ayurvedic plate.

Market stalls and other activities

But of course we weren’t just there for the food! There’s always music, workshops, demos, a big market, and probably lots of other activities that I haven’t discovered yet. I feel like I could spend hours just browsing all the different market stalls selling art, clothes, books, board games, and more. This year, we participated in a fun one-off D&D session at the Jack of Dice stall at Keltfest and tried out various board games in Castlefest’s games tent. The above picture shows some of the goodies I picked up at Keltfest: loose-leaf herbal tea from Eleoflora, a set of dice I got as a birthday gift for my boyfriend, and a tote bag, a calendar and cute donkey-shaped soap from Melief (an animal sanctuary in Sögel, Germany).

Both events have already taken place this year, but in case you’re interested in visiting them in the future: Keltfest is held in Vijfhuizen at the end of May, and Castlefest takes place in Lisse during the first weekend of August. There’s also going to be a Castlefest Winter Edition on November 24th and 25th, 2018.