La Tomatina – The Tomato Festival
Every year on the last Wednesday of August, there is a strange battle to be seen in the Valencian town of Buñol. Within the borders of Spain it is as famous an event as the running of the bulls in San Fermin, although it is not quite as well known abroad.
It is the famous La Tomatina, the tomato festival, in which thousands of people throw tons and tons of tomatoes at each other! The tomatoes are supplied by the town hall, and they are all over ripe in order not to do damage to anybody. People come from all over Spain to participate in this spectacle, which has in a way become a victim of its own success, as there are so many people that it is now almost impossible to get to the centre of the city where the battle takes place.
‘How on earth did this madness ever start?’ I can hear you ask. Here is a brief history of La Tomatina.
It all started in August 1945 when there was a procession of ‘Giants and Bigheads’ in the village square. Some young people started messing around and pushed the participants in the procession, presumably because they wanted to take part as well. One of the participants fell over and got so angry that he started to hit everybody within reach, and a big fight ensued. Somebody grabbed the tomatoes from a nearby vegetable stall and people started throwing them at each other. However, the police soon interfered and broke up the fight. The responsible party was fined and made to pay the damages.
The following year the youngsters repeated the battle, only this time they had brought their own tomatoes. Once again the police broke it up, but the same thing repeated itself year after year until it became an unofficially established festival.
However, in the early fifties the town hall prohibited the festival, which nevertheless went on as if nothing had happened. The participants were arrested and put in prison. People now started petitioning for the festival to be made legal, and they were so persistent that the town hall eventually gave in. But unfortunately the next year the crowd became very unruly and threw tomatoes and water at everybody, so also people who only wanted to watch got hit, amongst them some rather important local dignitaries, so the festival was banned again.
In 1955 as a protest the people of Buñol celebrated the ‘Funeral of the Tomato’. They carried a coffin with a big tomato inside through the town accompanied by a band which played funeral music.
In 1957 the festival was finally approved for good, and it has been celebrated every year ever since then on the last Wednesday of the month of August.
The following rules have been set down by the Buñol Town Council:
· It is illegal to bring any kind of bottles or other objects that could cause an accident.
· You must not tear t-shirts.
· Tomatoes must be crushed before throwing so that they don't hurt anybody.
· You must be careful to avoid the lorries which carry the tomatoes.
· As soon as you hear the 2nd banger you must stop throwing tomatoes.
"Try to enjoy yourself as much as possible but respect these rules and the people. In the "tomatina" festival there has never been a mishap and we would like it to stay that way so everybody around the world can have a good time."
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