Italy’s largest food fight is battled with oranges

Townspeople throwing fruit at each other – it's a longstanding tradition.

Here's one way to get your daily dose of fruit. Source: Getty Images

For three days each February, streets in the northern Italian town of Ivrea turn a brilliant shade of orange as residents pick a side and wage war with citrus fruit.

The epic food fight has taken place each year since 1808 as part of the Carnival of Ivrea, in Piedmont. The Battle of the Oranges, which usually ends on Shrove Tuesday, is said to commemorate the overthrow of the town’s tyrant at the hands of a plucky young commoner by the name of Violetta, thought to be a miller’s daughter.

The messy tradition has been running since 1808. Source: Getty images

While the festival’s exact origins are a little unclear, legend has it that the tyrant foolishly attempted to rape the miller’s daughter on the night before her wedding. In response, the young girl promptly decapitated the tyrant, carted his severed head around the town and ignited a popular revolt. She and her fellow peasants stormed the tyrant’s palace and burnt it to the ground.

For the event, aranceri (‘orange-throwers’) are split into two main groups: participants on foot represent the commoners (and are divided into nine teams), while people in carts play the part of the tyrant’s Napoleonic troops, who are determined to protect the status quo. Once the battle begins, all citrus-saturated hell breaks loose, with some 500 tonnes of oranges (shipped from Sicily for the event) ending up splattered over the streets, faces and all through heads of hair.

You can choose to wear a red hat that symbolises bystander status. Source: Getty

If orange war doesn’t quite sound like your forte, you can choose to wear a red hat that symbolises bystander status. Bystanders are off limits – they can neither be targeted, nor throw oranges themselves. Of course, simply attending the festival means being hit with an orange is all but a certainty. Splash back is a real thing.

Here's one way of getting your daily dose of vitamin C. Source: Getty

But why oranges? Why not something softer, like jelly, or chocolate mousse? Early in the festival’s lifespan, the weapon of choice was beans, and then apples (ouch!!). Oranges entered the game in the 19th century, in place of the slings and arrows used by peasants in the original revolt, and the fruit is said to symbolise the severed head of the tyrant. Seems logical. But the origins are a bit murky.

Of course, European countries are no strangers to food fights. There’s La Tomatina, the famous (and seriously messy) tomato battle in Buñol, Spain; the grape-throwing festival of Mallorca, and the annual flour war in Greece.

But the Battle of the Oranges is the only one fought with something as hard as an orange – the jury’s still out over just how painful being pegged with one (or more, in all likelihood) would actually be.