My mother's casseroled tomato sauce bloodied my white t-shirt; the pieces of fleshy, fruity pulp stuck to the fabric and covered my arms. La Tomatina Festival had arrived in my kitchen all the way from Buñol, Spain. Called the world's biggest food fight, people throw tomatoes at one another with the speed of a fastball, and they smash and fall apart on bodies and clothes.
The people appear to be having fun. I'm sure they are. My mother and I were not.
**
La Tomatina began the last Wednesday of August 1945, when young people were waiting to attend the Giants and Big-Heads figure parade in Buñol’s town square. When one of the participant's Big-Head fell off, he flew into a rage and went to an adjacent farmers market. He began throwing vegetables at everyone in his path. A free-for-all ensued, and people pelted each other with tomatoes. The authorities broke up the fight, but the following year, there was a pre-planned tomato fight for which participants brought their own fruits. From there, La Tomatina was an annual event that grew to 23,000 in August of 2024. The food fight is limited to an hour, and then people hose themselves down after the tomato fight.
**
My mother cooked a casserole with an expired can of tomato sauce. My fork in midair, I couldn't take another bite: "It tastes like barf," I said, knowing better even at the age of ten as soon my words landed between us. And then I vomited the botulistic tomato sauce marked grounded with meat.
After rejecting her food, even when she knew in her heart of hearts that it was inedible, my mother threw a small, glass brown-tinted medicine bottle that was on the kitchen counter. It was filled with iron pills and grazed my head just above the ear.
**
People are only allowed to throw tomatoes at La Tomatina. A time limit of an hour in the kitchen with my mother was too long.
**
Iron can hold a spark, and it can rust, but it never breaks apart. Iron ingested as a vitamin chases oxygen-starved anemia out of the blood. When the blood oxygenates, it's a dark, thick red color. The same maroonish color dribbled and dripped, then steadily poured out of the newly torn gash above my ear.
My mother is iron, but I am iron, too. We are indestructible. We hated each other for being so damn durable.
**
In La Tomatina, people make delightful sport of staining each other with the fleshy tomato fruit. Yes, tomato is a fruit. No one remembers that, but I do. I remember everything. I remember my blood freshly aired and tasting like iron. I remember my father tending to me and saying, "You always bleed more from a wound to the head." I remember him deciding not to take me to the hospital. "Only superficial," he said.
**
Ironic.
Irony contains the word iron, but the Greek root means liar.
**
I like that somewhere in the world, you can wind up for a pitch and throw a tomato and not hurt anyone.
Judy Bolton-Fasman is the author of ASYLUM: A Memoir of Family Secrets published by Mandel Vilar Press. Her essays and reviews have appeared in major newspapers including the New York Times and Boston Globe, essay anthologies, and several literary magazines. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net nominee, and a 2024 BAE nominee. She is the recipient of writing fellowships, from Hedgebrook, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Mineral School. Find her at www.judyboltonfasman.com.
