la tomatina: Home of The World’s Largest Food Fight

Spain’s La Tomatina: Site of The World’s Largest Food Fight   

In La Tomatina, people from all over the world come to participate in the fight as tomatoes are thrown for about an hour, before everyone leaves covered in red puree.

The colourful festival has no other purpose besides entertainment, and while no one knows the exact origin of the festival, it is rumoured to have begun when angry townspeople threw tomatoes at Buñol’s councilmen back in 1945. A little known fact: the friendly fight is initiated by a person climbing up a greasy pole to retrieve a slice of ham. La Tomatina is the world’s largest food fight and last year almost 145,000 kg of tomatoes were thrown in battle.

La Tomatina is so popular that it used to increase Buñol’s humble 9,000 people population to around 50,000 (in 2013). Since the town couldn’t contain the large influx of visitors wishing to fight with tomatoes, the Buñol now sells a limited number of tickets to a lucky 20,000 participants.