Is It Ever Acceptable to Play with Your Food?

Every year, on the last Wednesday in August, the Spanish town of Buñol attracts about 20,000 fun-loving people for La Tomatina, a simple but raucously fun event in which participants throw squashed tomatoes at each other. The fight usually lasts about an hour, with an estimated 320,000 pounds (145,000 kg) of tomato goo being tossed around. Afterward, the town square is hosed down and many participants head to a nearby river to clean up.

All in good fun:

• Participants pay a minimum of $15 USD (10 euros) to play with food. But if you want to ride in one of the six truckloads of overripe tomatoes, it will cost you more than $1,100 USD (750 euros).
• The precise origins of the event are unclear, but La Tomatina is thought to have started after children began a food fight during a parade in Buñol in the mid-1940s.
• The festival has become so popular that since 2013, only ticketed participants may take part in the tomato-throwing fun.