By Daniel Williams
Olive Oil Times Contributor | Reporting from Barcelona

Caminos llenos de aceituneras
lanzan al aire su alegre canción
como un presagio de primavera
en los finales de recolección.

The streets are full of olive growers
who lift their happy song to the sky
as a good harbinger of Spring
in the final moments of the harvest.

– Official hymn of the Fiesta de Olivo in Mora, Spain

Each April, the Spanish town of Mora (pop. 10,000) celebrates its annual olive harvest with three days of festivities that give thanks for the year’s bounty and ask for continued blessings in the years to come. At its core, the olive festival is a celebration of the local traditions of the many rural communities that are sustained by the olive’s much-anticipated harvest and a testament to the influence of the country’s most important cash crop on provincial culture. Now in its 54^th cycle, Mora’s “Fiesta de Olivo” has evolved substantially and what began as a number of spontaneous, humble celebrations in the countryside has now become a single, government-sponsored fete which attracts hordes of tourists and advertises Spain’s La Mancha region as home to the finest olive groves in the world.

“To speak of Mora is to speak of the olive” ¹ claims this year’s festival pregonero (festival presenter) and mayor, Sofia Nieto Villagordo. Like other agrarian societies of past and present, the purpose of a harvest festival is to celebrate man’s symbiotic relationship with his natural environment. In its earliest stages, the Mora festival was a simple, informal gathering between olive farmers and laborers to celebrate the culmination of months of grueling labor. During the final days of the seasonal harvest the workers would gather at a communal meal in the house of the land owner. This was followed by late night drinking and dancing in the countryside and subsequent days dedicated to parades, local activities and traditional competitions. After a petition to the central government in 1957, the first official Mora olive festival was announced, thereby joining the various mini-celebrations of a number of rural towns into one centralized, formal festival. Over time, the festival has retained the spirit of the original celebration despite having grown exponentially and now, some half century later, it has become an international event, complete with schedules and timetables so that those unable to attend can follow the festivities via televised coverage.

Day 1 of the 2010 festival began with the traditional lighting of the olive branch, thus heralding three days of gastronomy, olive tastings and various culinary contests. A number of speeches were given by members of local and provincial government praising this year’s fruitful harvest while other lectures at the town hall from agricultural engineers and environmentalists detailed the importance of employing eco-friendly growing methods and the continued practice of sustainable agriculture.

The second day of this year’s festival witnessed a massive parade complete with decorative floats, horse-drawn carriages, and the crowning of the democratically-elected 2010 festival queen, Ms. Ana Diaz Lopez.  Later in the day, the local archdiocese held a special mass to bless the fruit of the olive trees and to ask for God’s continued favor in the future.  In the evening, some of the gutsier (or perhaps inebriated) party-goers participated in the town’s running of the bulls: to everyone’s delight, no one was seriously injured in this year’s chaos.

The third and final day of the 2010 festival was dedicated to various performances of Andalucían music and dance and throughout the day, awards and prizes were given for achievements in the fine arts and local cuisine.  A number of olive-themed competitions took place in the city square including my personal favorite, the olive-pit spitting contest. Note that distance is rewarded rather than accuracy. These competitions were then followed by an enormous party in the streets although in true Spanish form, drinking and dancing were never absent from any of the day’s itineraries.

By and large the 2010 Mora Olive Festival was an enormous success, not only for the revenue it generated for the region, but for other less quantifiable but equally important reasons. The festival preserves the socio-cultural traditions of the local people, it is a free and powerful means of advertising for Spanish olive products, and it promotes the regional olive grower’s special interests on a national and international scale.  At once, the Mora festival is both a cultural celebration and a cultural dissemination. Locals and foreigners, tradition and innovation, the city and the countryside all converge at the festival.  The olive remains at the heart of the celebration and like other agrarian societies in the past, the harvest festival prevails as a celebration of the sacred contract between man and nature and an expression of gratitude for the health-giving properties of the olive.

Photos: ILMO. AYUNTAMIENTO DE MORA

ILMO. AYUNTAMIENTO DE MORA
Plaza de la Constitución s/n
45400 Mora (Toledo)
Teléfono: 925 300025
www.mora.es