Thursday, April 20, 2006

Cannibal Chic

Wow. In the space of less than a week, I've been subjected to four tales of cannibalism in just my usual, casual reading. I didn't seek out any of this on purpose! What's the zeitgeist here: Eat as local as possible?
First, I checked out Julie and Julia from the library. After a rather rough start (get this woman an editor!), the book settled into some good fun (and some seriously telling anecdotes about blog ennui). Before long, I came across the story of the German guy who advertised on the Internet for someone willing to be killed and eaten. This nut got his nut, and before he killed him, he chopped off his wiener and cooked it, and they both ate it.
Next, I bought Stefan Gates' book, Gastronaut, in which he not only talks about the same, ahem, "spotted dick" potluck referred to by Julie Powell, he also includes four essays on eating human bits: fingernails, scabs, boogers and even actual human flesh.
He's much creepier about it all than Julie, even confessing his own urges to bite some butt — his wife's.
Then this week's New Yorker arrives with a lengthy piece on the historic Donner Party. Did they or did they not resort to cannibalism in order to survive a snowbound catastrophe in the Sierra Nevada? Good reading.
But can anything top the increasingly ridiculous Tom Cruise's stated intention (later retracted as a joke; funny) to eat the placenta of his newborn daughter? I can see it now. "I thought you said this was polenta!!" Hey, Tom, how about a few recipe suggestions?
Yeah. Well. It just goes on. A couple of weeks ago, I made a spoofy reference of my own to cannibalism.
What the hell is happening?
I'm never gonna make an Aztec picnic joke about Cranky's splendid thighs again.

9 comments:

Dagny said...

And I thought my reading list was disturbed. Ewwwww. Then again, maybe it just needs some Best Foods...

Anonymous said...

Everything's better with Best Foods.

Sam said...

Eating your own placenta is nothing new. On a British TV show several years a go a I saw a family cook up the placenta (which they had saved in trhe freezer) and serve it on toast as canapes at a christening party they had for their baby. Well nt, christening per se, they were hippies so it was a baby-naming ceremony that had nothing to do with christ. The interesting thing was that after some thought, even the vegetarians in the party decided it ould be ok to give it a try.

Kevin said...

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/butcher.html

Gustad said...

please dont eat me

Anonymous said...

Would you like fries with that?

My youngest grandson was born in my home and there was this liver-lookalike piece of flesh in our freezer for months before we finally decided to bury the placenta under my redwood trees.

Eeeek: Just thought how weird it would be if there were an emergency and someone found a body part in one's possession.

Monkey Gland said...

Mmmmmm, Long Pig.

Anonymous said...

(sheepish apology for above deletion; I was accidentally signed on as somebody or other; what a stupid name...)

Sam, yeah, I know people do that... Your story is hilarious.

Kevin: I might be a little too scared to visit that site.

Gustad: Silly you. :)

Kudzu: I'd say fire up the Wedgwood!

MG: Yes, so spammily delicious.

PS -- In today's Wall Street Journal, there was yet another mention of cannibalism, in an Op-Ed piece about bloggers! It's happenin', baby

Anonymous said...

A cannibalism meme? I read something about it today too, in this article my husband emailed me:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12409517/site/newsweek/from/ET/

The author says cannibalism isn't the same as eating animals, but we still shouldn't eat them, even so.