"grenade" news and stories

The Slashfood team always has their eyes open for off-the-beaten-path Valentine's Day gifts, especially of the chocolate variety, which is how we stumbled across this particular item: a 3-ounce hollow MK2 Fragmentation milk-chocolate hand grenade.

This is what happens when a group of guys -- guys who hunt, guys who camp, guys who don't bathe for days at a time -- start thinking about crazy things to do with a surplus of Belgian chocolate. Grenades might not be the first thing that comes to mind for many of us, but, then again, if our day jobs involved selling chocolate fountains (and the chocolate to go with them) to high-end Vegas resorts, it just might be.

The wood-crate tin packaging is an inspired finishing touch (it even locks), and we love the Martha Stewart-esque suggestion of storing your real ammo in it once the chocolate is gone. Plus, who could resist the heartwarming notion that this grenade offers "a more peaceful way to resolve any conflict"? The company also makes chocolate bullets and chocolate guns, in case this doesn't do the trick.

A McCain potato-processing factory in England had to be evacuated when workers discovered a grenade amongst the potatoes as they were washing the spuds. The factory, which is the largest in Europe, imports many of its potatoes from other countries. It is not uncommon for debris from the first and second world wars to turn up amongst the spuds from Belgium and France, but in the past week the workers not only discovered the grenade, but a shell tip, as well. Following both discoveries, workers vacated the plant while the bomb squad came in and detonated the devices.

Worker safety is of paramount importance, and a company spokesman said that they would have to speak with their suppliers about checking the shipments more thoroughly, as "it is obviously not an efficient use of [the] staff's time if we have to keep evacuating the premises."

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