I’ve been reading comments around the Internet concerning the Palin-tomato-throwing incident at the Mall of America. I was just mildly rolling my eyes at the usual idiotic comments until I started seeing some Bots saying that it was a sexist thing to do, and an assault on women. Oh fucking please! People have been throwing rotten eggs and other juicy food tidbits for centuries to show their disapproval of the behavior of rulers, politicians, bad actors, lame celebrities, and common criminals. It is one of our oldest forms of expression. If anything, Bailin’ Palin should feel honored to have been the object of historic free “speech.”
In my little town, we had an ongoing tomato-throwing protest directed at the Taco Bell that pushed out our favorite Mexican restaurant. The owner of the property got a higher rent offer from the Taco Bell franchise than from the restaurant that was already there, so he told the first restaurant to pack its bags, and he let Taco Bell move in. Well, we don’t take kindly to pushing out local restaurants in favor of chain restaurants. In this town, we prefer to keep the big chains outside our city limits. So just as we drove out KFC many years previous by boycotting, we all boycotted Taco Bell, and some intrepid soul started a drive-by tomato-throwing campaign. It got to be a conversation starter: “Taco Bell was tomatoed again last night.” The franchise owner finally got the message and moved on, probably shaking her head at those “sexist” people in Arcata who don’t like Taco Bell.
Anyway, in honor of the great tradition of tomato-throwing, I bring you the history of food throwing as an expression of disapproval, insult, political expression, etc.
I got this information at GoogleAnswers.
Answer
Subject: Re: History of egg and tomato throwing as a form of protest
Answered By: leli-ga on 15 Jun 2003 03:25 PDT
Rated: Hello buttfoo Thanks for a very interesting question which I enjoyed working on. English medieval petty criminals who had been sentenced to a few hours in the stocks were often pelted with rotten eggs, fruit and vegetables by their fellow villagers or citizens. It was a well-established form of insult or humiliation. It continued to be an extra punishment for people in the stocks or the pillory as the habit of protesting by throwing eggs etc. developed. People in, say, the eighteenth century who protested against different beliefs in this way would undoubtedly have been aware of the custom of pelting offenders with a variety of rotten food, mud and worse. The habit seems to have been strongly entrenched in Britain, although of course throwing things at people you don't like is an ancient custom! Before he became Roman emperor nearly two thousand years ago, Vespasian had turnips hurled at him. But in Mediterranean countries egg and tomato throwing often had a more festive tone, belonging to carnival and harvest time. It seems to be the British tradition which was exported to other parts of the English-speaking world, both as punishment and protest. Rotten eggs were a very popular weapon; tomatoes would have come into the picture more in parts of the world where they grow plentifully and easily. The earliest references I've found to throwing eggs at people to protest against their views hinge on arguments about religion, but politics and religion were of course intertwined in some cases. Throwing eggs as a protest against bad acting is a special case. It's often said this happened in the Elizabethan theatre, though I found conflicting evidence on this. However, it certainly happened in nineteenth century America. I've gathered a list of examples from the net which I think give an overall picture of the history of throwing eggs and other food at people as a protest action. There really doesn't seem to be any particular name for the people doing the throwing. Perhaps they preferred semi-anonymity? RELIGIOUS PROTEST England - 17th century " the then Bishop of Durham, Doctor Cosin, [...] was pelted with eggs by the Puritan people of Berwick" http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~nyoka/Documents/feature/holy_trinity.htm Massachusetts - late 18th century "Murray had to sue the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to win the right to be legally ordained and installed in Gloucester. He had eggs thrown at him in one city, and in Gloucester, a large rock crashed through the meetinghouse window, narrowly missing his head!" http://www.follen.org/history/universalism.html Isle of Man - late 18th century "Mud, rotten eggs, stones, &c., were thrown at them without the least mercy or regard" http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/methdism/wesleyan.htm Indiana - 1840s? "Guerin wrote [...] of the rotten eggs thrown at her and her companions by some anti-Catholic thugs in Madison, Ind." http://208.62.120.191/ecp/religion/article/0,1626,ECP_782_1898990,00.html London - 1870? "Mission volunteers were often harassed and sometimes physically assaulted as they marched through the streets with their signs and musical instruments calling everyone to their outdoor tent meetings. William would return home late each night with his clothes soaked from the liquor, mud and rotten eggs thrown at him during his crusade. During a strategy meeting in 1878, held at Catherine’s bedside, the name of the Mission was officially changed to The Salvation Army." http://www.historyswomen.com/CatherineBooth.html Poor William Booth again: "At Hastings, the town's leading grocer offered rotten eggs to all comers as anti-Salvation ammunition." http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/coverstory/a0019345.html POLITICAL PROTEST Roman Empire - AD 63? Vespasian "pelted with turnips" http://www.roman-britain.org/people/vespasian.htm England - 1830s? George Eliot was obviously familiar with eggs being thrown at people making election speeches. She describes this happening in chapter 51 of her novel "Middlemarch" which is set in the 1830s though written around 1870: "here an unpleasant egg broke on Mr. Brooke's shoulder [...] then came a hail of eggs" New Hampshire - 1830s "Soon, after an anti-slavery lecture in Plymouth, NH, [Whittier] and English abolitionist George Thompson, were attacked by a mob in Concord, pelted with rotten [...] eggs and Whittier was wounded in the leg by a flying stone." http://www.seacoastnh.com/blackhistory/whittier.html Canada - 1836 " Mackenzie's meetings were often broken up by loyalists armed with whatever weapons proved handy. After a speech in Brampton he had to be taken away by a Doctor Patullo, hurried on by a shower of rotten eggs." http://www.orangenet.org/canada/wallace.htm Massachusetts - 1839 "[A hall with] windows broken by stones and bad eggs, thrown to break up antislavery meetings.." http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/holland/holland.html Seattle - 1903 "There was not a sign of riot in town until Humes appointed 18 scabs as special policemen and armed them with guns and a little brief authority. Every demonstration was wholly good natured. Nothing worse than a few eggs thrown." http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/laborpress/Black.htm Ireland - 1906 "Mr. Stephen Gwynn was standing as a member of Parliament for Galway, and fighting, in the face of rotten eggs and decayed fish" http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_datasets/authors/g/Gwynn,S/life.htm South Africa - 1919 "...the crowd threw rotten eggs and sang 'God Save The King'" (at people leading the movement for South Africa's independence from Britain) http://www.anc.org.za/books/reich1.html PUBLIC PUNISHMENT IN ENGLAND Middle Ages "Market Hill was the medieval centre of Cambridge. Here was the old guildhall and the prison with stocks and pillory outside. Rotten fruit and vegetables would be thrown at those being punished. " http://www.cambridgelive.co.uk/views_centre/markethill.html Mid-sixteenth century "The priest at the time was said to have sold his wife to a butcher, for which he was pelted with rotten eggs." www.london-freechurch.org.uk/building.html 1700 "To deter stealing at the fair, the stocks were placed in a prominent place. Anyone caught stealing was locked in the stocks day and night without food or water. They became the targets of jeers and rotten eggs." http://www.richinsonline.com/histories/richins/hawkesbury.htm 18th century "The pillory turned so that crowds on all sides could get a good view, and the crowd expressed their disapproval of the offence by pelting the offender with rotten eggs and vegetables, blood and guts from slaughterhouses, dead cats, mud and excrement, and even bricks and stones. Some died from the abuse, despite increasing efforts by constables to protect the convict, by forming a ring around the pillory." http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/crime/punishment.html PUNISHMENT IN NORTH AMERICA Colonial America "· Pillory - this framework had holes for the criminal's head and hands to stick through while they stood up. Once locked in they might get rotten fruit or other items thrown at them. The wrongdoer was condemned to carry out his punishment in rain or shine or freezing weather." http://ohoh.essortment.com/colonialpunishm_rkzt.htm Canada - 1800 Both pillory and stocks "carried the threat of your fellow citizens throwing things at you." http://www.edu.pe.ca/gray/pei/crime/pillory.html 19th CENTURY AMERICAN THEATRES 1846 "When Macready toured the colonies, American audiences greeted him with jeers and rotten eggs." http://www.theamericanenterprise.org/taejune02l.htm "Antebellum Theaters" "When they were displeased, they yelled and hissed and pelted actors with rotten eggs, stones, and even chairs." http://www.gliah.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=648 I found thinking about this very interesting and was tempted down various side alleys like the difference between rotten eggs and eggs used to celebrate marriage or Easter as symbols of growth and fertility. I was also interested in the Italian and Spanish festivals which have a "crowd on the rampage" flavor possibly echoed in some modern political protests. However, I believe that the main tradition of hurling eggs, fruit etc. as ideological protest grew up alongside the well-established "extra punishment" habits in Britain. Hope this answers your question, but feel free to ask for clarification if you have a query about what I've written. Regards - Leli
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=217280
And here is another brief bit of information from a blog. As the above answer pointed out, tomatoes were not the earliest form of food protest because there were no tomatoes to be gotten.
The History of Throwing Rotten Tomatoes
By Michelle Fabio
We’ve all heard of or even seen people throwing rotten tomatoes when disappointed in a live performance; indeed this is where popular movie reviewing and previewing site Rotten Tomatoes gets its name from.
But did people really throw rotten tomatoes at actors?
Well, obviously not during Shakespeare’s time since, as according to the website of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, tomatoes weren’t even available in England at that time. The site notes, though, that at the end of performances, the actors announced the following day’s features—and if people didn’t like it, they just might have thrown things.
But not tomatoes.
There is at least one documented case of an aspiring actor in Hempstead, Long Island, New York being pelted with tomatoes throughout a performance at Washington Hall. The October 28, 1883 edition of the New York Times reports that John Ritchie was hit “square between the eyes” with a tomato while trying to perform a trapeze act. With his damages estimated at $50, Ritchie not surprisingly vowed never to perform in Hempstead again.
No matter how prevalent the act actually was (and is), throwing tomatoes has become associated with protests—remember the post about PETA’s use of tomatoes in its war against fur?
The idea has even reached political circles as the Dutch Socialist party has adopted the tomato as its symbol because of this connotation.
But I still have to ask—what did the tomatoes do to deserve this fate?
And here is an excerpt from a Gawker article about the Palin tomato-throwing. You can follow the link to read the rest.
Since we opened up that can of stewed pears by praising the guy who threw tomatoes at Sarah Palin, we figured it’s a good time to explain why it was cool that he did that. In other words: Food fight!Here are the reasons (besides the obvious ones) that we think it was a good idea for Jeremy Paul Olson to throw food at Sarah Palin today during her Minnesota reading, for which he is currently incarcerated:
Throwing food at people has a long, messy historyThe first recorded incident of throwing food at a public figure in history, according to our ten minutes of Googling, was in 60-something AD when Roman emperor Vespasianus Ceaser Augustus was “pelted with turnips” at a riot, most likely by people sick of having nothing to eat but turnips. In the 1770s, preacher John Crook was similarly assaulted when he tried to convert the heathens of the Isle of Man to Methodism.
Later, an 1883 Times article titled “AN ACTOR DEMORALIZED BY TOMATOES” recounts the fierce pillorying of the actor John Ritchie
He had a crowded house, and was warmly received, in fact, it was altogether hot for him, there being distributed among the audience a bushel or two of rotten tomatoes. The first act opened with Mr. Ritchie trying to turn a somersault. He probably would have succeeded had not a great many tomatoes struck him, throwing him off his balance and demoralizing him… a large tomato thrown from the gallery struck him square between the eyes, and he fell to the stage floor just as several bad eggs dropped upon his head. Then the tomatoes flew thick and fast, and Ritchie fled for the stage door.
Come on, haters: That is awesome!
More recently, Nixon was pelted with eggs and tomatoes during a 1958 trip to South America, but cleverly blamed it on the fact he was riding in one of the notoriously shitty Edsel convertibles. You guys just got a face-full of history there, which proves that throwing food is basically the “Mad Men” of political protest.
A violent action without all that violence
Violence is wrong. But sometimes you just want to fuck shit up. Throwing food is a good compromise, with much of the spectacle and newsworthiness of violence but none of the stupid “hurting people” part. (Incidentally, we should mention that we endorse that tomato-throwing guy if and only if he was chucking very soft, overripe tomatoes which would splatter readily and harmlessly all over Ms. Palin and drip down into her clothes while she was trying to sign books. Also, the tomatoes should have been organic and fair trade!)
It’s democratic
Did we mention that, after signing her books today at the Mall of America, Palin headed off to a $5000 per head fundraiser for The Freedom Club PAC? The people who can pay $5000 for this kind of thing are the people who run our country. It’s only fair that we allow Joe the disenfranchised Plumber the right to hurl at members of the power-elite the tomatoes which their own unfair trade policies have made so affordable and delicious.
Usually, the victim deserves it
Consider this partial list of people who have had food thrown at them, according to Google:
- Roman Emperor Vespasianus Caesar Augustus
- Shitty 19th century actor John Ritchie
- Nixon
- Nick Griffin (British right-wing politician and notorious Holocaust denier)
- Thomas Friedman
- Bill Gates
- Ann Coulter
- David Horowitz
- William F. Buckley
- Phyllis Schlafly
- Sarah Palin
If a group of people who more needed a pie in the face exists, then someone should pie those people, too. Chances are, if people are angry enough to risk incarceration simply to throw food at you, you have done something to deserve it—and then some.
It’s hilarious
Politics is so boring. Those people who complain about how childish or unproductive throwing food at politicians is forget that the political process is by nature childish and unproductive. At least throwing food lends some real and hilarious slapstick to a system which too often resembles Wile E. Coyote trying to blow up Road Runner with a stick of dynamite made out of stupid, boring legislation.
“The tree of liberty is watered by the pies of patriots.”
-Thomas Jefferson (American revolutionary and inventor of the pie)
http://gawker.com/5421210/in-defense-of-throwing-tomatoes-at-sarah-palin
Olsen should never have thrown the tomato from his position on the 2nd floor for any number of reasons. If he really wanted to make a statement, he shoulda brought a pie and splunked her with it from close up. Throwing a tomato from so far away that it didn’t land within 10 feet of S’error Palin was a waste of a good tomato. Plus, he could have made a direct hit on someone not named Palin. That tomato, I’m betting, was as hard as a baseball. The collateral damage was, and remains, unacceptable.
Either have the balls to throw it from close range or stay home. It makes her look like a blessed hero.
You’re being a little hard on the guy. I see it simply as good intention but poor execution. Between the bad location and the lack of a seriously squishy rotten tomato, he suffers from tomato-throwing incompetence. He needed better props, better planning, and a better vision (perhaps also, too, he needs better vision). Maybe he’s a city kid who never played softball.
And thanks to him, I now have the missing piece for my Barbie Palin book signing photo shoot. He supplied the necessary ingredient for MY vision.
Next time I hope it’s a flaming bag of dog poo
Love your post, sis! Giggle, snort, splat!
Dog poo of the world, unite! Maybe I’ll take a
Dog Poo Toss class. To flip dog poo at someone with no class and an open mouth!
On second thought, dog poo is too good for the likes of Palin.
Unrealistic to expect the Palin Botts to understand the sympolic rotten tomato. They obviously can’t read, so history would need to have been learned verbally, their memories are non-existent or they would remember the many Palin gaffes, in short they have brains and reasoning ability on par with a rotten tomato.