Exeter is the smallest university city in the UK (note: I did not bother to check if this was true). With only one high street, the shops closing at by 7 and restaurants actually adhering to Sunday Trading Hours, it is easy to understand how it can be overshadowed by the larger southern cities like Bristol or Southampton.



While this can be frustrating when trying to see a local drag act or get drunken 2am ice cream, Exeter's quiet charm allows for a middle-class, undercurrent trade to thrive; vegan junk food.
With more vegan options per capita than London (again, don't Google, just go with me here), Exeter is the home of moderately overpriced, cruelty-free food, from vegetarian restaurant Herbies and Rabbit Cafe's vegan sundaes, to the alternative menus from both chain and independent places. I have ended up eating far more than my fair share of vegan food since moving here and I have not intention of stopping.

 Although I had already experienced a little of what Exeter has to offer while doing my Masters, I have never really written about it before. So what a perfect introduction to the EATeter (gettit?) foodie scene than the vegan market I went on my very first weekend as a local. There was a wide selection of vegan cheese tasters – available at Sainsbury's – and the largest vegan (that word is redundant at this point, right?) bake sale I have ever seen. To make things even better, there was even a selection of 'hot' food from curries to sausage* rolls and free-from sushi!

I tried the free-from sushi, which was made of sticky white rice, crunchy cucumber strips and a teriyaki sauce wrapped in nori. It was particularly delicious with cool, creamy flavours and a mix of crunchy and chewy textures; I am currently scouring food blogs to try and figure out how to make it on the cheap!

The sausage* roll – which is a mystery in terms of what it's made of, was served cold and was more reminiscent of a shop bought 241 pack. It lacked pretty much all of those delicious elements you look for in a sausage roll; the buttery, flaky pastry, the warm meat* filling which makes up two thirds of the overall dish, etc. The sushi* was good though.
The other stand out at Exeter's vegan market was the introduction to the famous Bread Man. An almost mythical creature told to be a creator of vegan breads and cakes in numerous flavours, appearing one day and gone the next.

 Turns out he runs his stall on Thursdays.



When talking to the Bread Man, he mentioned how even though his passion is baking bread, yet the students all know him as the Oreo Cake Man. His Oreo cakes are two layered sponges – vanilla and chocolate retrospectively – sandwich together slabs of the classic Oreo fondant. At £2.50 a slice, they are the perfect hump day pick me up! They were as good as I had heard, although even as I am writing this, I am eyeing up that £2.80 Peanut Butter Caramel Shortbread!

 I purchased far too much food, and loved every second of it. A large part of why I am excited to move to a city is to start indulging in all the different types of cruelty free food.