Top 20 eco-friendly gift ideas for vegans

My birthday was a few days ago. It was a rollercoaster of a year, from the amazing to the awful. And although my birthday was lovely and relaxing, and full of love and family and wonderful messages from friends, there was one thing noticeably lacking: birthday presents.

Now this is okay, and I don’t mind, I mean what do you get your minimalist sustainability obsessed friend who probably lives on the other side of the planet to you? I see the conundrum that every year my friends and family face, because when someone has such a specific and niche set of interests the chances of getting something they won’t use are… well… pretty high.

To help out those of you who have fussy creatures like me in your life, here’s a list of safe gifts to give for a variety of budgets. These are guaranteed to delight the eco-vegan in your life, without costing the earth, in any sense of the word.

I’ve divided this into five handy categories:

Homeware | Jewellery | Clothing and Accessories | BooksFood

Click on the word to go straight there and avoid the other things (handy if your giftee doesn’t have a home, or if you’re on a diet and don’t want to see mounds of delicious chocolate being all delicious and tempting on your screen. Except it’s vegan, so it’s basically one of your five a day.)

HOMEWARE

Veggie Loven Mug

I love the design of the actual mug itself here. You should check out their Etsy shop, they have lots of beautiful designs that would fit perfectly into a farmhouse style kitchen. And have you seen the sandals on the bottom of the mug? So cute! I think they’re little Birkenstocks.

Best gift ideas for vegans

Wet Dreams Mug

This is more like a combination of myself and my friend Veggie Visa’s wet dream, she with Morrissey and pizza, myself with cats and broccoli (what a weird sentence to say) but I think it’s a pretty cute mug. I would love if it were custom designable so that you can pick from a selection of ones you want, but alas life doesn’t work that way.

What to buy a vegan for their birthday

Nooch Jar

If you don’t know what Nooch is, it’s that cheesy nutritional yeast stuff that vegans bang on about and put into everything. I can think of several people who would flip out over this jar. They also have some gorgeous mugs and bowls on their site, go and have a looksie.

What to buy a vegan for their birthday

Hazelnut Coffee Candle

A lot of candles are made from beeswax, and so not suitable for vegans. That, or they’re full of chemicals which I know I at least don’t really want to be inhaling. This one, however, looks good enough to drink. In fact, I think I’m going to go and make some hot chocolate now… it may be summer but it’s freezing here in Ireland.

Top gifts for vegans

Welcome to my Vegan Kitchen

For the adorable homemaker. As in someone who makes an adorable home, or someone who is adorable and homemakes, your choice really. These are just decorative, not for use. I particularly like their ‘Cruelty Free Zone’ ones that are also in their shops. And a percentage of the sale goes to an animal shelter.

JEWELLERY

Eco friendly birthday gift ideas

Vegan Ring

I love how subtle and pretty this ring is. I just went full on and got the vegan logo tattooed on me 4 months in… (sometimes spontaneity and I like to dance together) but as a less permanent way for someone to subtly declare their vegan loyalties this ring is perfect.

Gift ideas for vegans

Vegan Bracelet

Maybe it’s that ‘Plant Powered’ that swung me, but this has to be my personal favourite in the jewellery section. They’re super customisable so you can make it suit your loved one exactly.

vegan gift for animal lover

Paw Print Necklace

Need a gift for an animal lover? If you can sneak your friend’s pet’s paw print to the maker of this lovely necklace, then it’s the perfect present for your friend who talks about their cat/dog more than any human in their life.

Great gifts for hippies and vegans

Raspberry Earrings

These are the sort of thing that normally I’d pass over, but they’re so ridiculously realistic that I feel like if I leave them on too long they’ll start dripping juice down my neck. They’re made by a designer in Greece who has an Etsy shop full of little fruit and veg dangling off bits of metal.

Best birthday gifts for vegans

Birthstone Necklace

When I was a child I hated my birthstone – peridot – but as I’ve become older myself and the colour green have become inextricably linked. I think it’s the eco thing. This is a particularly nice birthday gift because of the birthstone element. If the text isn’t too your liking, check out their other items.

CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES 

Best presents for vegans

Yellow Clutch

Make sure you giftee likes yellow, it’s generally a love it or hate it colour, but personally I love it and think it cheers up everything. It’s a bit of a nightmare trying to find purses, clutches and bags that aren’t made from leather and won’t break in a week, so they make the perfect gift for any vegans in your life.

vegan bag for birthday gifts

Crossbody Bag

When I was working in Russia and carrying my laptop everywhere, I was wearing business clothes but carrying my turquoise backpack. If you have someone in your life who has to carry a little more, this bag will go with anything. They can always decorate it with a few patches if the grey’s not their style, too.

Best christmas gifts for vegans

Gloves

If your giftee is a winter baby, or you’re buying a Christmas gift, then what better than a pair of gloves? It’s incredibly tedious going round the shops and checking labels to find gloves without wool in, so cut all that and get this gorgeous handmade pair. Funnily enough I chose the green ones to show, but there are plenty of options.

clothing gifts for vegans

Vegan T-Shirt

This is just one of many vegan t-shirts that are awesome. I made a list earlier this year which you can find here. If you buy anyone (albeit not a hardcore meat eater, I mean a vegan anyone) a shirt off this list (or more to save on postage) then you’ll have a very happy little herbivore on your hands.

vegan shoes to give as gifts

Japanese Shoes

This year I finally spent the money on a pair of boots from a vegan brand, and my they’re wonderful. However, they’re also a kinda expensive. If you feel like splashing out a little and know the shoe size, a pair of vegan shoes is a more risky but potentially much appreciated gift. These look extremely comfortable.

FOOD

Booja Booja Truffles

These are like the queen of all vegan truffles, with only wonderful ingredients. I’ve only ever been given them for my birthdays/Christmases and they’re a bit of a failsafe for ‘don’t know what to get, she lives out of a backpack, argh!’ vegan and everything free and they still taste amazing.

best edible gifts for vegans

DIY Dairy Free Mozzarella and Ricotta Kit

This is pretty awesome. I don’t know what it tastes like, but they have good reviews. This would be a good gift for a newbie vegan who hasn’t delved into the world of making their own cheese, yet. Although in fairness, I haven’t really either. I’ve had very few cooking failures in my life, and they pretty exclusively revolve around trying to make nut cheeses.

An Entire Gift Basket of Vegan Chocolate

Do I need to explain this one?

Vego pack of 6

Created in Germany, these have since spread and are widely acknowledged to be the best tasting vegan milk chocolate. They’re delicious, and rather large, although I can never make them last as long as I feel I should be able to make a bar of that size last.

Vegan Wine

Did you know that most wine actually isn’t vegan? If you’re going for the classic option of a bottle of wine as a gift, make sure it’s vegan friendly. Check out Barnivore for a list.

Disclaimer: all the opinions in this are completely my own, and I’d genuinely be thrilled with anything from this list. But you should know if you book through the link above I’ll make a tiny commission at no extra charge to you. Probably about the cost of a coffee. So go ahead, buy through a link and save those around me by being attacked by a caffeine deprived me…

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best eco-friendly gift ideas for vegans

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5 unusual things to see in St. Petersburg, Russia

Everyone and their grandmother, or in my case, mainly my grandmother (we’re a culture-cramming sort of family) can give you the rundown of what to do in Saint Petersburg. You go to the Hermitage for some art, the Russian Museum for some history, the Summer Palace for some wondering at the amber room. In the evening you go to the ballet to watch some of the finest dancing in the world.

But what if you want to see a different side of St. Petersburg, while still getting in music, art and culture? What are the unusual, offbeat and alternative things to see in do in St. Petersburg, that will really get you under the skin off the city?

Skip the Hermitage – head to the General Staff Building

Everyone’s heard of the Hermitage, and if you go (at least in the peak times of year) you’d better suit and boot up in full American football style gear to have any chance of getting near the art and exhibits. What fewer people know is that they’ve moved a lot of their collections – the impressionists, the post-modernists, their Matisses, Rembrandts, Monets, Gaugins and so on into a more discreet building opposite the Hemitage itself. There’s also a Faberge collection and historical clothing, if that floats your boat. Entrance will set you back 300 roubles, and you can enjoy the art without tripping over tour groups. Although the building is a little confusing (for me at least – somehow I ended up on the top floor in the realists first) eventually a logic appears.

Unusual things to do in St. Petersburg

My favourite Matisse

Nearest Metro: Admiralteyskaya

Visit the Etagi Loft project

Situated in an old bread factory, the Etagi Loft project has grown from being an exhibition space to having small shipping containers stretching out behind it filled with cafes (including many vegan ones), coffee shops, bakeries, alternative bookshops, thrift stores… and so the list goes on. It’s the largest exhibition space in the city for contemporary art, and has four exhibition spaces as well as a hostel attached to it (which also allows pets!). Especially as a vegan in St. Petersburg, if I had to choose a hostel I’d stay here, because almost of the cheap and delicious vegan places are in the Etagi Loft Project too. Actually, and here’s a confession, I think I got so distracted by the food the first few times I was here that I totally forgot to explore the rest of it, and it was only in my finally week I discovered it has so much more than food.

Alternative art in St. Petersburg

Nearest Metro: Ligovsky Prospekt

Hang out in the mosaic courtyard

The courtyards in St. Petersburg are worth exploring anyway, as they’re often rambling, and filled with stray cats, abandoned buildings, and other surprises, but this one has to be the best.  This much less known attraction is just across the way from the Summer Garden – a mosaic courtyard which rambles on for quite a while, created by an artist and then developed into a youth project. New parts are appearing constantly – there’s now a fountain, and the children’s playground has also been decorated. You’ll probably encounter a Russian woman or two grouting some brightly coloured tiles. It’s a wonderful place to people watch, as the locals have just accepted it into their lives and go there to relax and catch up.

The mosaic courtyard St. Petersburg

Nearest Metro – Chernyshevskaya

Dance to the buskers

One of my favourite things about St. Petersburg in the summer is the live music that’s everywhere. Outside almost any metro in the centre, and stationed at intervals along Nevsky Prospect and in the gardens you’ll find buskers galore. It’s not the buskers themselves that are so special, though – it’s the people who get lost in the moment and dance like no one’s watching. From women with their eyes closed dancing freely, to elderly women waltzing with their grandchildren, it’s one of the most free and unselfconscious things I’ve seen in a country that’s infamous for their stoicism. Take some time out of your sightseeing to join the crowds and enjoy some live music, and some dancing, on your way to your next place.

A brass band in the Summer Gardens.

A brass band in the Summer Gardens.

Pushkinskaya 10

Also known as The Museum of Non-Conformist Art, I first discovered Pushkinskaya 10 on International Museums’ night, where many of the museums in the city open for free until 6am. It was my second weekend in Russia, and it was cold, and pouring with rain. Despite this the streets were buzzing and the queues for all the museums stretched around the block, even at 1am. Although it’s been open for many years now, the museum still provides studio space for a number of working artists, and so you never know whether the room you walk into will be an exhibition, a studio, an installation, a stall where you can buy something… I like the way it keeps you guessing. It’s large and rambles on through many rooms connected by small cramped corridors, and it’s all worth investigating – even the graffiti that stretches up to the top floor and gets weird and creative. It’s a mixture of Post-Soviet and modern art  Check out more pictures and information here.

Pushkinskaya 10 St. Petersburg

Late night museum fans in Pushinskaya 10.

Nearest Metro – Ploschad Vosstaniya

On my wishlist for a return visit:

The Street Art Museum.

The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines.

Have you been to St. Petersburg and done something a little off the usual tourist trail? Let me know in the comments below.

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5 UNUSUAL THINGS TO SEE IN ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

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Motorbike Crash in Cambodia – Part 2, the island recovery

Read part one here:

To recap: I was in Cambodia. I couldn’t walk. And the damage was seeming pretty serious. I was also alone, except for a guy who was, for now, hanging around to help me out. In my dorm room was a woman who got me stoned and flashed me, two tattooed Icelandic boys who didn’t talk, and a blur of various others who looked at me in horror as a warning tale.

I was due to arrive on Koh Rong Samloem, an island off the coast of Cambodia that I didn’t know much about. I delayed my trip there by a couple of days, until I could at least hop if I was holding onto someone’s arm. My friend decided to come with me, to keep me company, carry my bag, and be said arm. Also who can resist an island with nothing on it except a hostel? No internet, no wifi, no civilisation…

Have you spotted the catch yet? I was very injured with deep wounds. This might not have been my smartest idea.

Before we left, we went to the hospital to get my bandages changed. With us we took the newest member of our dorm-room of misfits, the man we dubbed Desperate Dan, who had been having a bit of a rough time. On this particular occasion he’d come to get his stomach checked out, which had started causing huge problems. A week ago he’d had a heart attack, after his drink had been spiked with meth, ket and MDMA by the Cambodian woman he’d had a week long romance with. He was also onto his third phone, after being scammed, losing, and breaking his previous ones. The tales were endless.

Once at the hospital he disappeared off and I was left in the waiting room in my wheelchair. A man on the other side with a tiny tiny baby noticed me staring, and beckoned me over. My friend wheeled me across and the man handed me his baby, who must have been barely a week old. I awkwardly held it as it snuffled to itself. I couldn’t quite believe how trusting this man was, that he would hand his baby to a stranger.

As I got my bandages changed, I thought it was probably wise to check that I was okay to disappear off to a tropical island. “Is there a hospital there?” I asked.

Beautiful Koh Rong, taken by Rene.

“There’s definitely a hospital on Koh Rong,” the baby-faced doctor confidently replied. Koh Rong was the next island across, and so I was reassured. Meanwhile, my friend was off getting his rabies shot. A dog had, unprovoked, nipped him on the ankle when he was at Angkor Wat, and now he was suffering a huge amount of expense and tedium trying to find rabies vaccinations everywhere he went so that he could complete his five week post-bite course. When done, we waited for Desperate Dan, who was in a mood. They had found a stomach parasite.

We reached the island without too much mishap, although swinging on and off a boat with only one leg was interesting. With impeccable timing, my friend decided to pass the hour on the boat by showing me the pictures he’d taken with my camera of when he went back up the mountain to see the parts we didn’t reach. This included a picture of my blood on the road… still there two days later. I went silent for a while.

Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. This was after two days!!!

By this time I was on some intense pain medication, and everything was dreamlike and surreal. One long boat ride, followed by a shorter one to transfer to Samloem, and we’d made it onto the island. In typical twist of fate style, the cabin we were given was the one furthest away from the main area where the food and the people were.

I spent my days by beating everyone else at scrabble (and being very modest about it). My concentration was too poor for most other things, but apparently my word skills were still working. After a couple of days the blood had soaked through the bandages and gone crusty, causing me a lot of pain. It was definitely time to get them changed, and so we started trying to make arrangements.

“Is there a hospital or clinic here?” we asked. We were told no.

“Can we go to Koh Rong? Is there one there?” They looked at us, and me, and shook their heads.

“I have to get to the hospital though,” I said, indicating my extremely dirty bandages.

He made a phone call, and told me that a boat would be leaving early in the morning and we could get to Koh Rong on that – the same boat we had come on, just going in the other direction. How we could get back remained a mystery. Likewise, whether there was a hospital also remained a mystery. They seemed to think there possibly, probably, maybe was one.

The next morning we set off bright and early, ready to go. The hostel boat took us round to the pier on the other side of the island and left us there for a while, where we were scammed into buying tickets from some guy in the restaurant who didn’t seem to be sympathetic to me needing to get medical help. When the boat arrived, the German woman covered in tattoos who was also crewing the way over looked me up and down with a ‘you again’ expression. She offered me a hand and I swung myself on.

Once we arrived on Koh Rong my friend headed off to find how we should get back. It was already 10am, and we were told that the last boat for Samloem was leaving at 12. This was much sooner than we had expected, as we knew the boat going back from the pier to the hostel wasn’t until 3. Unperturbed we made our way onto the island to find out about a hospital. While I waited, my friend went to ask and came back with the news: “he said there’s no hospital here, people always say there’s a hospital here, but there isn’t and I don’t know why they keep saying that. If we go to the bar down there, then there’s a barman called Dennis who’s a doctor.”

Pharmacy fun

Dennis was a shirtless and tanned English guy who took one look at my bandages and roughly told me to go up the road to the pharmacy, where they would charge me much less and do just as good a job. To get into the pharmacy we had to step over multiple small children who were rolling around in the doorway, where a blonde girl introduced herself and told me the pharmacist was in a meeting and we would have to wait. “As long as we catch our boat,” I said. “And why are there so many children here?”

“Oh, it’s also the daycare and English centre,” she said, watching as children wandered around the floor, inches away from prescription medicine.

The pharmacist, when she arrived, was an Australian girl in her mid-twenties who ushered me into the back room and onto a grubby bench. The wooden walls smelled of damp, and old English textbooks lay spread open in the dust on the floor. The metal plate with the medical tools on it was anything but clean, I think there was even a dead spider sitting next to a scalpel.

“So were you a doctor back in Australia?” I asked, as she peeled off my bandages.

“Oh no, I came to Cambodia a few years ago and fell in love with it. Two years ago I came back and started volunteering here, and at one point I did a first aid weekend. But after two years of dealing with motorbike accidents, you get all the experience you need.” I wasn’t overly reassured, and I was very thankful that nothing more serious had happened to my wound since I had arrived on the island.

The super sanitary room

As I grit my teeth and tried not to scream as the iodine was dripped onto the open wound, a cat wandered by on the wall above me.

The boat was, in fact, not a direct boat but rather a scuba diving boat for Chinese tourists. As we lounged around in our shorts and t-shirts, they tightened their life-jackets and clung to every piece of boat they could reach. Young Chinese women took turns holding each others hair back as seasickness got the better of them. When the boat stopped in the middle of the sea, we retreated to the upper deck for some sunbathing while the tourists leapt off the side of the boat and bobbed around, still in their life jackets, hunting for fish.

Relaxing on the top deck

Hours later, and a a little sunburned, we were deposited on the pier where eventually the hostel boat picked us up. The newbies who were arriving looked panicked at the sight of me, exhausted and bandaged. The hostel staff welcomed me back and asked if I’d managed to get my bandages changed, and I just looked at them.

“Next time someone asks if there’s a clinic on Koh Rong, please, please, tell them no.”

A Chinese tourist in a life jacket, bobbing along.

To be continued… as I find myself alone in Siem Reap, and with a website that’s been revenge hacked.

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Motorbike crash in Cambodia – Part 1, the crash – Plant-Powered Nomad

*Warning, featuring graphic pictures of blood and gore, but also some more amusing moments.*

On a beautiful November day in Kampot, Cambodia, I was driving down a mountain when I got a corner wrong and the next thing I knew I was on the ground trapped under my bike. Maybe it was the PMS clouding my head, maybe I was tired, maybe it was the crappy handling on the dodgy rental scooter, maybe I was just daydreaming too much about the guy I was with and not paying attention.* Or maybe my luck that seems to charm me when I travel ran out. Whatever happened, I was relieved that I seemed okay, except for my leg being trapped. Cambodians appeared from out of the hillside and stood around staring and talking Khmer, my friend appeared too, and an American driving past saw what happened and stopped his bike to help. The two guys lifted the bike off me and that’s when I saw my knee, and the bone sticking out of my knee.

Motorbike accident in Cambodia

Boker mountain, the last photo before I crashed.

“She’s going into shock,” I heard the new guy say. “We need to get her to the hospital. Come on sweetheart, can you get up?” They pulled me to my feet, taking my bag from me. I got on my friend’s bike behind him, noticing the taste of blood in my mouth from a split lip and, worried, checking my teeth. All still there, but one banged. I could feel blood running down my arm from a scratch on my elbow. I felt shaky. My knee, which I was trying not to look at, was numb. I thought dimly that my leg the bike had crushed would hurt in the morning.

We were driving for barely 5 minutes when I felt something was wrong. Richard, behind us, shouted something and we pulled over. “You’ve got a flat!” he said, pointing at our back tire. The air in it was totally gone. The situation was so ridiculous that I had to laugh. Richard’s bike was a bigger bike, and not a scooter, but it was still a squeeze for the three of us to pile on, me in the middle. My 6′ friend had to hold his feet up the whole time to stop them dragging on the ground. I lost track of time, but about thirty minutes later we arrived at Sonya Kill hospital, a small and unfortunately named hospital at the bottom of Kampot mountain, where they took me into a room and lay me down.

Motorbike crash in Cambodia

There’s bone under the dirt.

“How much your weight?” asked the pretty Cambodia nurse who was going to get me some morphine before cleaning me up. I shook my head. I hadn’t weighed myself in about six months.

“58 kilograms?” I guessed, and she repeated it to the male nurse in Khmer. He turned around and looked me up and down critically, one eyebrow raised. Then he gave me a disbelieving look and shook his head. He spoke to the female nurse.

“Okay, you have to go other room,” she made a weighing movement. I looked at my leg, then back at her, then back at my leg, then back at her. She got the point. “Okay, I bring here.”

I turned out to be 60 kilograms. The male nurse looked vindicated and wrote it down on the sheet. “Calling me fat, way to kick me when I’m down,” I muttered to my friend. I was looking forwards to the morphine though. The pain was becoming a little too much to handle. They injected me, and cleaned me up. The pain was horrendous. If I never feel someone picking rocks out of the bone in my knee again, it will be too soon. After what seemed to be forever they bandaged me up and sent me to be x-rayed to check if anything was broken. Richard was waiting outside, talking to a friendly nurse.

Motorbike crash in Cambodia

My elbow healed fast, my ankle not so much.

“How are you doing?” he asked. I was hopping along and giggling, doing little salsa dancing turns on one leg as I held my friend’s hand for balance. “She’s had a lot of morphine,” my friend explained. I was taken into the x-ray room, and had my leg positioned in various ways. Then I sat outside in the sun and waited. Ten minutes later the doctor came out and gave me a dramatic thumbs up.

“All okay!” he told me. Nothing broken. We were all relieved, and a little surprised; it definitely hadn’t looked unbroken.

They gave me the bill: 4 hours of medical care, morphine, painkillers, antibiotics, and x-rays cost me $58. Crashing in the middle of nowhere definitely had its perks.

Motorbike crash in Cambodia

My nurse and, left to right, my nurse, Richard, my friend, me on morphine, and my doctor. Yes, that’s my doctor.

That night I had night-terrors and more than once I woke up in a cold sweat and panicked. The next day everything had swollen and the pain was in its full force. I couldn’t put any weight on my leg, and even hopping with someone to hold onto was slow and painful because of the movement. I started to realise that what I’d optimistically brushed off as something I could recover from in a week or two was going to take much longer.

The next day was bad. My friend went up the mountain with the hostel to reclaim the motorbikes, while I stayed in the room with the overweight middle-aged American woman who’d been chasing the much younger hostel manager in an attempt to bed him. In an attempt to distract myself from the pain I sat with her and listened to her tales of all the Adonis-like young men who had been pursuing her. It didn’t seem polite to question the veracity of her stories.

Motorbike crash in Cambodia

Bandaged up, before and after.

“I’ve never been slim, but then I got this belly,” she grabbed her stomach with both her hands. “And this is just how I am, it’s never going away. But my boobs were just too big, so I got them reduced on health insurance. The surgeon was good, but the stitches on my nipples are now coming out, look,” she put one hand down her top and scooped out a tit. Sure enough the stitches around the nipple were coming out. “You okay there honey?” My eyes had glazed over from pain and I was leaning a little. “You’re in a lot of pain, aren’t you?” She glanced surreptitiously around the room, and then asked me, “do you smoke? My cousin in DC has a farm that I work on every summer for as much high grade stuff as I want. It will take the pain right away.” I was a little desperate.

When my friend came back, he looked at me, confused. “What happened to you?” he asked.

“She showed me her boob and told me sex stories and then got me stoned,” I replied. “Please don’t leave me with her again.”

To be continued…

Motorbike crash in Cambodia

Bokor Mountain

*I’m referring to the guy here as ‘my friend’ throughout this to keep some sense of having a private life. Read into that what you will, but yes I quite liked him.

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MOTORBIKE CRASH IN CAMBODIA-2

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Calçotada festival! A burnt onion street party in Barcelona – Plant-Powered Nomad

On the way to Barcelona, my Blablacar driver told me about this Catalonian food I had to eat called Calçots. “It’s these grilled onions, in sauce,” he said. I smiled politely, not really having a clue what he meant, and not thinking it sounded appetising enough to remember. The next day, however, I got a message from The Vegan Word saying her street is having a Calçotada party, there’s a vegan menu, and do I want a ticket. ‘Calçotadas…’ I thought. That sounds familiar, isn’t that the oniony thing?

Calçotada festival in March

Calçots cooking on the fire, photo by Caitlin from The Vegan Word

Sunday morning arrives and the street party committee office is a hive of activity. Yes, there’s actually a street party committee office (in what appears to be a large garage filled with papier mache animal heads from a previous event). By early afternoon, tables have appeared and already a crowd has formed. At 2.30, when we head out to find a seat before the 2.45 kick off, the street is swarming with people and it’s only with great difficulty and a lot of negotiating in Spanish that we can find two empty seats. Somebody, clearly cannier than us, brought their own uncooked potatoes in a bowl. I’m not sure what they were going to do with them, but there they were, on the table.

Calçotada festival in Barcelona

Kicking off

Bread arrived, wine arrived, and after a while hot, blackened Calçots wrapped in newspaper arrived. Calçots are a variety of spring onion that are larger, sweeter and milder. Apparently they were created by  peasant farmer Xat de Benaiges at the turn of the 20th century in Valls in Tarragona Province, although their origin is disputed.

Calçot festival in Barcelona

Calçots incoming.

Normally a festival held in country villages in Catalonia, it was a little odd to see a street in Central Barcelona fenced off for a barbecue. They were served with the traditional romesco sauce, and slices of bread. As an alternative to the sausages, vegans and vegetarians were provided with a potato, an artichoke, and some roasted peppers.

Calçotada street party in Barcelona

Calçots wrapped in their newspapers.

To eat the Calçots, you have to peel off the black outer layers with your hands, getting the burned bits everywhere. Then you dip the fleshy inner into the sauce, again using your hands to mount a decent amount of nutty tomato goodness on the stem. Then you tip back your head, lift the whole thing high into the air, and lower it down into your mouth. Bite, chew, swallow, repeat. It will probably help if you bring a bib, and some baby wipes for afterwards when your hands turn everything you touch black.

Calçotada street party in Catalonia

In full swing of peeling, dipping and eating.

The normal number to eat is 15. I stalled at 12. It was a lot of onion, but Caitlin managed the full 15 like an allium eating trooper. Whoever was DJing was having the time of their life – hopping from Coldplay, to Classical, to Salsa, to Reggae before you could say ‘mas pan por favor!’ The whole experience cost us €10 each, however if you don’t like to display your onion eating skills in the public outdoors, you can travel to New York and have the experience recreated for only $100 a head. If you want to stay local, visit Catalonia in February or March to catch the Calçotada season.

¡Salud!

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Calçotada street party in Barcelona

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