Consider the humble grape. Small, spheroid, with pleasantly taut skin, leaving a burst of sweetness on the tongue. Hardly a fruit you’d need to defend yourself against.

Put a gently touching pair in the microwave, though, and the inoffensive fruit turns into a literal firecracker. Within just a few seconds, microwaved grapes will begin sparking as if electrified, and in some cases they’ll even produce a flash of plasma bright enough to make the microwave glow from the inside out. (An alte