Spanish Tomatina Festival
Posted by Kiran | Under Food, International, Society and People Wednesday Aug 27, 2008
The annual tomato throwing festival kicks off in Bunol, Spain.
Thousands of revellers threw tomatoes at each other and bathed in tomato juice in celebration of Tomatina.
12, 000 kilograms of tomatoes were squashed and hurled to honour the town’s patron saint, St. Luis Bertran.
Shopkeepers covered their premises with plastic to protect their windows and walls from red stains. La Tomatina is a food festival held on the last Wednesday of August each year in the town of Brunol in the Valencia region of Spain. Tens of thousands of participants come from all over the world to fight in a brutal battle where more than one hundred metric tons of over-ripe tomatoes are thrown in the streets.
The 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.
The festival is in honor of the town’s patron saints, Luis Bertràn and the Mare de Déu dels Desemparats (Mother of God of the Defenseless), a title of the Virgin Mary.
The tomato fight has been a strong tradition in Buñol since 1944 or 1945. No one is completely certain how this event originated. Possible theories on how the Tomatina began include a local food fight among friends, a juvenile class war, a volley of tomatoes from bystanders at a carnival parade, a practical joke on a bad musician, and the anarchic aftermath of an accidental lorry spillage. One of the most popular theories is that disgruntled townspeople attacked city councilmen with tomatoes during a town celebration. Whatever happened to begin the tradition, it was enjoyed so much that it was repeated the next year, and the year after that, and so on. The holiday was banned during the Spanish State period under Francisco Franco for having no religious significance, but returned in the 1970s after his demise.
