World’s Biggest Tomato Fight: Buñol’s La Tomatina
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If you still have a few vacation days to burn and you just can’t decide where to go, why not spend a few days soaking in the Spanish sun as you prepare for the world’s biggest tomato fight in Buñol, 25 miles outside of
Every year on the last Wednesday of August, Buñol’s Plaza del Pueblo becomes the messiest, seediest, reddest square in the world during its hour-long community tomato fight.
Estimates of the number of participants range from 20,000 to 40,000, and the amount of tomatoes?
Anywhere from 90,000 to 240,000 pounds.
Talk about hitting the sauce!
The routine goes a little something like this: in the days leading up to the main event, the town holds street parties complete with music, dancing, fireworks, and lots of wood-fired paella and rose wine.
On Wednesday, store owners plastic up their windows and doors out of precaution as trucks full of tomatoes distribute their goods to waiting hands.
Then around noon, after someone has managed to touch a ham stuck at the top of a greased pole, five rockets shoot tomatoes into the air signaling the start of a food fight that would make all middle school students everywhere jealous.
There are a few rules including: participants shouldn’t bring bottles or other potentially dangerous objects to the square and there’s no tearing or ripping of clothing allowed.
The most important, though, is that tomatoes must be squashed before throwing—kind of like the rule of no iceballs for those of us who remember snowball fights.
After about an hour of furious throwing and dodging (anyone with a camera or baseball cap is reportedly a prime target!), a cannon blast marks the end of the festivities and clean-up of the Great Tomato Bath begins; fire trucks hose down the streets while participants rinse themselves off in the temporary showers set up along the banks of the Buñol River.
The origins of the festival are disputed, but most describe an informal tomato fight amongst friends in the mid-1940s that eventually developed into what Buñol experiences today.
Although the town’s patron saint, San Luis Bertran, and the Virgin Mary are celebrated in the days leading up the big “batalla,” the fight itself has no particular religious or political significance—it’s just good, sticky fun.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
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