Naple's Potatos Are the Bomb

[jengineer]

Granny finds grenade in groceries

A 74-year-old Italian grandmother who bought a sack of potatoes at the her local market found a live grenade among the spuds.

"I found a bomb in the potatoes," Olga Mauriello said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

"I went to the market to buy some potatoes and that's where the bomb was. But this bomb was covered in dirt, and I put it in water and got all dirt off. And then I realized 'It's a bomb'!"

Police said the pine cone-shaped grenade, which had no pin and was still active, was the same type used by U.S. soldiers in Europe in World War Two. Authorities believe the mix-up happened at a farm in France, where the grenade was plucked from the ground along with potatoes.

To the woman's relief, police and explosives experts in the small town of San Giorgio a Cremano, near Naples, recovered the grenade and safely detonated it on Wednesday.

But Mauriello was still shaking off her close brush with death. It didn't look like a potato and it was heavier than one. But what if she had cooked it?

"If I hadn't felt its weight, I wouldn't even have realized that it was a bomb," she said.

[maver]

This really is not surprising in post WWII Europe. My father's cousin (on his mom's side, so in Umbria rather than Napoli where his father's family live) was working his garden about twenty or thirty years ago and came across a live grenade (I don't know if it was in the potatoes). He was bringing it to authorities when it discharged, taking a few of his fingers with it.

Marc Aversa

[james]

I wonder what would have happened if she tried to boil it???
James