Montreal Vegan Festival has everything from magical tofu to black veganism

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From Tofu Magique to black veganism, the 9th Montreal Vegan Festival, October 8-9 at the Palais des congrès, has a buffet of offerings for plant-based converts and the plant-curious.

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Caroline Huard, also known as Lounie, has seen the event grow to become one of the main culinary attractions of the fall season. The cookbook author and media personality volunteered at the festival’s first few editions, when she worked as an occupational therapist, and she returns this year as her spokesperson.

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“It’s a great honour,” he said. “I started from the bottom, supporting the cause. I am now happy to use my community to help Montreal Vegan Festival shine.”

Huard is not a chef and did not study vegan cooking. His love of plant-based foods was born naturally in 2011, first for health reasons as he sought a cleaner diet to fuel his running habit, then out of concern for animals used in factory farming and for the environment.

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“I had no vegan friends in real life,” he said. “It was online that I was able to communicate with people.”

She taught herself how to prepare vegan meals and began sharing photos and recipes on Instagram, where her following began to grow. But things really took off in 2018 with Tofu Magique. Her simple spiced tofu recipe (available on her website, loouniecuisine.com) went viral and is now available ready to wear in Metro stores.

“I didn’t eat a lot of tofu (before that),” Huard said. “I found it high maintenance and I really didn’t like it. I wanted a recipe that was easy and could go with anything.”

Since then he has published two cookbooks: Loounie cuisine: recettes et astuces 100% végétales, in 2019; and Lounie cuisine 02: encore plus de saveurs 100% végétales, in 2021.

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The Montreal Vegan Festival is an opportunity to discover not only vegan food, he explains, but also the benefits of a vegan lifestyle.

“Many people are not necessarily vegan, but they want to reduce their meat consumption,” he said, noting that the festival is a great place to try new foods, learn about plant-based products from local businesses and attend talks on interesting topics.

Huard will give a cooking demonstration on how to make shredded mushroom tacos on Sunday at 11 am The demonstration will be in French.

One of the weekend’s special guests is Joe G. Thomas, the 76-year-old founder of Black Vegans of Toronto. The group of more than 600 members meets regularly and hosts events including the Toronto Black Vegan Festival and the first-ever Black Vegans of Toronto Holiday Market in December, which is open to all.

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“We invite people from all walks of life and all races to enjoy our food,” including vegan versions of Caribbean favorites like curried goat and oxtail, he explained.

Thomas thinks it’s important to have a vegan group specifically for people of African descent.

“We are not just a black version of a conventional vegan group,” he said. “It’s not some kind of cosmetic diversity that we’re looking for. There are some deep-seated historical reasons why we need to focus on our health, particularly due to our dietary history due to the enslavement of our ancestors. We have so many problems and so many food-related traumas that we need to address.”

Thomas is the author of Let Food Be Your Medicine Today: Live Healthy and Strong on Plant-Based Whole Foods and owner of Atiba Farm, a for-profit social enterprise initiative of Black Vegans of Toronto, which he started four years ago. He will give a talk on Sunday at 2 pm on Afro-Veganism in Canada.

“The main reason I advocate this lifestyle is the results,” he said. “The level of energy, clarity and calm that I feel, I want to get up on my podium and preach to people.”

TAKE A LOOK

Montreal Vegan Festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday at the Palais des congrès. For tickets and information, visit festivalveganedemontreal.com

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