There's a potato masher in my potatos! Or...

[K Frame]

Why the food production industry in Europe can be a real blast...

YORK (Reuters) - Workers at a British factory making French fries were evacuated two days running last week after bomb parts turned up in potatoes imported from France and Belgium, the site of battles in World War One and Two.

The Scarborough plant, owned by Canada's McCain Foods, the world's largest producer of frozen fries, was emptied Friday after a worker spotted a shell tip among the potatoes as they were being cleaned for slicing.

"The police were called and the bomb squad advised a 100 meter exclusion zone should be set up," said a McCain spokesman.

Saturday, an entire hand grenade was discovered in the potatoes and the plant in northern England was evacuated again.

"The army took the device away and blew it up in a controlled explosion in a field nearby," a spokeswoman for the North Yorkshire police said.

The Scarborough plant was opened in 1969 and uses 1,400 tons of potatoes every week. Production is back to normal.

McCain's Whittlesey plant near Peterborough in eastern England has also been evacuated several times this year after World War Two ordnance was found in batches of potatoes.

"Occasionally during the use of imported potatoes from Belgium and northern France, ordnance debris from the First and Second World War is found," McCain said in a statement.

[Guest]

Yikes!

"Nutrition Facts.

Sodium -0
Cholesterol -0
Iron - 70
Grenade - Live

Percentage daily values are based on 2000 calorie diet.
Your butt may blow higher or lower depending on explosive device."

[280plus]

"New General Mills instant mashed pototoes. Simply pull the ring."

[wmenorr67]

When you think about it a little it is surprising that the ordance made it all the way to the plant.  Just think if a farmer hit one while plowing, planting, or cultivating what could have happened.

[Brian Williams]

Do you want Baked, Mashed or blown to bits on the side...

[wmenorr67]

Well it could give a whole new meaning to bacon bits with the sour cream and chives.

[charby]

McCain's Potatoes, Taste the Flavor Explosion!

[K Frame]

"When you think about it a little it is surprising that the ordance made it all the way to the plant.  Just think if a farmer hit one while plowing, planting, or cultivating what could have happened."

It happens every couple of years when farmers or construction workers are injured or killed by buried ordnance.  

According to an article I read in Smithsonian some years ago, every spring farmers routinely plow up unexploded ordnance. Many simply put it by the side of the road and put up a flag, and the government/military comes by and collects it for demolition.

There are HUGE swaths of France that are still uninhabitable, mainly areas where trench warfare occurred during World War I. The French Department of the Interior has special teams that are reclaiming these areas, but it's a slow, and dangerous process. Around 1995 two members of a team were badly injured when a mustard gas shell ruptured.

The author of the article recounted wandering away from the small group of workers to a section of trench that had been cleared of brush but not yet demined. There were rotted rifles, military kit, and a pile of hand grenades.

Ah! Here's an article from Wikipedia on the "iron harvest" as they apparently call it.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest

[AJ Dual]

900 TONS a year...

Hooooo....

[K Frame]

Did you see the quote in the BBC article in the references section?

"Ask how long this work might last and you get a shrug, "Three, four hundred years, hard to say.""

[Preacherman]

You think grenades and shells are bad?  What about buried caverns filled with explosives?

In 1917, before launching an attack on Messines Ridge, the British dug tunnels and excavated 21 caverns, which they filled with over 450 tons of explosives.  They detonated these before the assault, killing most of the defenders.  Unfortunately, at least four of the "mines" failed to explode - and they're still there . . .  One exploded in 1955 as a result of a lightning strike, but the others haven't been found.

Imagine plowing your field on top of several tons of slowly decomposing high explosive?  

(For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Messines .)

[K Frame]

All in all, I think my comfort level is a lot higher with an underground cavern filled with explosives.

Yeah, it might go up, but hooking an unexploded 6" howitzer round with a cultivator could REALLY put a crimp on your day.

As for the location, you think they'd be able to use ground penetrating radar...

OK, a website I found indicates that the mines were QUITE deep, upwards 1,600 feet below the surface.

It also stated that there's only one unexploded mine unaccounted for, but rumors are that it was recently discovered.

[Stickjockey]

Speaking of potatoes and hand grenades:

From http//www.obannon.thechiefsplace.com/OBannon-DD450.htm

5 April, 1943:

"April 5th, 1943 returning from a night shelling deep in the New Georgia area, the sound gear picks up a contact that turns out to be a large Japanese submarine cruising on the surface and apparently unaware of our presence. The Japanese lookouts must have fallen asleep. We approach rapidly and are preparing to ram the sub. Those on the bridge are trying to identify it by type and decide at the last minute that it is a mine layer. Not wanting to blow ourselves up along with the sub, a quick decision is made not to ram the sub. At the last moment, the rudder was swung hard to avoid a collision and we find ourselves, rather embarrassed, sailing along side the sub.  On board the sub, sailors in dark shorts and dinky blue hats are sleeping on deck and awaken to see an American destroyer along side. Our ship is too close to the sub to allow any of our guns to be depressed enough to fire at the sub and of course no one on deck ever carries a hand gun. Ditto on the Jap sub, no one there has anything to fire there either. This is the kind of event that,at the time, no one seems to have any idea of what to do and everyone just stares and seems spellbound. The Japanese sailors do have a gun a 3-inch deck gun and finally decide to use it. Seeing this our deck parties grab potatoes out of the storage bins that are located close by and throw them at the Japs on the deck of the sub. A potato battle ensues. Apparently the Japanese sailors think the potatoes are hand grenades so they keep busy throwing them back and over the side. This keeps them from manning their deck gun until we can put enough distance between our ship and the sub. As we move away, our guns are now able to be brought to bear. One of our shells manages to hit the subs conning tower but the sub is able to submerge anyway. At this time we are able to pass directly over the sub for a depth charge attack. Later information shows that we did indeed sink the sub. When the Association of Potato Growers of Maine heard of this episode, they sent a plaque to commemorate the event. The plaque was mounted in an appropriate place near the crews mess hall for all to see.

[280plus]

I have a fairly educated friend who claims ground penetrating radar is "nothing but smoke and mirrors".

[K Frame]

Well, I've used ground penetrating radar in helping map an archaeological dig.

I can tell you that it's VERY effective at locating cannon balls (they show up REALLY well) and other buried debris.

[Azrael256]

Accident my foot.  This is just more French passive-aggressiveness.

[280plus]

I imagine cannon balls are easier to pick up, you know, on the radar. I Imagine it's hard to actually, physically pick them up though. They must be heavy. When looking for graves and structure outlines it has a bad habit of showing stuff that ain't there and NOT showing stuff that is. I recall we couldn't guarantee a local tribe that GPR would 100% rule out graves on a particular site they wanted to build on. Just because the radar said there was nothing there dioesn't actually MEAN there's nothing there. They were, to say the least, perplexed by this. They just don't know where the HELL to put that new casino. LOL...

[K Frame]

We were doing a survey of a site that turned out to be a military dump from the War of 1812, Sackett's Harbor on Lake Erie.

Organic stuff doesn't show up nearly as well on radar because organics are naturally stealthy. Once bone fossilizes, though, it's easier to pick up because it's largely no longer absorptive.

GPR may or may not show areas of disturbed soil, as well. It depends on the geology of the area -- soil composition and the like.

We got a lot of ghosts on the radar, and once excavation started there were a lot of things showing up that the radar didn't pick up.

As for picking up the cannon balls, well, I participated in track and field in high school, and our shot puts were essentially 12 pound cannon balls.

[280plus]

We were doing a survey of a site that turned out to be a military dump from the War of 1812,

Cool, sounds like a good site. I've found a lotta stuff but never a cannonball. I do have a friend that has metal detected a bunch of Civil War sites and has a few shells and cannonballs. I explained to him that the shells could still be live and he says,"They ain't blown up yet." I said, "Well, just don't try to take them apart to see what's inside." Imagine being a victim of the Civil War 140 years after the fact.

[Antibubba]

A better thread title would have been "Now THAT'S Bangers and Mash!".