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World’s Largest Food Fight Turns Town Red

  • Susan
  • August 28, 2009

Even though we’ve been taught it’s impolite to play with our food, sometimes there’s nothing as satisfying as a good food fight.  For those who might like to take their aggressions out by pelting food at friends and foe, a trip to La Tomatino Festival in Buňol, Spain might be in order.

Pegged as the world’s largest food fight, La Tomatino Festival takes place on the last Wednesday in August.  This year’s participants got down to business quickly, as they grabbed at the guts of more than 100 tons of rotten tomatoes that were trucked into the town especially for this event.  Dressed in shorts, swimsuits (and in some cases, absolutely nothing), the hurlers spent their allotted hour wading in the pulpy mess as they continued a tradition that folklore says started when disgruntled citizens threw rotten tomatoes at corrupt politicians.  (Perhaps this is a custom we should adopt.)

World’s Largest Food Fight Turns Town RedOther historians say the ritual started when patrons at a restaurant started throwing food after their order came out too cold, and a third version attributes the fight to a feud between childhood friends.  There are also numerous other accounts about how the festival began. Regardless of which one you choose to believe, the images of the participants wallowing in the tomatoes are hilariously gruesome.

Although not quite as exciting as the running of the bulls in Pamplona, little Buňol gets quite an infusion of tourists and much needed revenue when 40,000 eager revelers descend on the town of 9,000 from such faraway places as Australia and Japan, all for the opportunity to play with rotten tomatoes.

I guess this can be considered “good, clean, fun,” although there’s no estimate as to how much time it will take to clean up the goopy mess and get the town back to normal.

Click here for Video of La Tomatino Festival

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