la tomatina!

- buñol, spain
- august 31st, 2005
- 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
- 40,000 people
- 100,000 pounds of tomatoes
- me

I will never look at a tomato the same way again. I first heard of La Tomatina four years ago when, after returning from summer school in Madrid, I was asked if I went to the "huge tomato fight." "What?" I asked. To be honest, I'd never heard of it and had returned to the US before it. Four years later, I can proudly say 1) that "yes! I went," and 2) that calling it a "huge tomato fight" is an understatement.

Background: The whole thing started with a plaza food fight in 1945, and has been an official Buñol (pop. 9,000) festival since 1959. Even better, the city provides the tomatoes. As our other friends were working, Benjas, Carlos, and I drove four hours to the grand event and arrived just in time to partake. At the first bang, seven trucks' worth of tomatoes are dumped into the street and the madness begins.

I was saturated in tomato within the first five minutes, and did my fair share of "saturating" as the tee-ball and softball years paid off in a series of direct hits. One of the few rules is that the tomatoes be "squished" before throwing, easing the blow and multiplying the mess. Once no whole tomatoes remain, everyone resorts to straining and slinging the street slush that resembles the "crushed" tomatoes of your mom's spaghetti sauce. The whole deal essentially becomes boys vs girls with whoever's next to you, accompanied by a great deal of chanting and jumping around. In the end, I was standing calf-deep in what looked and smelled like a river of tomato soup.

After the second bang, all the neighbors come out with hoses and everybody does their best to rid themselves of the tomato-seed helmet and armor effect. I strategically selected what appeared to be the highest-pressure hose, but let's just say my fifth and sixth Q-tips were still coming out with ear-tomato remnants last night.

Excellent.