Sparking Broccoli

Last night we were prepping the kid's dinner and grabbed some steamed broccoli to reheat in the microwave. We put it in a glass bowl, put it in the micro for a few seconds, and hit start.

The damn thing started spitting sparks.

We immediately popped the door open and examined the broccoli and the bowl. The edge of the broccoli had been singed and smelled like a cigarette, but there was definitely no metal in the bowl or in the broccoli, but we tried a different piece of broccoli anyway.

It sparked again.

"What the hell is going on here?" I asked aloud. Greg Oogle, who lives with us and likes to answer questions with pointers to web sites, responded.

"According to this forum, there are a few foods that can react this way: sweet potatoes/yams, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. The forum also says that this will happen if the vegetables were previous steamed or boiled and then cut or diced afterwards. Adding a little water to the bowl would have helped, dummy."

I honestly had no clue that vegetables could be such dangerous weapons of mass destruction.