10 Food Festivals for Taste-Bud-Tingling Travels
Holidays are a great excuse to treat your taste buds – but why not take it a step further and make food central to your break?
Here are 10 amazing food festivals to get your tummy rumbling. From lemon fests in France to melon melees in Australia – the world really is your oyster (festival)…
1. La Tomatina, Spain
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Stock.com/mmeee
Leave your favourite white t-shirt in your suitcase, because this is going to get messy.
The annual Tomatina tomato fight in Bunol, Valencia, is the quintessential tomato fight.
Have a grand old time flinging 'Lycopersicon esculentums' at strangers.
It's a lot safer than The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona far to the north – but leaves the streets equally crimson.
https://www.latomatinatours.com/
2. MAD Symposium, Denmark
Denmark's MAD symposium would probably frown upon Tomatina due to the huge amount of wasted produce.
MAD – named after the Danish word for food – aims to educate people how to eat healthily without impacting the environment.
3. Chinchilla Melon Festival, Australia
Participation in the Chinchilla Melon Festival, Queensland, Australia, is not terribly demanding for the grey-matter melon on your shoulders, but it could be on other parts of your body: try melon skiing, melon pip spitting or the melon chariot race. All good simple fun.
Just be sure to fill out the indemnity form or you won't be allowed to participate!
4. International White Truffle Festival, Alba, Italy
Entrance to the White Truffle Festival, Alba, Italy (iStock.com/stefano pezzolato)
If you've got a penchant for this pungent underground fungus – or you think you're the type of person who should have developed one by now – head to Italy for the International White Truffle Festival, Alba.
Not a duff truffle in sight.
https://www.fieradeltartufo.org/2016/en/
5. Battle of the Oranges, Italy
iStock.com/AGaeta
Getting hit on the bonce by a flying orange is no laughing matter – but it could be if you wear appropriate head protection.
At The Battle of the Oranges in Ivrea, Italy, they recall the town's struggles with a tyrant in the 13th century – which they re-enact with thousands of citrus fruits in lieu of swords and crossbows.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/battle-of-the-oranges
6. Menton Lemon Festival, France
anitasstudio/Bigstock.com
“Fête du Citron” takes place in the French town on Menton each year.
Dazzling citrusy floats and displays are created out of lemons and oranges, attracting about 160,000 people.
7. Wildfoods Festival, New Zealand
If you're a meat-and-two-veg sort of person, you might expand your culinary horizons with a trip to New Zealand's Wildfoods Festival.
Unlikely treats include seagull eggs, possum cutlets and gorse wine.
If these prove too suburban for your palate, you can advance to the next level – and gorge yourself on earthworms and huhu beetle grubs!
8. Golden Spurtle, Cairngorms, Scotland
The Scottish take their porridge almost as seriously as they take their deep-fried Mars Bars. They love it so much, in fact, that they celebrate it each year at the Golden Spurtle festival in the Cairngorms.
The event includes the unmissable World Porridge-Making Championships, the winner of which receives a golden 'spurtle' – the implement used to stir this hearty superfood. However, attendees must refer to the oats as "they" – in order to avoid offence.
https://www.goldenspurtle.com/
9. Waikiki Spam Jam, Hawaii
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Spam – the famous tinned block of salty shoulder pork – might be considered 'scraping the barrel' when it comes to dreaming up excuses for a food festival. But in Waikiki, Hawaii, they take Spam seriously.
Here, the meat product that Margaret Thatcher called "a wartime delicacy" is given pride of place in this annual street festival.
Fun for all – except, perhaps, the pigs.
10. Galway Oyster Festival, Ireland
rihardzz/Bigstock.com
If heading to Hawaii for the Spam festival seems a bit of a chore, why not hop over to Ireland for the Galway Oyster Festival?
Held in late September each year, it features the World Oyster-Opening Championships and plenty of Gaelic music to enjoy with a cold Guinness.
https://galwayoysterfestival.com/
Protection for your Foodie Foray
From slipping on a beef tomato to consuming a dodgy oyster – even at food festivals things can go wrong.
Add to this the usual risks such as flight cancellations, baggage loss and theft – and spending a few pounds on a good travel insurance policy becomes all the more worthwhile.
Get covered with Start Travel in just a few minutes.
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