Food Fight

In the beginning was the pea shooter. Boy-men of the late Neolithic placed dried peas in hollow reeds and propelled them by breath at wild beasts — each other. Curious kids may have tried large-bore chickpea models, but the weapon remained virtually unchanged until the Twentieth Century, when bored schoolboys constructed long-range, accurate, non-pneumatic peashooters from mechanical pencils or Bic pens and elastic bands. The Alimentary Arms Race had begun.