Hendersonville Apple Festival... How is it for vegans?
My husband and I had a spectacular time on a rare trip out of town yesterday to the Hendersonville Apple Festival. I had been before, as a long time NC resident, but he hadn't. He isn't much of a festival person but we still had plenty of fun. I love Hendersonville and its iconic artfully painted bears. It's a great place to visit even when there isn't a festival going on.
Hendersonville hosts a four day Apple Festival featuring local growers every year. This year it is from August 30-September 2. They have about 200 vendors and approximately 250,000 visitors over the four days of the festival. It is a huge part of the local economy and culture.
"During a normal year it brings in an average income of $30 million dollars or more. Growing apples has been part of Henderson County’s culture and heritage since the mid 1700s. North Carolina is the 7th largest apple producing state in the nation and Henderson County grows 80% of this state’s crop."
"The North Carolina Apple Festival is proud to include 14 local apple growers in the Street Fair. You can purchase a few apples or bushels of fresh locally grown apples. Many of the growers also feature items such as fried apple pies, apple cakes, apple butter and apple cider at the Festival."
As far as vegan options go, there are apples of course! Apple cider, apple butter, apple jelly... As well as pepper jelly and other fruit preserves and spreads. I didn't bother checking if funnel cakes or apple turnovers and pies were vegan because I wasn't interested in standing in every line to try to find ones made without lard, milk or eggs, since that seems to be the standard for fair foods.
There was a booth offering premade vegan gluten free dried meals where you add water and pasta or rice to create a dinner. It was $17 a bag and I consider that too much, but the convenience and availability of gluten free and vegan quick meals would be worth the cost to some. I cannot remember the name of that vendor. I hadn't planned on making a blog for food reviews at the time so I wasn't diligent in taking notes or remembering things.
Before I went I researched possible places to eat vegan meals. I found a few options. There are no fully vegan restaurants, but quite a few in the main section of town where the festival is that look very promising. I didn't eat at any of them because to our surprise, we found a vendor named Island Noodles that served delicious Hawaiian style wok fried soba noodles that are vegan be default. The meats are cooked separately and added on by request for nonvegans after, so there is no cross contamination of the woks. They were very delicious and we were so hyped to find fresh hot food at the fair we can actually eat! The people who worked the booth were so friendly, and the noodles are clearly marked as vegan on the sign.
The restaurants at the site of the festival that had vegan options are:
Arabella, which serves breakfast and brunch. It has a few vegan and veganizable food options.
Dandelion, which has a rotating cafeteria style menu that changes often based on availability. It may not always have vegan options but it is worth checking out and asking. Proceeds go towards job training and support of domestic abuse survivors. If we hadn't found the Island Noodles, I was highly interested in going here.
Indian Aroma Bistro, another hot contender for what we would have chosen if we didn't find Island Noodles. I just love Indian food and make it at home all the time. Can never go wrong with it! The menu features clearly marked vegetarian options, with some of the vegan options marked, though I would ask if the potato samosas and other appetizers are vegan or just vegetarian due to some strange formatting of the menu. Most samosas and things like Gobi Manchurian I've had elsewhere are fully vegan.
There are a few other restaurants with vegan options around Hendersonville including a Thai restaurant and Taco Bell, but the ones I linked were in the main area of the festival.
As people who love spicy food, my husband and I loved the Rising Smoke Sauceworks booth which features a selection of flavorful hot sauces ranging in spiciness from mild to extreme. Free samples! Most of them are vegan and clearly marked as such. We got the Smokin' Cajun Seasoning because I felt it was very versatile to use to sprinkle on nearly anything. It's a spice blend rather than a sauce because we're still working through the multitude of hot sauces we bought at the Lincolnton, NC Apple Festival last year.
There, of course, were a LOT of nonvegan things all around the festival, as is to be expected. Hot dogs, pastries of different sorts, goats milk soaps and lots of products containing honey. But the festival is absolutely doable and enjoyable as a vegan.
Hendersonville is about forty minutes north of Chimney Rock and Lake Lure, and forty minutes south of Asheville and Lake James. We chose to visit Chimney Rock and Lake Lure and hiked up all 494 stairs to the top. It was a majestic view and a great workout. It does cost $17 per adult to enter Chimney Rock State Park, so I recommend saving energy to do a couple trails to make the most of it. There is an elevator to go to the top but I wanted the experience of the stairs (then we took the elevator back down because I am more afraid of heights when going down). There's a small cave right next to the main path to the top, which was a cool and refreshing break from the late summer heat, and a path to a waterfall. This is either the fifth or sixth mountain Nick and I have hiked together. It always feels so empowering to say that we hiked a mountain together at the end of a day! We had a nice, easy walk around Morse Park at Lake Lure afterwards. I appreciated the flat ground and beautiful flowers. The Farmer's market was set up there and we got a fresh lemonade. Lake Lure also has a lovely little Flowering Bridge to walk that seems to always have something blooming.
On the way home we decided I was definitely not gonna have the energy to cook that night so we got vegan subs from Publix and sprinkled that Cajun seasoning from the festival on them.
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