Food Fight!
Every year thousands of people descend on the Valencian town of, Bunol. They come to celebrate the famous La Tomatina, in which the participants throw tomatoes on each other and get involved in a tomato fight. All this is of course done just for fun. August end is the time when people celebrate this festival.
Here we are going to tell you a few facts about the festival.
World’s largest Food fight – Did you know it is the world’s largest state-sanctioned food fight? Each year approximately 40,000 tomato enthusiasts arrive in the city of Bunol to hit each other with tomatoes.
Other festivals – Before the actual day of the La Tomatina festival, there is a massive slugfest. It includes massive parades, fireworks and even Paella cooking contests.
Origins of the festival – During 1945 during another La Tomatina festival, a street fight broke out in which the participants started to pelt each other with fruits and vegetables. The following year, the same people brought some tomatoes from home and picked up a quarrel. The police did manage to break the fight up and the festival was somewhat banned in the 1950s, but the popularity lived on. Also, the town’s residents wanted it to take place, hence the festival was brought back.
Ham marks the beginning of the festival – At around 10 AM a slice of ham is hung on top of a greasy pole, in an already crowded square. The aim is to climb the pole and get the slice of ham. As soon as the slice of ham is retrieved from the pole, a loud signal goes off and trucks loaded with tomatoes enter the area, and thus the chaos begins.
40 Metric Tonnes tomatoes are used – The tomato fight lasts about an hour, in which around 150,000 tomatoes are used. The tomatoes used in the fight are of low quality, inferior in taste and are cheap. They are bought from a place called Extremadura.
Battle of sexes – Most of the times the fight turns into a playful battle between men and women.
Tomatoes as disinfectants – Once the fight is over, the firefighters wash the streets hose down the people. What is surprising is the fact that the entire village looks quite clean. Because of the acidity of tomatoes, it also doubles up as a disinfectant.
