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By Joanna DelBuono
Brooklyn Daily
At $1.99 a pound, pelting one another with tomatoes seems like an extravagant waste of money. But that’s what thousands did over the weekend at Aviator Sports Arena in Marine Park at the first-ever NYC Tomato Battle.
My only thought is what a waste of time, money, and sauce it was.
According to Wikipedia, the first-ever tomato fight occurred in 1945 at Bunol, Spain. There are several explanations of why the first tomates podridos were flung — just a prank, a protest against the constables, or a fight between rival fruit vendors — no one knows for sure. The food fight brought out the local constabulary and the participants had to pony up and pay for the damage the flying pomodores caused.
Now here is where the tradition started. A year later on the same last Wednesday in August, the act was memorialized by the young locals by flinging mushy, messy missiles at each other. In ensuing years the police came out, disbursed the crowds, and made the tossers tote up for the damage caused. Then, in 1957, the town’s upper crusties decided, “Hey let’s make it legal, make it a tourist destination, and make some money.” And so La Tomatina was born.
However, the act of throwing rotting fruits and veggies in protest goes way back. As recorded in Shakespearean times, when an actor was more rotten than an overripe banana on a hot August day, unhappy critics flung apple cores, orange rinds, and, yes, even the ubiquitous pomme de terre at the untalented thespian’s head.
Of course, there have been other states across the wide old U.S.A. that have held similar tomato tosses, but this is the very first in New York City and in our very own Brooklyn, the mother of all things sauce, gravy, and the BLT. (Okay, so I’m playing the gravy card again. Sue me).
Now, I ask you, do we really have to do this, especially when the cost of fruit is so high, and we are all suffering from obesity? Don’t you think that our very thoughtful, and caring Mayor Bloomberg should come out against the wanton waste of a healthy food snack and decry the messy melee which smelled like yesterday’s compost?
I’m all for good, clean fun, but wallowing in over-ripe steak, plum, or San Marzanos juices in the simmering heat doesn’t sound like good clean fun time to me. But then, I don’t like mosh pits, silly string fights, or getting decked with a bowl of Jell-O either.
As for water balloon fights, well, that’s another kettle of rotting fish and on a really hot day, who doesn’t want to get splattered with a cold purple balloon right in the kisser?
Not for Nuthin™, but let’s leave the juice of the over-ripe tomato to get rid of the stink of skunk, and leave those lovely, tasty, perfectly rippened fruits for a caprese salad or a delicious BLT. Now that’s what I call good use of a tomato.
Follow me on Twitter @JDelBuono.
Joanna DelBuono writes about national issues — and food fights — every Wednesday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail her at jdelbuono@cnglocal.com.