The Festivals Nobody Talks About

From the reading: The Festivals Nobody Talks About

Every August, in the small Spanish town of Buñol, tens of thousands of participants hurl ripe tomatoes at one another for precisely one hour. La Tomatina, as the event is known, began in 1945 when a group of young people reportedly grabbed tomatoes from a market stall during a procession and started throwing them at whoever was nearest. What started as an act of spontaneous mischief has since become one of the most photographed events in Southern Europe — drawing visitors from Japan, Brazil, and Canada who book flights a year in advance. The tomatoes, always overripe and therefore too soft to cause injury, are sourced from the Extremadura region and trucked in overnight. By nine in the morning, the streets run red.