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Mess fests

Eggs, cakes, flour, fruits and even wine...people around the world a busy celebrating festivals where they get to chick all this and more

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Great Fruitcake Toss
What
: Great Fruitcake Toss
Where: Manitou Springs
What do you do with the Fruitcake that you hate? People in Manitou Springs have found the answer. Throw it as far as you can, by any means that you can. Tourists can come watch this event for free, but contestants pay a small fee or donate a can of non-perishable food to enter the events. The battle is held on first Saturday every January.
To be fair, separate prizes are given to numerous special tossing divisions. That is, athletes choosing to toss their fruitcakes by hand are not competing directly with those who use a catapult, giant slingshot, or spud gun (or is that a fruitcake gun?). The audience needs to be ever-vigilant for those fruitcakes that end up being tossed straight up in the air by contestants whose timing on the catapult isn't quite perfect. You know you're having a bad day when you get hit in the head with a frozen fruitcake falling from hundreds of feet above you. Several local Inns offer Fruitcake Toss specials, including a heavy-duty cake to use in the event, and advance coaching on the art of fruitcake tossing. The day also includes Catch The Fruitcake where teams compete to see how many they can catch from their devices that launch them into the sky (Hand Tossing not allowed with the Catch Competition), and an Accuracy Competition in which teams compete to try to hit targets out in the field.

World Custard pie championship
Where
: Kent, UK
A team of lads dressed as grandmothers have been crowned as the new champions of pie throwing at the 2014 World Custard Pie Championship.
The Grannies, as the team are called, sported a mobility scooter and flowery dresses, but when the final whistle blew they had defeated reigning champions Pie n Smash. The World Custard Pie Championships are held every year in the village of Coxheath in Kent, raising money for local charities. Between the 14 teams that took part this year, 2000 pies were thrown.
Teams must stand more than 8ft away from each other, and points are awarded based on which part of the body contestants hit with their pie.
Six points are awarded for a shot to the face, three for hitting an opponent in the chest, and one point for a pie on the arm. However teams are penalised for three consecutive misses during one round. The bizarre competition was started in 1967 to raise funds for a new village hall and was inspired by comedian Charlie Chaplin. It now attracts fans from across the globe, and after a brief hiatus has run every year since 2007.

La Merengada
Vilanova i La Geltrú

La Merengada, also known as the Candy Fight, is a celebration that simply has to be every kid's dream (as well as those with a sweet tooth like me). When the Meringue pies run out, the fun doesn't end, but continues in candy throwing instead. One piece of advice for anyone who is planning to hire a car in Spain during any of these festivals (especially sticky ones like this one): park it away from where all the action is so you won't have to pay for a full cleaning service before handing it back!

Festival of Els Enfarinats (egg and flour fight)
Ibi Town in Alicante, Spain

Probably not as popular or commercial as the Tomatino festival, this annual Spanish festival involves dressing up in a military outfit and tossing eggs and flour at each other. Taking place on December 28 every year as part of the celebrations of the 'Days of the Innocents', this festival is also celebrated as a tradition that is over 200 years old and relates to the ancient Feast of Fools.

Batalla del Vino
Haro, Spain

You'll definitely want to wear some old clothes to this particular food fight. Logrono, the capital of Rioja, becomes a sea of purple during the week surrounding the feast day of Saint Matthew on September 21. The week of celebrations ends in the Batalla del Vino, where the plentiful Rioja wine is the ammunition. Festival goers and naughty wine wasters take aim and end up drenched in a sticky purple, drunk mess. The festival isn't all about the wine war though. In the run up you can enjoy the epic parade. You'll see dancing giants, huge heads, ornate carriages and spirited locals walking the streets in celebration. Indulge in the harvest by drinking endless Rioja and enjoying the regional cuisine

Pumpkin Chunkin
Delaware, US

Since 1986, the great pumpkin has been at the center of the World Championship Punkin Chunkin, where "backyard engineers" test the limits of pumpkin physics during a three-day festival in Bridgeville, Delaware. The event has its beginnings in a blacksmith shop owned by John Ellsworth. In 1986 Ellsworth, Trey Melson, Bill Thompson and Donald "Doc" Pepper began experimenting with punkin chunking after reading an article about a physics class that that threw pumpkins as an exercise in energy and mass. Teams compete in divisions such as air cannon, centrifugal, catapult, human power, trebuchet, theatrical and torsion. The competition is divided into three classes: Adult (18 and older), Youth (11 to17) and Youth (under age 10).

Carnival of Ivrea (Battle of the Oranges)
Ivrea, Italy

Each February at the Carnival of Ivrea in Italy, citizens commemorate the people's uprising against the tyrannical Raineri di Biandrate with an epic food fight. As the story goes, Biandrate gave himself the right to sleep with any bride on her wedding night. One day, a beautiful young woman named Violetta issued a clear rejection by decapitating him with a dagger. Violetta became the hero of the commoners, a symbol of the numerous revolts against the monarchy. Nowadays, participants are divided into two teams. One group parades through town in carriages to represent the emperor's men. The other team, representing the common people, stays on foot and hurls food at the aristocracy. And of course, both groups sport era-appropriate costumes. While this epic food fight originally featured beans, citizens of Ivrea switched to oranges in the 19th century. Makes sense. If you're going to be in the midst of a messy food fight, better to be covered in Tropicana than bean soup. By the time the last fruit is thrown, the streets are covered in sugary, citrus-scented sap (minus the annoying peels).

La Tomatina
Buñol, Spain

In Buñol, Spain, thousands of citizens gather each year to participate in the world's most epic food fight. In this massive tomato-throwing frenzy, there are no teams. It's every man for himself. The tradition began in 1945 when a group of teenagers watching the festival of gigantes and cabezudos (puppets with enormous heads) attempted to join the parade, causing angry audience members to pelt them and each other with tomatoes from a nearby produce stand. To prevent the food fight from degenerating into an unmediated melee, la Tomatina is governed by a strict set of rules established by the city council. The tomatoes must be squashed before throwing to avoid injuries. No other projectiles except tomatoes are allowed. Participants have to move out of the way for trucks and lorries. No ripping off the t-shirts of other contestants. After the final shot goes off, no more throwing tomatoes. La Tomatina has spawned copycats across the globe, inspiring similar tomato brawls in Columbia and Reno, Nevada.

—Compiled by Harshada Rege



 

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