La Tomatina: 'World's Biggest Food Fight'
“La
Tomatina” has been the “World’s
biggest food fight” which is held in the Valencian town of Bunol, Spain.
In this festival participants throw ripe tomatoes at each other and are held in
the last Wednesday in August, during the week of festivities of Bunol.
La Tomatina is just a good and
messy fun, as there is no political or religious significance attached with it.
However it is said that during the forties, in Buñol's main town square, a
number of friends started a tomato fight for unknown reasons. But still Tomatina
festival is celebrated in order to pay homage to the town’s patron saints, Luis
Bertran and the Mare de Deu dels Desemparats (Mother of God of the
Defenseless), a title of the Virgin Mary.
This is a week-long festival
features music, parades, dancing, and fireworks. On
the night before the tomato fight, participants of the festival compete in a
paella cooking contest. About 20,000 to 40,000 people come to Spain, to participate
in this grand fest i.e. tomato fight festival. In this festival people
throw tomatoes over each other which come from Extremadura, where they are less
expensive.
Many trucks haul the bounty of
tomatoes into the center of the town, Plaza del Pueblo. And in the morning
probably by 10am, the first event of the Tomatina begins. Technically, the goal
of the first event is to climb a greased pole with a ham on top. It is the
"palo jabón", similar to the greasy pole. There is a lot of fun, singing
and dancing whilst being showered in water from hoses. Once someone is able to
drop the ham off the pole, the start signal for the tomato fight is given, and
exactly after one hour, this food fighting ends when the water cannons are
fired once more to signal the end.
This fight is filled with lot of
fun and you must wear safety goggles and gloves. However, these tomatoes are
crushed before being thrown so as to reduce the risk of injury. During this
festival you can notice the whole town square is colored red with juicy rivers
of tomato freely flowing on the streets.
Every year about 150,000 that is,
over 90,000 pounds of tomatoes are being used for the fight. During this fest, buckets
of water are first being thrown at the crowd by the fight instigators in the
tomato truck and then they are accompanied by various tomato trucks.
The uniqueness of La Tomatina attracts
a lot of people from every corner of the world. As it has been said that it’s
just a good and messy fun.
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