Free food is always a crowd-pleaser. Nothing could have been more obvious at this Saturday's Boston Vegetarian Food Festival, held at the new Reggie Lewis Athletic Center at Roxbury Crossing. The free event attracted a vast array of people from all around the Boston area to sample vegetarian and vegan products and learn more about the vegetarian lifestyle.
For the sixth year, the festival was organized and sponsored principally by the Boston Vegetarian Society (BVS), an all-volunteer, non-profit organization. BVS uses the annual festival as a means to "make a better world for people, animals and the earth through advancing a healthful vegetarian diet and a compassionate ethic." The day of food, fun and people was an accomplishment for BVS - it managed to achieve its goals of educating, promoting continued participation in, and stimulating general enthusiasm for the vegetarian lifestyle.
While increasing interest in vegetarianism promoted enthusiasm for those involved, the Food Fair's popularity was somewhat of a detractor. The most common complaint did not concern the food, but the crowded conditions that prevented fair-goers from sampling it. The combination of too many booths, copious amounts of visitors, and the Athletic Center gymnasium's limited space and stifling ventilation made for a fair that was beyond capacity. The traffic flow around the various booths often prevented access to the tables, while lineups for food samples regularly blocked other stands.
Nevertheless, all those who managed to travel the loop and visit the assorted stands found a wide array of animal-friendly fare. Tasty treats included a collection of flavors from Sunshine Sorbets (a cool vegan treat that alleviated the heat of the many bodies at the fair), hummus and pita offered by Bread and Circus (the same brand available at Tufts' own Oxfam Caf?©), and soothing Chai tea from Oregon Chai. Other, non-edible highlights included mehendi (traditional henna tattoos), an array of speakers lecturing on everything from curry cooking to making a healthy transition into vegetarianism, informative booths such as the New England Anti-Vivisection Society, and a children's activity table where youngsters played with beans, pasta, and string to make pictures and jewelry.
While this fall event is the main public showing for the BVS, the organization also hosts monthly speaker events and dinners, bimonthly cooking classes and food tastings, holiday events, and general vegetarian resources. Though BVS volunteers run most of these other activities, this weekend's Food Fair was also helped by some more commercial organizations including AllGoode Organics, Soynut Butter, VegNews, and Vitasoy. For more information on the BVS, visit www.bostonveg.org.
