Contingency Cannibalism: Superhardcore Survivalism’s Dirty Little Secret by Shiguro Takada
My rating: 5/5 cats
how have i never reviewed this book?
for someone with a “tastes like people” shelf, it seems unnatural to have neglected reviewing this tasty little treat.
have i ever (knowingly) eaten human flesh? no.
i have eaten those little hangnail thingies that ruffle off my fingers, and i gnaw at my own lips in times of stress and swallow the shreds all the time, but i have never braised or roasted a friend. i have never fricasseed an enemy.
but could i, psychologically? could i overcome the great taboo and actually eat a human?
of course i could.
and now i have the recipes to do so.
this isn’t just a joke cookbook like Critter Cuisine or Natural Harvest – A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes this talks about historical cases of cannibalism and just happens to also provide recipes for people who are really into re-enacting the donner party scenario in their own lives.
mmeeeaaattt
by all accounts, human flesh is mediocre at best. and there isn’t a lot of usable meat – this is why sharks don’t really like eating people and don’t go out of their way to eat us. we are too bony, and we require a lot of preparation. it’s like people who go nuts for (pig) ribs. it just seems like so much work for so little meat. i would rather just eat the barbecue sauce on asparagus or something.
but people meat? the novelty of it is too good to pass up, right?
when i turned thirty, i set myself the task of revisiting all the foods i had previously declared were “from the devil” to see if my mature palate could now accept them. and i discovered that many foods were not, in fact, from the devil.
eating people would just be another experiment.
and i completely understand why it is socially unacceptable to casually snack on one’s neighbor. it is discourteous because they probably have their own things going on, and eating them might get in the way of their hopes and dreams and all that.
but if we are talking in terms of survival? i would eat you in a heartbeat. i wouldn’t even wait to see if this was a situation that would remedy itself in a few hours or days.
that blackout we had in nyfc a few years back? i was ready. i was walking back to queens from manhattan licking my chops at the herd of tasty yum-yums walking alongside me and thinking about which knife i had at home that would be equal to the task. fortunately for the citizens of queens, i was too sleepy that night to do more than gather them in a gleaming line on my table and when power was restored the next day, i just got a sandwich.
i get hungry.
and to all you people who say “groooosss,” i’m sure there are things you people eat that are equally gross. olives, for example. still from the devil.
and if i made you some fresh human casserole with scalloped potatoes and cheese and some delicate mushrooms, you would eat that like crazy.
at the apocalypse, everyone will come to my restaurant. tip your servers well, otherwise, you might end up in a stew.
because i have this book.
and you do not.
