World’s Biggest Food Fight
August 27, 2015
On Wednesday, August 26, revelers crowded the streets of the Spanish town of Buñol, near Valencia, for the annual Tomatina Festival, commonly known as the “World’s Biggest Food Fight.” For an hour or two on one spectacularly messy day, 20,000 people gather in little Buñol (population 9,000) to sacrifice more than 110 tons (100 metric tons) of tomatoes. But this festival honors no saints; it recalls no somber anniversary of an entire town killed by tomatoes. No, la Tomatina—where throwing food is required—is purely for the fun of it.
La Tomatina dates back to the mid-1940’s—Spanish food fighters argue over which year exactly. They do agree, however, that it began during the gigantes y cabezudos (giants and big-heads) parade characterized by outsized papier-mâché versions of Spanish heroes and saints. How the first Tomatina began is unclear, but a common story is that an argument near a produce stall led to the furious throwing of tomatoes between the offending parties. Anger was soon replaced by laughter and a lot of smashed tomatoes. The same people returned the next year and repeated the food fight on purpose, and a tradition was born. That year and in the following years, police and others (namely, dictator Francisco Franco) intervened. There was general outcry in favor of the food fight, however, as well as fantastical tomato funeral protests, and it continued in a somewhat hard-to-imagine underground fashion until Franco died in 1975. After that, la Fiesta de Tomatina exploded.
The festival begins at 11 a.m. sharp (you gotta have rules) with the spiking of a ham atop a greased pole in the town square. Tomatoes are clenched as people try—and fail—to climb the greased pole and free the ham. At last, when someone agile enough reaches the ham (or when the grease has worn away), it is knocked from its perch and scrambled over like a loose football. A cannon booms and trucks bearing tomatoes free their tailgates: the great tomato food fight begins! The air is filled with red ripe projectiles, and there is nowhere to hide in the narrow streets of Buñol. The trucks run the gauntlet, squeezing through the crowd and spilling tomatoes. When the tomatoes and tomato-throwers are exhausted, the cannon sounds again, ending la Tomatina. Covered from head to foot in tomato pulp, people then brave fire hoses or head to the river to rinse off—and then on to the nearest tavern.
Until 2013, some 40,000 to 50,000 people crammed Buñol for the tomato fight. The ungainly masses (and hard-to-explain tomato injuries) forced some order on the festival, and la Tomatina is now strictly ticketed and limited to “only” 20,000 people.