Battle Of The Oranges In Ivrea, Italy, Celebrates History With Giant Food Fight

Whizzzzz... splat. Whummm... plop. Thud, thud, thud.

All familiar sounds if you're attending the Battaglia delle Arance, or the Battle of the Oranges in Ivrea, Italy, and all the more reason to keep your head on a swivel. Even the bravest of competitors agrees.

SEE PHOTOS OF THE ORANGE-TOSSING CHAOS BELOW

"It's scary," Filippo Prior, who entered the town's piazza in a horse-drawn carriage, tells Gadling. "You have a helmet but you can't see anything because oranges are flying at you from all angles."

According to The Telegraph, legend has it that the festival celebrates a 12th-century miller's daughter spurning the advances of the town's evil lord -- by cutting his head off, which freed the town from his rule. Originally, festival-goers threw beans at one another, but some time in the 19th century, women began tossing oranges from their balconies at boys they liked. If the boys reciprocated the feelings, they returned the projectiles.

Today, The Daily Mail notes, the festival ships in 57,000 crates, or 400 tons, of oranges for the citrus-flinging festivities. Residents dress up in medieval costumes to pelt one another, The Telegraph reports, though orange-tossers only participate in one of the festival's three days, as one jump into the foray can lead to plenty of soreness and bruises, according to The Daily Mail.

UPI reports that 165 were injured in this year's festival, with 13 requiring hospitalization. Some, however, see a black eye and bruises as a sign of pride, according to Gadling. And anyone who doesn't want to be bombarded by fruit wears a red hat, The Daily Mail reports, which signifies a spectator.

Aside from the cleanup, which requires 100 workers, the festival concludes on Fat Tuesday with awards to the best teams, a procession and the burning of a scarlo, or a pole covered in heather and juniper bushes, Gadling writes.

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Comments

[outasite]

09:41 AM on 02/23/2012

With so many in the world starving now, right now, I think it be time to switch to water balloons

[sheradzade]

05:15 AM on 02/22/2012

1. it is a millenarian tradition, representing the rebellion of a subdued and disarmed people against the tyrant, it is a symbol. don't you waste your pumpkins for Halloween?
2. global market forces Italy to buy oranges from other foreign countries. those oranges be wasted anyway. maybe you would be left to rot on the trees.

[rolandch]

01:42 AM on 02/22/2012

Meanwhile in third world countries...

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

11:15 PM on 02/21/2012

Starving people in the third-world are so excited to see rich countries waste food in the silliest ways...

[Mitch Johnesee]

12:15 AM on 02/22/2012

Italy is anything but a 'rich' country... not that it makes the waste any better... actually seems to make it worse.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

12:37 AM on 02/22/2012

You clearly don't know what you're talking about. Italy is the 8th largest economy in the world, with Brazil, the UK and France besting them only by a small margin. Some small to mid-size cities in the north of the country enjoy some of the highest living standards (and average incomes) in the whole continent.

[Mrs Robinsons]

09:41 PM on 02/21/2012

I still get sick looking at food games...

waste not.

[wander7676]

08:49 PM on 02/21/2012

Meanwhile children in Africa are starving.

[cuoi]

10:28 AM on 02/22/2012

And in US...

[postanote]

04:57 PM on 02/21/2012

What a stupid dumb move. All that food could be used where it is needed. The US goverment wants to more like its allies. We are becoming uncivilized enough.

[Pounce the Cat]

04:43 PM on 02/21/2012

So Italy one of the Euro nations looking at Billions of Euros in which to stop them going to the dogs and they can afford to waste food.

Remind me again the logic in any of this?

[JScott]

04:13 PM on 02/21/2012

Just like that tomato one in Spain.

[Red45]

03:44 PM on 02/21/2012

What an incredible waste of food.

[Antowan Nothling]

03:18 PM on 02/21/2012

Why on Earth would this video be blocked for people outside the USA??? WTF!!!!! I am in South Africa....

[KIVPossum]

01:53 AM on 02/22/2012

90% of the videos here are geo-blocked for me, too. However, you can always get the commercials :)

[Crisdean Wulver]

03:00 PM on 02/21/2012

With so many people in the world starving, there is something vulgar and even obscene about food fights.