I attended the Tomato Battle at Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field. New York City has copied the yearly tradition called La Tomatina from Bunol, Spain where people gather and have a tomato fight.
Organizers of La Tomatina gather spoiled rotten tomatoes and crush them. They bring them in on a dump truck where they pour them out on the town making distribution easy. Participants come from all over the world to get drenched in tomato sauce and have a huge food fight.
Brooklyn's event was good but it wasn't great. They piled the (whole) tomatoes in the middle of the field and had both sides of the field filled with hungry eager individuals. Once the battle began people went crazy so much so that they knocked down a fence and had people falling over each other. As you can imagine people were pitching those whole tomatoes like baseballs. I got caught three times between my face, rib and leg; it was like getting pelted by paint balls (only bigger). Both me and my combat buddy picked up the tomatoes and crushed them with our hands before tossing them at people (the proper thing to do). Thank goodness no one got hurt. Now, one thing people have to remember is that this event uses spoiled rotten tomatoes which after the event becomes compost (I don't think people would intentionally waste food).
After fifteen minutes the fruit started to melt and and become more of a soupy paste; making it a lot more bearable. People were scooping up the sauce to pour onto others, we stomped the juice on the ground to spray others. It was a good experience, I only hope they make the necessary changes for next year.
