La Tomatina Festival

By Shane Dudfield

An ambush on a publicly conducted orgy, a brawl between two ruffians during a carnival and a feisty display of disdain towards a city councilor are among the countless stories that claim to bear the roots of the world's largest food fight. While a consensus on the validity regarding most of the origins of 'Tomatina' is scarce, it becomes irrelevant when surrounded by the sheer ludicrousness of 40,000 worldly punters turning an otherwise sleepy Spanish town into a parody war zone.

Our sole preparation for spending a morning packed in a tomato-flavoured human sandwich was an hour long train ride from Valencia to Bu~nol jammed full of as many goggle-donning punters as physically possible. On our arrival we descended into the town centre, greeted by bottle-necks at every street and alley as we vied for prime positions for waging war.

The centre of this traffic jam converged around a greased pole, propping up a smoked ham which upon its removal would signal the beginning of the annual festivity. An ever-forming human pyramid surrounded this pole, but never quite reached the apex, as egos tried to claim the prize for themselves in spite of the collective effort. Authorities grew tired of this farcical display and without warning the water cannons were fired, marking one hour of no-holds barred tomato-pelting action to the delight of the thousands anticipating the impending sauce-making-fest.
It seems appropriate that the festival is dedicated in honour of Mare de D'eu dels Desemparats (Mother of God of the Defenseless), as this becomes increasingly apparent when space is reduced to virtually nil and lorries bulldoze their way through the crowd, unleashing a barrage of red-skinned squish bombs onto the helpless hordes. Very few tomatoes remained airborne for long; most deflecting off an unsuspecting victim's face before contributing to the crimson sludge under-foot. The best chance of fighting back was to crouch down and create a composite squish-ball or to scrounge up a half piece of tomato off a victim's head or shoulder, had it half a chance to rest there momentarily. Firing it was another story, with a possible arm leverage of about two degrees and zilch scope to aim, not that direction particularly mattered.

Between lorry loads, local residents amused themselves by relieving the crowds with buckets of water from their plastic-wrapped fortresses up on high, while groups of rowdy Spaniards surrounded na"ive clothed punters chanting "Camiseta! Camiseta!" before ripping off their t-shirts and flinging them into the crowd. Needless to say, the Dolce & Gabbana clad Italians were none too impressed with their designer t-shirts being transformed into tomato juice mops.

Precisely 60 minutes later, a second shot was fired and the pelting came to a halt. While some stayed to wallow in the aftermath, others headed for the closest thing resembling a shower, generally a local hosing down scarlet bodies from outside of their garage. We left the tomato skins to cake in our hair as we drunk cervezas in the sun, and decided that next year, we would willingly enjoy Tomatina as a spectator's sport.