A Question of Taste

Two cannibals are eating a clown when one turns to the other and says. “Hey.  Does this taste funny?”

Forgive me, but I’ve earned the right to stoop that low—I just finished an Art History course on cannibalism in art, a subject that probably doesn’t mean what you think it does (It, in fact, being concerned with cultural transfers of power more than any given dinner menu).  Still, the course did frequently touch on the subject of anthropophagy—the technical term for ‘Sam:  he’s what’s for dinner’.

The class was interesting and I enjoyed it, but the course never definitively answered the obvious question:  What do we taste like?  (The answer to this question must not be confused with whether humans have good taste.)

After extensive research, I can definitely say that it is not the obvious answer:  humans don’t taste like chicken.  Of the dozens of first-hand accounts I was able to track down, not one single person thought human flesh tasted like any form of poultry—a surprising answer since everything from rattlesnake meat to fried armadillo has been described as similar to what you would find at KFC.    

Archaeologists have confirmed that human cannibalism has probably always existed, in that since Homo Neanderthalensis engaged in the practice, it probably predates the arrival of Homo Sapiens.  At a minimum, people have been chowing down on people for at least 100,000 years, so by now, you would think that not much about the practice would remain a mystery.

There are a few hints.

In Polynesia, the native word for human flesh traditionally translates out as ‘long pork’, suggesting that humans taste a little like ham.  Though there is a long list of Protestant missionaries who perished trying to give the islanders a taste of religion—a few as recently as 20 years ago—there are few accurate reviews from verified diners.  I checked on Yelp and was unable to find a single review.

There is even a little medical evidence to back this up; the anatomy and tissue of pigs is so similar to that of humans that surgeons ‘practice’ some new procedures on (anesthetized) pigs.  When ‘The Doc’ went off to learn new laparoscopic surgical techniques, she returned with a video tape of her operating on a pig that so fascinated the boys that for a whole week it replaced the ‘The Lizard of Oz’ as the obligatory video of the day.

There should be lots of accounts from people who have eaten human flesh, giving their opinions as to what it tastes like, since there is no shortage of people who have tried it.  Contrary to what you might think, it is not against the law to chow down on human flesh in most countries:  the legality of the culinary event is generally limited to how you obtained the main course.

There are a number of artists who have tried cannibalism.  The Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, while an art student in Paris, bought various body parts from a medical supply house and cooked and ate them.  The Peruvian artist Marco Evaristti hosted a dinner party at which the main course was agnolotti pasta that was topped with a meatball made from his own fat, removed earlier in the year in a liposuction operation.  The sculptor Rick Gibson has on several occasions eaten man meat, usually as a form of performance art.  The last such display was in Toronto in 1988 when he devoured a slice of testicle.  

In 2012, a Japanese illustrator named Mao Sugiyama, decided that he was asexual and had his penis and testicles removed surgically.  Sugiyama then invited four friends over for dinner.  Afterwards, everyone agreed that the penis tasted hard and rubbery, though that could have been due to the method of preparation.  As Sugiyama confessed, “I’m an artist, not a chef.”

William Seabrook, an author who traveled through Africa in the 1920’s, described his dinner with cannibals in great detail in his book, Jungle Ways:  

It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal.  It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable.

Issei Sagawa, who having served his prison time is now a free man, spent two days eating a 25-year-old woman he had killed while a student in Paris. According to Sagawa, the buttocks melted on his tongue like raw tuna but his favorite were the thighs, which he described as “wonderful.” However, he also said that he didn’t like the breasts because they were too greasy.  In a very real sense, Sagawa was a leg man.

We could turn to the testimony of Alferd Packer.  Or it might have been Alfred Packer, since there is evidence the mountain man was born Alfred, but changed it to Alferd after a tattoo artist spelled his name wrong.  In any case, Packer got caught in a blizzard while crossing the Colorado mountains in 1874, and when he emerged two and a half months later, he confessed to having devoured his five companions.  Packer served 18 years in prison for his crime and when interviewed after his parole, claimed that his companions had tasted like the sweetest beef.  Packer’s accounts however, should be ignored, for by the time he was interviewed, Packer had become a vegetarian, and thus, was suspect.

Note.  Unlike Enema U, some universities have a sense of humor.  The University of Colorado at Boulder named the student cafeteria after Alferd Packer.  An even stranger story of a restaurant named after the Colorado Cannibal is the employee dining room at the Department of Agriculture.  When the GSA prevented the Secretary of Agriculture from firing the unpopular vendor running the restaurant, he promptly renamed it the Alferd Packer Memorial Grill and invited the press to the unveiling of a brass plaque in Packer’s honor.  The embarrassed vendor promptly left.  Today, the plaque is hanging on the wall of the dining room of the National Press Club, where an angus beef burger named for the cannibal is served.

When questioned by the FBI, Jeffrey Dahmer said the taste of human meat was close to that of filet mignon.  His opinion was seconded by a neighbor who once enjoyed a sandwich prepared by the mass murderer.  I wonder if that neighbor still accepts invitations to attend neighborhood cookouts.

That people taste like beef is supported by George Scithers, the author of the human cookbook, To Serve Man, obviously named after the infamous Twilight Zone episode.  Among the recipes is one for Texas Chili that contains the following comment: 

Some argue that cowboy meat is too tough to be served any other way, especially since the spices tend to kill the taste of whatever the donor may have been smoking, drinking, or chewing. Others discount this argument, but agree that Chili is a practical, quick way to serve Man in well-disguised form.

When cooking large batches, the author suggests using at least 15 pounds of onions per Texan.  Scithers’ inclusion of kidney beans in his recipe, is a grave error, since adding beans to Chili is a felony in Texas.

Omaima Nelson killed her husband of one month in 1991 and barbecued his ribs.  Nelson, too, described the taste as very sweet, but that could be because she liberally used barbecue sauce while the ribs were cooking on her grill.  

Obviously, the taste is subjective and we need more research on the subject to reach a definitive answer.  Enema U is an ag school, so perhaps someone there should apply for a government research grant.  The administration is on record as saying it supports research.  Recent broad budget cuts could make monetary support difficult, but personnel donations may well be critical to the success of the project.