Berlin police have arrested Luka Rocco Magnotta, a Canadian accused of murdering and dismembering a Chinese student. According to some reports, Magnota ate part of the victim's body. In the past two weeks, cases of cannibalism have occurred in Florida, Maryland and Sweden. What does human flesh look like?
For veal. In his 1931 book, Paths of the Jungle, American traveler and journalist William Buehler Seabrook gives the most detailed written description of the taste of human meat in history. Seabrook notes that raw human meat looks like beef, but less red, with a pale yellow fat. Roasted meat turns grayish, like lamb or veal, and smells like cooked beef. In terms of taste, Seabrook writes that the meat was almost like "good, fully opened veal, so I think no one with normal, normal flavoring sensitivity would be able to tell it from veal."
There is reason to doubt the veracity of Seabrook's report. He traveled to West Africa to learn about cannibalism from the Hero tribe, but then admitted that the tribe's mistrustful members would never allow him to follow their traditions. In his autobiography, Seabrook states that he obtained the body of a recently deceased patient in a French hospital and then cooked it on a spit. His description of the human-eating process in Jungle Trails was based on experiences not in West Africa, he said, but in Paris.
Despite doubts about the veracity, Seabrook's description is still the most cited, as other statements on the topic are made by psychopaths - for example, serial killer Karl Denke or German killer Armin Meiwes - and therefore notoriously unreliable.
A detail that persists in all descriptions is the obvious fact that the meat of young children is more tender than that of adults, because collagen production progresses with age. Some say that baby meat resembles fish in texture. In addition, cannibals have told anthropologists that human flesh is sweet, bitter, tender, tough, and fatty. Variations can be attributed to different cooking methods. Many tribes eat the meat of deceased people only after it has slightly rotted. Frying and stewing is predominant - some tribes cook it with hot peppers and other spices. The Azande, a Central African tribe, are reported to strip fat from a piece of human stew for later use as seasoning or as fuel for lanterns. South Pacific cannibals would wrap chunks of human flesh in leaves and cook them in a pit. Sumatran cannibals used to serve slain criminals with salt and lemon.
In the 15th-16th centuries, the idea of creating a homunculus - an artificial person - through an alchemical process was very popular among alchemists. I tried to raise my homunculus and Paracelsus. And although he himself claimed to have achieved success in this matter, there is not a single evidence confirming this fact.The evidence of one of his followers, Count von Kyuffstein, who allegedly raised a dozen homunculi, does not look too convincing. However, is it worth finding fault? After all, there are recognized authorities who did not consider it shameful to take their words on faith. Three centuries after Paracelsus, Johann Goethe wrote the drama "Faust", the hero of which creates a living little man - a homunculus. And if so, why don't we at least be interested in how this is done?
In his treatise "De Natura Rerum" Paracelsus wrote: "Human beings can be born without natural parents." He was convinced that these "creatures" can grow and develop, being created without the participation of male and female principles. The great "know-it-all" argued that a person can be created artificially, for which only the intervention of an experienced alchemist is enough.
So, for "preparing a man" - a homunculus - you need an airtight bottle, semen and ... horse manure. (Sperm is the main ingredient in this recipe. To obtain the result, an egg is not needed. We put the sperm in a bottle, bury it in the manure and ... go for help to a familiar alchemist - nothing is possible without him, because only he can make the substance come to life and start moving ...
In forty days, the organic contents of the bottle will acquire the shape and features of a human, however, only an alchemist will be able to contemplate this miraculous transformation, for all others - the uninitiated - the "semi-finished product" of the homunculus will be invisible. However, it's too early to get upset. Be patient and for the next forty weeks keep the invisible at the temperature of the mare's womb and generously nourish it with "human vitality", that is, with blood.
As a result, you will see a homunculus in all its glory - a perfect human child, which, if anything, will differ from the one born by a woman, then only in its tiny size. And what to do with it next? If you believe Paracelsus, then "he can be raised and raised, like any other child, until he gets older and acquires intelligence and intelligence and is not able to take care of himself."
You are smiling? Have you ever listened to more stupidity? That is so, but still do not rush to boo Dr. Hohenheim. In the end, something more important grew out of this "delusional" venture of his - the method of in vitro fertilization ("from a test tube"), thanks to which many people finally found a long-awaited child.
"Prophetic Spirits"
Be that as it may, the experience of Paracelsus, albeit unsuccessful, excited many minds, so that he had enough followers. In 1873, a book by a certain doctor Emil Bezetzny, The Sphinx, was published in Vienna, in which curious readers could, if desired, find several interesting descriptions of "spirits" - produced by Count Johann Ferdinand von Küffstein in Tyrol in 1775. The source of these descriptions is the diary of Jasper Kammerer, who served as the count's honorary butler and assistant. It is thanks to his revelations that we now know for certain that von Kuffstein had ten homunculi in his service, or, as he called them, "prophetic spirits" who lived in bottles filled with water. These very "spirits" were created in five weeks of joint efforts of the Count von Küffstein himself and the Italian mystic Abbot Geloni. Each of the homunculi got their own name - one was called "king", the second - "queen", the third - "knight", the fourth - "monk", the fifth - "nun", the sixth - "architect", the seventh - "miner", the eighth - "seraphim". And the ninth and tenth "spirits" were known as blue and red.
The blue spirit is beautiful in its face
The bottles in which the homunculi were kept were sealed with bull bubbles and some sort of magical seal. I must say that the "spirits" were very small in stature - only 23 centimeters, which greatly upset their creator, von Kyuffstein.
Wanting them to grow faster, the Count placed them in even larger bottles. Then he buried them in a pile of horse dung and almost with his own hand sprinkled it with some kind of liquid every day. After all these procedures, the manure began to ferment and emit steam, as if warmed by an underground fire. The count decided that it was time to take out the bottles into the light of God, he was eager to see how much his "crumbs" had grown. Well, it turned out that the homunculi really gained a lot in growth - they reached as much as 35 centimeters, in addition, the males grew beards and nails.
Abbot Geloni provided all the "spirits" with suitable clothing - according to their rank and dignity. Only the blue and red "spirit", due to the incorporealness of the garment, did not get it. They were generally invisible to the human eye. When the abbot struck the seal on the neck, the water in the bottle turned blue (or, accordingly, fancy), and the "perfume" showed faces. The face of the blue "spirit" was beautiful, while the face of the red "spirit", on the contrary, made a terrifying impression.
The count fed his charges every four days with a certain pink substance. Once a week, the bottles were filled with clean rainwater. The change of water was carried out very quickly, because when the "spirits" were exposed to air, they lost consciousness. The diet of the red "spirit" included a weekly sip of chicken blood, and the blood disappeared into the water immediately, without even being able to color it. By the way, the water was changed for him with enviable regularity - every two or three days, and every time the bottle was opened, the water in it became dark, cloudy and spread the smell of rotten eggs. The blue "spirit" could only dream of such treatment - his bottle was always sealed, and therefore he did not eat anything and lived all his life in the same "aquatic environment".
A sad fate
Why did the count need homunculi? Everything is very simple. Bottles with "prophetic spirits" were brought into the room where members of the Masonic lodge, chaired by von Kuffstein himself, met. During the meetings, the "spirits" predicted future events, and almost always their prophecies came true. They knew the most intimate, but each of them was only familiar with what related to his title: for example, "king" could talk about politics, "monk" - about religion, "miner" - about minerals. Only blue and red "spirits" knew everything.
By accident, the vessel containing the "monk" fell to the floor and shattered. The poor homunculus died after several agonizing breaths, despite the Count's best efforts to save him. An attempt to do the same, undertaken by the count alone without the help of the abbot (who had left shortly before), led to failure. The count was able to create only a small creature that faintly resembles a leech, which soon died.
And the "king" did not loose his girdle at all: he escaped from his bottle, which was not properly sealed. When the butler found him, the "king" was sitting on top of the bottle that contained the "queen" and tried to free her. The count came running to the call, after a short chase, he caught the fugitive, who, due to a long stay in the air, was already close to fainting, and returned him to the bottle.
Apparently, in subsequent years, Count von Kyuffstein began to worry about saving his soul, the awakened conscience demanded more and more insistently that he get rid of the homunculi, which he did after a short hesitation.
And the impossible is possible
Whether this is true or not - now it is impossible to find out. However, the main thing is that the very idea of creating a person by non-sexual means has ceased to be blasphemous. In any case, in the 19th century, the German chemist Justus Liebig assumed that someday chemistry would certainly create organic substances in an artificial way. And Jacob Moleschott, a famous German physiologist and philosopher who lived in the same 19th century, went even further: he insisted that he was able to create conditions in which organic forms could be produced.
In Rome, in one of the squares, today you can find a large stone on which some incomprehensible signs are applied. They say that these letters are nothing more than an encrypted formula for creating an artificial human - a homunculus.
You know, Kaumache has a unique food product - the white man. What amazing dishes they have not come up with in a relatively short period of time, since they came into first contact with a white man and enriched their diet with such an irreplaceable product.
The white man's culinary history has evolved rapidly.
How the first acquaintance with Kaumache happened is unknown. The nature of this meeting can only be judged on the basis of the Kaumache tradition that has survived to this day, at least once a year, but to taste the white man's meat raw. It is desirable that he was just killed, and the incomparable taste of human flesh was complemented by the salty-metallic notes of fresh blood.
In the following years, hunting for a white man became very popular with kaumache and acquired an ever larger scale, which could not but disturb the white people themselves. When the incredible scope of the hunt became apparent, the Kaumache was severely demanded to stop such a hunt, threatening to use military force. The conflict was soon settled. This happened for two reasons. First, military intervention was disadvantageous to the ruling elite. Second, the kaumache agreed to give up human flesh surprisingly quickly. However, later it turned out, despite the fact that they really stopped hunting people, this did not prevent them from regularly eating human meat. The fact is that according to the ancient kaumache custom, any agreement, even sealed by a sacred blood oath, is invalid if the sworn oath was under the influence of reuote *. And later the kaumache swore on blood that the entire delegation, by chance coincidence, was under the influence of reuote. This circumstance made it possible to bypass the main clause of the treaty prohibiting the use of human meat, and abandoning hunting, the kaumache engaged in breeding a white man.
Since that time, the white man has become a truly indispensable product in the Kaumache diet.
Having lost the excitement and charm of hunting, instead of kaumache they secretly established an entire industry of production. Having studied the habits of white people, they found that they have the ability, and most importantly, an irresistible urge to reproduce. This human passion for reproduction, even in captivity, with reasonable adjustment, allowed Kaumache to organize a huge number of farms in a short time. From the scarce reserves of living people that they had at the time of the conclusion of the agreement on the abandonment of human flesh, the kaumache were able to grow a whole population of fodder white people.
Of course, there were some difficulties. Initially, the cubs bred in captivity were kept together with their parents, and they, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, often killed their children, and then themselves ahead of time. Yes, it was still white man meat, but in such a situation, systematic breeding projects suffered damage. In the future, the kaumachs learned to raise white man cubs without the participation of adults, taking and isolating them immediately after birth. In this case, they lost most of their communication skills, but acquired truly exceptional taste with proper care.
They learned how to cook human flesh kaumache in different ways. First of all, it should be said about the traditional eating of a raw white man and adding his meat to various dishes. Nevertheless, heat treatment has become the main method of preparation. Lovers of exotic have learned to use geysers that can boil a medium-sized carcass in a few hours, as well as a hot climate, thanks to which meat left for a couple of days acquired a special rich sweetish taste and characteristic thick aroma.
However, most kaumache still prefer to cook the white man at home. In numerous recipes, almost all parts of a person have found use; only the horny plates and hairline, which are removed when the mascara is skinned, are considered unsuitable for food. From boiled bones, a jelly-like mass is obtained, flavored with spices, it turns into a hearty dish loved by many kaumache. The insides of a white man, ground into a homogeneous tender mass, are both an independent dish - a nutritious stew, and an indispensable ingredient in a variety of sauces and mousses. Delicacies include: eyes, lips, tongue, genitals and female mammary glands. White brains are a special treat. Brain eating is the most enjoyable part of chemguise, the so-called "meal per person" **.
But meat remains the main value of a white man. Traditionally, in kaumache cooking, meat is used from adults, preferably with an impressive fat layer. Although the meat of the cubs is more tender, and the hairline is still poorly developed, which simplifies the process of processing and cooking, its use in food is not economically profitable. Therefore, to arrange a meal for a person, as well as in the overwhelming majority of dishes, kaumache is used by an adult white person.
If the conversation turns to the cuisine of kaumach, one cannot ignore the favorite delicacy of the nobility - the human embryo. I don't think it's worth explaining why only wealthy members of society can afford this product. The fruit extracted from a female white man is often eaten raw, and from dishes that use a similar ingredient, the following can be noted: the embryo is fried so that it remains slightly damp inside. If the embryo is removed in the early stages, then you can try to shake a few fruits into a homogeneous mass and then also fry.
Returning to the controversy surrounding the consumption of human flesh, it is worth saying that, in the end, the kaumache deception was exposed. It seemed that an armed conflict was inevitable, but human civilization by this time had reached such a level of cultural development that the contradictions were resolved through diplomatic means. The Kaumache proved the invalidity of the previous treaty, defended the legality of the ancient custom, and achieved recognition of the tradition of eating human meat as an integral part of their culture. There was a lot of controversy around this problem, human rights organizations split into two irreconcilable camps, but in the end, the progressive part of humanity prevailed, and Kaumache was recognized as having the right to breed a white man and use reuote during religious rituals. But hunting remained banned. However, if you believe the rumors, there is still an opinion among the kaumache that the white man should not be raised on the farm, but obtained on their own on the hunt.
Nonsense! Kaumache stopped hunting long ago.
And I say - the truth.
I also believe that such rumors are based on real ground. In the last work of Moires ***, this supernatural passion for hunting the white man is mentioned. And mind you, only for white, other races are not suitable, Kaumache sincerely believe that the difference between them is huge and only a white person has a unique taste that makes this product so beloved on Kaumachean.
By the way, I heard that on Earth, humans dominate the food chain, with minor reservations about mythical microorganisms. And very similar to the trick you described earlier, they do it with eggs instead of an embryo.
Yes, humanity is an interesting and quite reasonable population ...
Was. One should say "once there was a reasonable population", because after what they arranged they can not be called either reasonable or a population.
* Reuote is a plant with narcotic properties and is used by kaumache for cult and ceremonial purposes.
** A meal per person is a special type of meal, when one kaumach contains the entire set of dishes that can be prepared from one white person.
*** Urkhar Moires is a prominent Lomazian philosopher and anthropologist, author of such works as "Man, where are you going?", "Man, what are you doing?" , "Homo sapiens, but irrational." other.
In human civilization, cannibalism is one of the greatest taboos. But there are a few people who have tasted human flesh, and some of them have shared their thoughts on what human flesh tastes like.
10. Arthur Shawcross
In 1972, in Watertown, Arthur Shawcross killed a boy and a girl. For this crime he was sent to prison, but after serving 15 years, he was released. In 1988, Shawcross moved to Rochester, New York, where he set his own record. Shortly after moving, Shawcross began killing prostitutes. Before he was caught, he committed 11 murders.
After returning to prison, Shawcross began bragging about the disgusting things he did to his victims, including talking about several cases of cannibalism. According to Shawcross, he first tasted human meat while serving in Vietnam, where he tracked down two women in the jungle, killed them, and ate them. True, there is no evidence that this is true. He also claimed to have eaten the genitals of four prostitutes and the heart of a 10-year-old boy he killed. By this time, the bodies of those killed had decayed so badly that it was impossible to verify his words. It has only been established that they were terribly mutilated.
According to Shawcross, human meat tastes like the burnt edge of well-done pork. In her letters to writer Christopher Berry-Dee Shawcross reiterates that human flesh tastes like pork, and invites people to think about it when they are about to eat a piece of ham, bacon, or a juicy pork chop.
9. Peter Brian
Peter Brian's long history of abuse began when the owner of the shop where he worked fired Brian for stealing. In response, Brian beat his 20-year-old daughter to death with a hammer and then tried to commit suicide by jumping from a balcony. Brian was declared mentally ill, and in 1993 he was admitted to a closed psychiatric hospital with the most strict regime.
Nine years later, the regime was relaxed and Brian was transferred to another hospital, where he was soon given permission to enter the city unattended. He left the hospital that night, went to 43-year-old Brian Cherry's apartment and beat him to death with a hammer. Then, using a saw and several knives, Brian amputated Cherry's arms and right leg. When the police arrived, they found that the victim's brain was already in the pan.
Brian said that he cooked the brain in margarine, which he tasted and, in his opinion, turned out to be "really tasty". He added that he also tasted the meat from the leg and arm of the murdered Cherry, and that it tasted like chicken.
After his arrest, Brian was taken back to a mental institution. There he killed another prisoner in 2004. According to Brian, he wanted to eat the dead man, but he didn't have time to cook it.
8.Alexander Selvik Vengshol
In 2010, 21-year-old Norwegian student and artist Alexander Selvik Vengshol underwent surgery to replace a femur with an implant. The operation was necessary, since due to a congenital defect, Alexander was chained to crutches and a wheelchair all his life. Wengshol managed to convince his doctor to allow him to take the removed bone with him after the operation. Wengshol himself did not yet know why he needed it, but he intended to somehow use it in his work.
When Alexander returned home after the operation, he threw the bone into boiling water in order to cleanse the remaining meat. Suddenly realizing that this was a unique opportunity, he decided to taste a piece of flesh and came to the conclusion that "it tastes good." After that, he prepared a snack from the meat remaining on the bone. He spread a handful of meat and baked potatoes on a platter, topping off the dinner with a glass of wine. According to Wenshola, “It tasted like wild sheep, as if you cooked a sheep that grazes in the mountains and eats mushrooms. It was clearly goat meat. "
7. Tobias Schneebaum
Tobias Schneebaum was an American artist who received a Fulbright grant in 1955 to study the art of Peru. He hitchhiked there from New York. On the way, he heard about the Arakmbut tribe, which lived in the jungle and hunted with bows and arrows. Deciding that it was interesting, he went to look for them. Although the tribe had a reputation for fierce warriors, they accepted Schneebaum, who was delighted that homosexuality was flourishing in the tribe, after all, in New York for this, they were persecuted. He soon decided to stay with them for life.
Everything changed after he was invited to "hunt". The tribal warriors attacked another village and killed six people. After the massacre, they roasted some of the enemies' organs by dancing around the fire. Schneebaum got scared, but was eventually forced to join the dance. Then they began to distribute pieces of human meat, and Schneebaum ate the offered piece. After the incident, he decided to leave the tribe and, ultimately, said goodbye to the Peruvian jungle.
Schneebaum's book of memoirs, Keep The River On Your Right, has become a cult classic. He generally avoids questions about the taste of human flesh, explaining that he was too excited at the moment to remember the taste and he doesn't want people to think of him as a cannibal. However, he once mentioned that the meat tasted like pork.
Omaima Nelson was born in Egypt and moved to the United States with the desire to become a model. In 1991, she met 56-year-old William Nelson and they were married two months later. The marriage was not happy, and later Omaima accused her husband of beating and rape. Just three weeks after the wedding, during an argument, she killed her husband. In an attempt to destroy the evidence, Omaima dismembered his body, roasted his hands, and boiled his head.
The murder became even more bizarre when it was revealed that Omaima had cut ribs from her murdered husband's body, covered them with barbecue sauce and cooked them "like in a restaurant." According to the psychiatrist, Omaima told him that when she took a bite of meat off a rib, she cried out in delight: "This is so cute, this is so delicious ... I love it!"
When Omaima asked her friend to help her dispose of the body, he called the police. She was ultimately found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. She later stated that she did not eat her husband, but this happened when she applied for parole, which does not apply to persons convicted of cannibalism.
5. Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer, a Milwaukee cannibal who roamed the city between 1978 and 1991, killed 17 people. Dahmer never spoke openly about cannibalism, but after his arrest, he discussed it a bit with the FBI. He said that he cut off pieces of meat, usually from the biceps or thigh, or took some internal organs. Then he cut the meat or organs into tiny pieces and fried in a pan.
When asked about the taste of the meat, Dahmer replied that it looked like a filet mignon cut from the thin edge of a beef tenderloin. It is considered the most tender cut of beef and is often referred to as the "king of steaks".
Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison in February 1992 and killed by a cellmate two years later.
4. William Seabrook
William Seabrook, a reporter for the New York Times, became famous for his books on unusual travel. One of his most famous works, published in 1931, is called Jungle Roads. The book describes in detail a trip to West Africa, where he encountered the Huere tribe, in which it was customary to ritually consume the flesh of recently deceased tribesmen. Out of curiosity, Seabrook decided to try what human meat tasted like.
There are two different stories about how Seabrook tasted human meat. According to Seabrook himself, or rather what he described in The Jungle Roads, he simply joined the Guerre tribe. Another story claims that this did not happen, and that in fact Seabrook committed an act of cannibalism upon his return to France, where he convinced an intern from the hospital to cut off a piece of his fresh corpse.
Regardless of how he got the meat, Seabrook was probably a genuine cannibal and he detailed his taste. “It looked like veal, not young, but not beef yet. At the same time, it is unlike any meat I have ever tasted. But it is still so close to veal that I think no other person with normal, normal sensitivity would be able to distinguish them. "
3. Jorge Negromonte Da Silveira
In April 2012, Brazilian Jorge Beltrao Negromonte da Silveira, his wife, Isabel Cristina Pires, and his mistress, Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva, were arrested on suspicion of killing a homeless woman. After being taken into custody, they confessed to killing two more young women. In all three murders, the trio dismembered bodies and sold meat.
During interrogation, da Silveira compared human meat in taste and consistency to beef. Since this meat was similar to beef, Silveir's group had three different recipes for preparing it. The first was a Mexican stew, for which meat is simmered. The second option was a cassava-based Brazilian dish known as macaxeira. But the most popular were the traditional Brazilian meat pies, which the trio often sold to unsuspecting neighbors.
Da Silveira was sentenced to 23 years in prison, and his wife and mistress received 20 years each. Da Silveira was content to be in jail, because otherwise he would of course continue to kill.
2. Issei Sagawa
One of the most famous cannibals in modern history is the Japanese Issei Sagawa. When Sagawa was studying in Paris, he began dating 25-year-old Dutch student Rene Hartevelt. On June 11, 1981, when Rene came to Sagawa's apartment, he shot her in the back. After she died, Sagawa ate parts of her body for two days.
In his memoirs, Sagawa wrote that he first ate raw meat from her buttocks. In his opinion, the meat had neither taste nor smell, but melted on his tongue like raw tuna sashimi. He fried the meat cut from the thighs in a pan, describing it as quite decent, but tasteless. He also baked the Hartevelt breasts, but he didn't like them because they were too fat. Most of all he liked the meat from the upper thigh, which he called "excellent."
Sagawa was arrested three days later when witnesses saw him hiding the remains of his body. He was declared insane and taken to an asylum. In 1985, he was deported back to Japan, where he was declared healthy and put on trial. However, the French authorities refused to release evidence necessary for the criminal process. Since the Japanese authorities declared him healthy and could not be convicted as a criminal, Sagawa was released. After his release, he wrote a book and became a kind of celebrity in Japan. However, in a later interview, he abandons some of his earlier statements: “In my book I wrote that it was delicious, but it was not true; I would love to eat beef. But due to the fact that I wanted to taste human meat for a very long time, I convinced myself that it will definitely be delicious. "
1. Armin Meiwes
German cannibal Armin Meiwes posted an ad on the Internet with the text: "A well-built 18-30 year old man is needed to be slaughtered and then eaten." More than 200 people responded to the ad, Meiwes said. First, Meiwes met with the young man, but he refused. He then found 41-year-old Bernd Jürgen Brandes, who agreed to be eaten. On March 9, 2001, they met and had sexual intercourse. After that, Meiwes cut off Brandes' penis in order to eat it. At first they tried to eat it raw, but it was too rubbery. Meiwes then tried to fry it with garlic and butter, but eventually the dish burned down.
By the time Meiwes killed Brandes, he had been bleeding for 10 hours. Meiwes hung his body on a meat hook and began to cut off pieces of meat. Over the next 10 months, he ate about 18 kilograms of human meat, either steak or minced meat. Meiwes later revealed that he fried a steak with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and garlic. On the sides, he laid out potatoes and Brussels sprouts with green pepper sauce. He preferred to drink it with a glass of South African red wine. As for the meat, Meiwes said it was a little tough, but overall good. It tasted like pork, but with a stronger, slightly bitter flavor.
Meiwes insisted that Brandes' death was suicide, not murder. He was originally sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for manslaughter, but after a review of the case, the sentence was changed to life imprisonment. He is now a vegetarian.
The material was prepared by Dmitry Oskin - according to the article of the site listverse.com
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When I talk about how, after the birth of my son, I took home the placenta and the next day served it to the table in the form of a paste made of his flesh, the listeners either simply do not believe, or in horror recoil from me like a cannibal. In my dictionary, this word is interpreted as "a person who eats human flesh" and "an animal that eats individuals of its own kind."
Eating human flesh, cannibalism, placenta pie recipe. Extreme cuisine.
I believe that formally I can be called a cannibal, but I feel a huge difference between my own situation and historical examples of cannibalism involving natives with bones threaded through their noses, who boiled unfortunate missionaries and white hunters in cauldrons.
This is how it was. I was married with a daughter and lived in London when my wife gave birth to a son in a private clinic not far from our home. As far as I can remember, I told the doctor that I wanted to take the placenta home immediately after my son was born. The placenta is an organ attached to the lining of the uterus and provides nutrition to the fetus. After the baby is born, the placenta is rejected by the female body. And as a rule, it is thrown away, at least in developed countries. In some places, however, including our London apartment, the placenta is viewed as an edible product that it is unwise to dispose of along with bloody bandages, used medical gloves and other materials.
After all, it is the organ that fed our unborn child. Although the baby no longer needs it, the placenta remains a valuable source of protein, vitamins and minerals. My wife was supposed to return home the next day, and my plan was to boil the placenta, make a paste out of it and offer guests invited to admire the baby. The doctor accepted my request with amazement, but did not mind, saying that there was nothing dangerous in my venture if the placenta was kept cold and I prepared it correctly. According to him, the taste of the flesh is likely to resemble the liver.
Then the question arose of how to deliver the placenta home. In clinics, unlike restaurants, special thermal containers are not kept. The choice fell on a large plastic bag, like the ones used for trash. At four o'clock in the morning I walked home with a bag on my shoulder and involuntarily wondered: what to say if a policeman suddenly stopped me and asked what was in my bag? Fortunately, not a single police officer met me. As the day approached, I fried the placenta with garlic, in butter, then cut into small pieces, which I turned into a dark brown paste using a blender. Ay! I forgot to separate the blood vessels, and therefore there were small elastic blotches in the paste.
This was a serious culinary blunder on my part. Nevertheless, I served the dish on the table. Chilled with wheat crackers and thin slices of raw onions as a decoration. To my surprise, several of the guests tasted the treat. To some, my idea of a placenta pate may seem eccentric, conceived with one purpose - to shock guests, or something that only hippies can afford. My wife and I really belonged to this movement at that time. What we do not regret at all.
In fact, historically, there was nothing unusual in our act. Eating human flesh does have a long and not always dark history. Since then, when the Neanderthals roamed the earth, from the southwest of the present state of Colorado to the southeast of modern France, the fried human leg was considered a normal dish for a long time.
There is enough evidence. In 1981, archaeologist Tim White of the University of Berkeley in California discovered in Ethiopia the skull of a human ancestor who lived 60 thousand years ago, with traces of deep notches on the cheekbones and eye sockets. As if the meat had been cut from them with a knife. The notches have been identified as "evidence of cannibalism" distinct from combat wounds, domestic trauma, traces of burial rituals, and the effects of animal claws and teeth. White compared the skull to the bones of twenty-nine inhabitants of the ancient Indian village of Anasazi, Colorado, a unique rock settlement now turned into a tourist attraction.
Carbon analysis of bones, tools, and pottery dates them to the 12th century. After examining 2106 bone fragments under an electron microscope to identify nicks, burnt spots, etc. White proposed a new version of the damage, which he formulated as "pot gloss". Meaning the smooth scuffs on the ends of the bones, which, in his opinion, were formed as a result of mixing meat in pots. White came to the conclusion that the inhabitants of Anasazi ate the bodies of their relatives, peeling off their skin, cutting muscle tissue into pieces. Which are fried on, baking long bones, crushing small ones and then placing the whole thing in pots for cooking over a fire with constant stirring.
White's research was continued in 2000 by Richard Marlar, a pathologist at the University of Colorado, who announced in Nature that he had found meat cutting tools with traces of human blood. And also scattered split human bones with signs of their processing with these tools. In addition, the remains of human myoglobin were present on the walls of the cooking pot, as well as in the composition of human coprolite, ancient feces. The consumption of human flesh has continued for centuries.
So, in China, since the era of the Tang dynasty and especially during the reign of the Ming and Qing dynasties (in total from the 7th to the 18th centuries), when the dying parent was no longer helped by ordinary medicines, the daughter or daughter-in-law (less often the son) was cut off from his own thighs a piece of flesh and boiled broth from it, which they gave to the dying man to drink. Despite the facts, people believed in the possibility of miraculous healing. The use of human flesh as a medicine is called koku or gegu in Chinese literature. The origins of the tradition are likely to be found in the legend of Princess Miao Shan. The human incarnation of the goddess of mercy Kuan Ying, who sacrificed her eyes and hands to save her dying father.
The theme of the flesh is also present in the stories about the past incarnations of the Buddha, which affirm the Buddhist principle of compassion. Most of the evidence of cannibalism today comes from researchers, missionaries, and others in the Western world who find them in primitive societies. They invariably interpret this as proof of the savagery of the natives. In literature, a similar attitude can be traced back in the Greek myths about Saturn devouring his children and the Cyclops eating Odysseus's companions.
Cannibals are a kind of "hot spice" to many narratives. From the fairy tales of "A Thousand and One Nights" with their Sindbad the Sailor, wrecked and saved by the king who fed him with human flesh, to the amazing memories of Marco Polo. In which there is a story about the warriors of Kubla Khan, who ate those who fell on the battlefield.
“I assure you,” wrote Marco Polo, “that they kill people every day and first drink their blood, and then greedily eat the rest.”
The eighteenth-century satirist Jonathan Swift, best known as the author of Gulliver's Travels, used the same technique in his essay A Modest Proposal (1729). He jokingly wrote that the food problem in England and Ireland could be solved by eating a certain number of children. The famous novelist Robert Stephenson, who lived in the Marquesas Islands at the end of the 19th century, wrote that he saw "the last cannibal in Nuku Khiva." He allegedly walked along the ocean with a human hand on his shoulder and shouting to passers-by. “This is what Kooamua does to his enemies!” He pulled pieces of flesh out of his hand with his teeth.
Similar stories were told by missionaries returning from Latin America. One author, describing the African tribe of cannibals, mentioned that they have sharp teeth like a fox. It didn't matter that he had never been to Africa and did not provide any reliable evidence to support his claims. The Spanish conquerors said that the Caribs salted and dried the flesh of their enemies. Although in those days, the inhabitants of the islands did not know how to salt food. Much of what was used to frighten the layman turned out to be nonsense. Only a few stories were, albeit remotely, but similar to the truth.
For example, the stories of how the Aztecs eat thousands of their captives is highly exaggerated. The Aztecs only baked bread from dough mixed with human blood and flesh, giving it the shape of their gods. According to one of the modern authors, the wave of chilling information was "not so much an indication of the widespread prevalence of cannibalism outside of a highly developed society, as evidence of a greedy interest in the topic." Many traditions associated with cannibalism have deep cultural roots. They were based on the belief prevailing in many parts of the world that eating the flesh of ancestors would allow them to enlist their support.
Or the fact that a dish made of the flesh of enemies contains their strong qualities: brain - wisdom, heart - courage, etc. For this reason, the natives of Hawaii killed Captain James Cook in 1779. The next day, they returned only a handful of cloth-wrapped bones and flesh to the surviving members of his expedition. They ate the meat and organs of Cook in the hope of gaining through them the many knowledge and dignity of the great researcher. Even the tyrant Idi Amin, who ruled in Uganda in the early 1970s, boasted at the table that he ate human flesh, justifying it as follows.
“In a war, when there is no food, and a comrade is wounded, you may well kill and eat him to survive. This is how you absorb his power. His flesh will make you better, and you will be able to fully fight. "
Perhaps similar circumstances became the reason for the disappearance at about the same time of Michael Rockefeller, a young adventurer and son of the American millionaire Nelson Rockefeller. His tracks were lost in the jungle of Papua New Guinea, where he was supposedly eaten by one of the last remaining cannibals on earth. Not far from those places on the islands of Fiji, cannibalism was practiced as early as 700. The natives, wishing to appease their warlike gods, sacrificed captured enemies to them. After the rite of sacrifice, the victors ate them, since they considered this a necessary act of their final humiliation. Moreover, they believed that in this way they would also render their relatives harmless for a long time.
The custom was so widespread - lasted until the early 20th century - that most Fijians had so-called cannibal forks. Carved out of wood and similar to all the usual forks of different sizes - for different parts of human flesh: for the eyes, buttocks, etc. "Delicate as human flesh" - this old Fijian expression can be heard on the islands today as a compliment to a harmless modern dish. The Western view of this kind of behavior changed Christianity, not the formation of the notorious "civilized" society.
Spanish missionaries in Latin America began to change both the diet and the beliefs of the local population. Declaring both that and another barbarism. But did they realize all the strangeness of the introduction of "cannibals" to religion, in one of the main rituals of which - communion - the parishioners, albeit in the form of a wafer and wine, are fed the blood and body of Christ? As one scholar, Jean Paolo Biasin, said, "cannibalism is metaphorized" for Christians, given that the Bible itself contains such words of Christ.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; he who eats this bread will live forever; but the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world ... truly, truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him ”(John 6: 51-56).
Of course, a lot of human flesh has been eaten in the modern era. Not for the sake of eternal life, but out of the desire to preserve earthly life. There is a well-known story of how in 1846, on their way to California, American settlers, caught in a blizzard at Donner Pass, ate their dead comrades. Under similar circumstances, British explorers, who in the 19th century tried to find the legendary "northwest passage" from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the ice-bound north of Canada, resorted to cannibalism. As it turned out, in a vain attempt to survive.
The fact is confirmed by the recent discovery of the remains of the expedition members with traces of knife work on their bones. Equally well known is the partly comical story of a gold digger named Alfred Packer, who in 1873 in Colorado was imprisoned by a blizzard in a shack and survived only by eating his accomplices.
“You are a disgusting pervert and a son of a bitch,” said the judge, who had sentenced the cannibal to 30 years in prison. "There were only seven Democrats in Hinsdale County, and you managed to eat five!"
Not so long ago, in 1972, members of the Uruguayan rugby team, who were in a plane crash in the Andes, managed to save their lives by feeding on the remains of their comrades. Later, their story was described in the very popular book "Survivors" and captured in the film of the same name. It is said that some South Vietnamese refugees who fled the advancing Viet Cong armies in boats survived in the same way. Until recently, the Chinese authorities categorically denied that during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, cannibalism against "class enemies" was widely practiced in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
In 1996, Zeng Yi's book The Scarlet Memorial, or Evidence of Cannibalism in Modern China, cites the words of one of the officials that in this area alone there were from 10 to 20 thousand cases when people ate their fellow citizens. Even later, information came from North Korea. Where mass famine in the period 1997-1998 forced people to eat the dead from exhaustion of relatives and neighbors. Other contemporary reporting on cannibalism focuses on grisly details. It seems that the press is only interested in this.
Several years ago in England, the story of the notorious Cray brothers, who controlled a large part of the London underworld, was widely and very colorfully covered. Among other things, it was said that they ate the liver of their enemies. The American serial killer Jeffrey Deimer, nicknamed the Milwaukee Cannibal from journalists, also butchered and ate his victims. Apart from the contents of the freezer, which contained human kidneys, intestines, liver and lungs, the police did not find any food in his apartment. Except for the spices. After his arrest in 1994, Deimer asked the prison doctor if there are people like him in the world, or is he unique? No, of course not unique.
So, it is difficult to predict when and how people's attitudes towards eating human flesh might change. Even though the pate I offered to guests in 1972 in the form of pate in 1998 became fashionable food among the English yuppies. At that time, Esquire magazine interviewed some of those who tried this flesh dish, as well as several professional chefs. One of the chefs suggested simmering the afterbirth over low heat and serving with herbal dumplings. Another recommended cooking it with olive oil, onions, capers in vinsanto and anchovies, then grind in a blender and spread over toasted crostinis. According to him, you will get "wonderful canapes for the Epiphany party."
Do you want to know why cannibalism has such a terrible attitude? It's all about the press. In my archive there are hundreds of stories published in newspapers and magazines from 1994-2003. For example, how eight people in Brazil, without knowing it, ate the liver of a murder victim, which was served to them in a bar in Rio de Janeiro fried with onions and garlic. About a 76-year-old resident of Moscow, who was arrested because she first killed her husband, then ate part of his flesh, and rolled the rest into jars. About two men from northeastern India who killed a neighbor who allegedly tried to kill them with the help of black magic.
They cut his heart in half and ate it raw. How a Portuguese historian investigating atrocities and atrocities during World War II found documents showing that one of the Macau hotels bought small children, fattened them, and then cooked dishes from their flesh, which he served to his guests. In 1995, it was reported that in a small Russian town in the Urals, police arrested four people who were selling human meat in restaurants under the guise of veal. Other information from the same year - about two Cambodians who had gathered to help a friend bury a stillborn child, but instead cooked soup from it (with the permission of their father!).
In 1997, in Hong Kong, a doctor chopped off the head of a police officer he suspected of having ties to his wife. When the police raided the doctor, prompted by the police officer's wife, she found a colleague's head boiled in a pressure cooker. From year to year, my archive has been steadily growing. In 1998, in Thailand, a man drowned his six-year-old niece, because he believed that by eating her brain, he could improve his mental health. And in Egypt, three brothers were sentenced to death for killing a man and drinking his blood. A year later in London, a man was sentenced to life in prison for murder and eating part of the victim's thigh. In Ukraine, the same sentence was passed for the fact that the criminal strangled his young mistress, boiled her head, ate her tongue, and kept her skull on TV.
In 2000, in Sri Lanka, a man who had killed and ate his wife ten years earlier was arrested for doing the same to his father. The body of a Hong Kong resident who disappeared while traveling in North China was found salted in a vat. In Kathmandu, a 22-year-old man was arrested who ate his older brother's ear and said that this act, while drunk, was prompted by an irresistible desire to eat meat. The topic of cannibalism appeared on the front pages of the press. Entered CNN in 2001. Then it was reported that Dayaks from the island of Borneo were engaged in cannibalism. They cut the bodies of their slain enemies, the Madurians, into pieces and eat them, preparing them like animal meat. And they not only eat themselves, but also sell them.
Then, in Kathmandu, two brahmins ate the brains of the murdered king of Nepal and his assassin. Then they committed a ritual suicide, throwing themselves off a cliff in order to "take bad luck with them." The next year, 2002, a German citizen confessed that he had killed and ate his homosexual partner, who allegedly wanted to be eaten. In Cambodia, two men accused of eating human meat, they washed it down with a bottle of wine, were released by a provincial court due to the lack of a relevant law. In 2003, in Los Angeles, a young ambitious musician who dreamed of becoming a rap star was charged with the murder of his partner. When asked why he ate part of her lung, the guy replied that in this way he wanted to create an image of an "infinite" for himself and through this to break through to the Olympus of rap culture.
Cannibalism for sale.
Cannibalism is one of the most forbidden social activities these days. At the same time, the theme is extremely attractive, which is the reason for its use in the show business market. The most striking example of commercialization is, naturally, Hollywood. At one end of the spectrum is the blatant exploitation of chilling plots in films such as Attack of the Cannibals (1954), Bloody Feast (1963), The Gravedigger and His Crew (1967), Night of the Living Dead (1968, p. two sequels and one remake). At the Red Wolf Hotel (1972, renamed Horror on the Menu), Cannibal Girls (1973), Return of the Living Dead (1985, with two sequels) ...
This, believe me, is only a small fraction, just for example. On the other end are paintings with an impressive budget and more talented creators. The title of the novel, based on which the satirical film of the same name was filmed - "Soybean and Lentil Greens" (1973) - indicated a dish of the corresponding products. However, by the will of the creators from Hollywood, the hero of the film, detective Charlton Heston, finds out that this dish is made of human meat. In Jean-Luc Godard's satirical film The Weekend (1968), the hapless terrorists who claim that "the horrors of the state can only be answered with horror" demonstrate a return to the anti-industrial "natural way of life." Snacking on captured townsfolk - lovers of picnics.
In The Chef, Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989), an attack on the strict rules of behavior set in a fashionable restaurant, in its last scene a whole human body is served on the table. The character of the Thomas Harris film "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991) Hannibal (in tune with the cannibal) Lecter, like his lesser-known predecessor from "The Hunter of the People" (1986) and the counterpart from the sequel "Hannibal" (1999). A disgusting ghoul who was hid behind bars. In particular, for his addiction to the human liver, which he preferred to drink with a glass of "good Chianti".
In Fiji, souvenir versions of traditional forks are still sold today. They are made from local wood and immersed in black mud for several weeks. Then they are polished or simply painted. Forks, as already noted, are of different sizes. Small ones for the eyes and brain, larger ones for meat. You can also order the Cannibal Chutney, a vegetable seasoning made according to an original recipe. Certainly served with meat at cannibals' feasts. Finally, there are restaurants. In 2002, Ecuadorian restaurateurs allowed the use of human thigh bones in their rich flesh broth for soups and stews.
Moreover, the bones extracted from the graves were considered especially valuable. Because they were credited with having a "unique taste." A year later, it was reported that female skeletons were dug up from graves in the Chinese province of Sichuan to make "ghost soup." In another province, Hunan, one of the restaurants offered two dishes of abalone and perch. Prepared using human milk (purchased from peasants). When the press reported it, an order from Beijing followed and the restaurants were closed.
Human Flesh Pie Recipe. Placenta pie.
Placenta.
6 slices of bacon.
170 g of red wine.
1 egg.
Salt and pepper to taste.
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped.
2 shallots, finely chopped.
Green onions.
Pie dough.
Use a narrow-bladed knife with a sharp end to remove all blood vessels. By opening the placenta from the wide end, where it is easy to find the main vein. It can be pulled out with some effort. Do the same with the rest of the vessels. Cut the placenta into narrow strips. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and soak them in wine for at least 6 hours.
Make minced meat from about half of the meat and mix it with chopped garlic and shallots. Cover the form with dough. Put bacon on the bottom and around the edges, then place the mixture of minced meat and the remaining strips of meat in the mold. Cover everything with dough and spread with an egg. Bake in a preheated oven at 190 degrees for about an hour. Allow to cool. Serve with unleavened crackers. Garnish with green onions.
Based on materials from the book "Extreme cuisine".
Jerry Hopkins.
