Pictures: Top five food fights around the world
- Published
Crowds of people have been pelting each other with tomatoes in Spain. Every August people from all over the world come to the tomato throwing festival, La Tomatina. Some people bring goggles to protect their eyes from the flying fruit! The battle only lasts for one hour though. Phew!
In 2016, 22,000 people took part in the event in the village of Bunol, near Valencia. Trucks bring around 150 tonnes of tomatoes and the streets turn red. It's believed that the festival was inspired by a food fight between local children in 1945.
La Tomatina is not the only food throwing festival in Spain. In Piorna, people throw turnips at a man dressed up as Jarramplas during a festival for Saint Sebastian. No one is sure where this tradition comes from - some locals say that Jarramplas was a cattle thief and villagers punished him by pelting him with vegetables.
In Greece, this colourful tradition marks the start of the Christian period of Lent. Instead of using up flour by making pancakes before the 40 days of fasting before Easter, they start a flour war!
These pictures were on 27 February in the port town of Galaxidi in Greece. Hopefully they saved some of the flour for pancakes!
Then there's the Battle of the Oranges which takes place in Ivrea in the North of Italy. It lasts for three days...now that's a lot of oranges!
Every year, the locals split into two teams: the commoners and the noblemen. The event shows the commoners rebelling against the noblemen and their guards who ruled back in the Middle Ages.
And in the Spanish town of Ibi, people battle with flour and eggs. The tradition, which is more than 200 years old, sees two teams battling for power for one day every December. What an eggy mess!
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