What do people taste like?

[Jeremy's Evil Twin]

I was reading this GD thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=66170) and it reminded me of this burning question that I hadn't gotten around to asking yet.

I love trying out exotic cuisine (gotta get my ass to Japan someday for a plate of fugu!) and to me the ultimate meal would be people. Of course, I have no illusions about this ever happening in this lifetime, although whenever I'm on a plane flight crossing the Rocky Mountains, I tend to look around the cabin at the fat ladies and the stringy old men and think about who would provide the tastiest morsels, if the plane crashed.

So my question is this: Are there any documents, on the Net or elsewhere, written by people who have experienced cannibalism firsthand (Andean plane crash survivors, memoirs of the Donner party, cannibal tribes from Papau New Guinea, Jeffrey Dahmer) that discuss the taste of human flesh, including flavor, texture, recommended spices, etc....

[AWB]

Jes' laik chickin!

[JeffB]

Goes well with fava beans and a nice Chianti!

[Katie]

Afraid I haven't got any specific sources or links, but I'd always heard that human flesh tastes like pork (hence cannibals referring to it as "long pig").

[tevya]

First of all: Ewww!

From reading (fiction), I have picked up that it tastes like pork. Hence the name 'long pig' for human flesh. This may be just myth. I have not tasted it myself.

Last time I burnt my hand on the heating coil of the toaster oven, it smelled a bit like seared pork.

[Francesca]

Well From Soup to Nuts: The cannibal lovers cookbook (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684869845/o/qid=986387677/sr=8-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_1/103-2983822-1225446) might give you a few pointers...

Fran

[GuanoLad]

I'm almost certain the long pig/pork theory is correct.

My ancestors were often cannibalistic, but we're talking ten or so generations back I think.

I hope.

[xizor]

Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal offers some hints as to what babies taste like. Of course, that pamphlet was purely tongue-in-cheek.

[WIGGUM]

Cecil took this one up.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/980619.html

[Ike Witt]

Unfortunatly there is a REAL sicko who is/was a pedophile and a cannibal. Nathaniel Bar-Jonah is accused of one murder and he seems to not only have eaten the young boy, but gave dishes containing the human meat to others. The case history can be found here http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/thebarjonahcase/


Deer burgers

Bar-Jonah didn't own a real gun and never had a hunting license.

Bar-Jonah's brother said he never knew his brother to hunt or to have friends who hunted.

Bauman, who was arrested in August 1993 on charges of sexual assault and unlawful transactions with minors, met Bar-Jonah in the Cascade County regional jail before Bar-Jonah bailed out on charges of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy in 1993. Police found a letter from Bauman thanking Bar-Jonah for the deer burger.

Bauman said Bar-Jonah brought him and Tyra Brown Hardees specials -- deer burgers -- for lunch. Bar-Jonah later wrote about the meal along with references to cannibalism.

For Christmas, Bar-Jonah brought, stew, chili and spaghetti to a mother and son who had recently lost their home to fire, police say. That boy too thought the meat tasted strange. Police believe references to "Christmas dinner for two" found among Bar-Jonah's writings about gay men being his favorite food were related to this meal. Bar-Jonah told the mother that he "hunted, killed, butchered and wrapped the meat himself."

[Ivar]

check this out

http://www.manbeef.com

[Johnny L.A.]

Pork.

[Johnny L.A.]

Pork.
I mean... so I've heard...

[AnotherHeretic]

Well, diabetes mellitus comes from the taste of the urine of diabetics. Sweet. How did they know this? Because doctors used to taste their patient's urine. But tasting your patients takes this idea to a whole new level :)

But sharks can tell you we taste awful.

As it turns out, we had jaws all wrong. When they so called "attack" humans, they aren't really eating us. They're only tasting us. That's why most people survive shark bites. One taste of us, yuck, they spit us out and move on.

Above info from Shark Week, discovery channel.

[Avumede]

Why not go to Africa and eat monkey flesh? It's gotta be pretty close. May also be illegal to eat, but not as illegal as cannabilism...

[Dignan]

As it turns out, we had jaws all wrong. When they so called "attack" humans, they aren't really eating us. They're only tasting us. That's why most people survive shark bites. One taste of us, yuck, they spit us out and move on.

Ugh! I hate that! Just finish the job! My sister used to do the same thing with boxes of chocolates. She'd take a bite of a chocolate, and if she didn't like that kind, back into the box it went.

[saepiroth]

i once bit a good half centimeter of flesh of my thumb when i fell off a ladder, and i can tell you, it is a little stronger than most pork, but that is probably from the blood.