In this story from BBC.co.uk, Jacques Rossi tells of one prisoner who “was a “cow”, a disturbing term given to the human “provisions” taken by convicts when they tried to escape the camps.”
I could not find anything else about this in google-fooing this term. Did this really happen, or rather is it documented anywhere else?
Steven
Don’t know, just saying that I though a human cow would be a female held captive for her lactation ability.
Sounds very unlikely.
You can’t eat human meat without cooking it? Bullshit.
I can’t imagine why the kidneys and blood would be edible while the rest of the human being wasn’t.
I used to think the BBC was a respectable and serious source for reporting, but they’ve come off as rather incredulous in the last two or three months.
You can eat liver, brains, and marrow without cooking. Prehistoric people left evidence of eating these parts of their kill (at least the marrow and brains. See Dances with Wolves for livers). If your source doesn’t include these, i don’t see any reason to trust it.
please explain how some parts are more suitable to eat without cooking
Try eating a steak without grinding it up first. It’s really tough. You can eat some parts easily without cooking, as listed above. I suppose you could make human steak tartare, but the meat grinder would be more suspicious than a fire, I think.
Just helping the next generation of cannibals be discreet.
This shouldn’t be turning me on, should it? :o
In the unceasing fight against ignorance, I must point out (in, of course, a most genteel and discreet manner) than incredulous does not mean unbelievable …
w.
Well if we’re talking about eating the brains of other humans that might be a bad idea what with prion disease and all.
They had knives, and they weren’t exactly in a situation to bitch about their steaks not being tender enough.
If I ever get to the point where eating a fellow human becomes necessary, I can’t imagine being terribly picky about what part I get (I might pass on the hotdogs unless as a very last recourse, though). In fact, I imagine I would certainly prefer eating muscle over viscerae any day as that is my normal preference in cows.
Well, I didn’t say they couldn’t eat other muscle tissue – my point was that the OP missed the easiest and softest tissues.
And it’s not just a case of “not tender enough”. Try eating a thick steak without benefit of cooking or a meat grinder sometime. You’ll be slicing it really thin.
If my options are to either starve to death or go back to a Siberian gulag, I’ll happily slice my steak thin.
So will I, but the implication seems to be that they’re trying to do this surreptitiously, and the presence of a grown man being hacked slowly into teeny tiny bits will set off strong suspicions in even the dullest guard.
Maybe I’ve missed something. I thought the idea was that they escaped with the “cow” and then, when food ran out, killed him and ate him in order to be able to keep going. So the guard wouldn’t notice him being hacked to pieces.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Line-lifter…
Well, during the dry-runs while they’re still in the gulag but practicing who goes where and does what during the escape the guards would pretty well notice something going on.
Still, I think that bit about kidneys & blood was emphasized for effect. Seems like those who get stuck in mountain passes don’t have much of a problem working through a man-chop when they need to. Besides, they could always let the skeletal muscle age a bit to tender it up some. I think the “cow” idea makes a lot of sense considering how desperately awful gulag life must have been, I just don’t think they’d go to all the trouble for only some blood & kidneys.
Agreed. Which is why this set off my BS detector. My OP was really asking if anyone knew of a corroborative text.
Thanks for all of the input.
Steven
The thing is, you only really get 1 meal, two tops out of the “cow”. Theres no easy way to lug around 100 lbs of manflesh. Given that, it would make sense to eat the most nutritious and easily digestible parts and leave the flesh behind.