Pistachio

On the last Wednesday of August, the Spanish town of Buñol gets crazy. They hold the Tomatina, part of a festival that  includes a competition to knock a ham off the top of a greased pole.

Once that’s done, a siren goes off, and a designated street gets flooded with [literally] tons of overripe tomatoes grown specifically for the occasion. And into the fray falls a huge crowd of youthful frolickers who revel in the stuff.

They get an hour’s fun, and then another siren goes off, stopping the madness and signally a cleanup crew that hoses down the site, which is then considered disinfected thanks to the tomatoes’ acidity.

Here‘s how the whole mess got started. And Videos here.

These are the people who keep alive the similarly crazy running of the bulls, so the Tomatina might make sense on that front.

Still, the old-world Italian sense of reverence for food instilled in me since childhood sees this as an astonishing waste of food.

And one more thing: you guys are nuts.

A scene seen anywhere, but actually here in beloved Toronto @ the Ex. No summer childhood memory is without cotton candy twirled up there. And, no, it’s not food, and less likely to be given to kids these days. A sign of the times. Great shot by Sarah Madeline via FuckYeahToronto

Checking the quality of dried noodles at a factory in Lahore, Pakistan, where noodles provide an early breakfast before beginning a Ramadan fast. via WSJ Photojournal, by Yslb Pak/Xinhua/Zuma Press.