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In the event of war or famine I will dispatch my drunken next door neighbors the Drunkie McDrunk-Drunks on the cannibal culinary menu. They have been marinating for years. They should last a good month. They are almost veal by now. I would serve them with mashed and maybe a root veggie.

Yep.
I saw that episode recently too.
I am not an adventurous eater when it comes to meat, in fact I am now a semi-veggie. Some animals I think we just don't have to be eating simply because they are technically edible, and some because I have issues with the farming and slaughter. I would however, eat a human with no issue.
Naturally I don't mean just gnaw someone like a zombie, or kids etc...
But if folks volunteered, or left donation instructions in the case of premature death, heck yeah.

I really like Jerzee's take, and I have a list of folks who I would gladly eat that fit in a similar category. I am not even sure I would need war or famine, just legality. Somehow I doubt we taste very good in general though......

@beth1 ~ no fuman chew?

@jerzee, girl you made me howl!!! i know the type of neighbors you mean, don't throw a match to close to them, either. they just might go up in flames. i bet their recycle bin is usually pretty full!!

well, i believe that our natural instincts take over -- and maybe your instinct is to run the other way at the thought of eating another human -- or maybe it's -- throw another finger on the barbie!

nothing in life surprises me anymore.

No - wouldn't eat my neighbors, their dog, cats or gold fish. If I had to sustain myself, I'd probably end up eating tree bark and grass until I just dissolved away!

Think about it - all the hair dye, cologne, lotions, soaps, cheap medications, etc.etc. that we as humans absorb compounded with all the crap that a lot of people insist on eating - putting aside all the humanitarian issues, I think we're all walking chemical waste dumps.

Why would I want to ingest that - then again we probably do anyway through the food supply!

Interesting post, causing my brain to explode. So I'm going to stop writing now!

I'm thinking that if I did...... I'd want to make sure and eat someone local natural and probably a vegetarian...and.. mmm...mmm...mmm...toasty!

I'd eat a human (at least some) long before it ever occured to me to eat a dog or even a cat. As far as us being chemical waste dumps, Thats me and i'm bitter and stringy too ;-)

@PumpkinBear: This is an interesting variation on the "Would You Eat . . . People?" topic that FastFoodCritic posted a while back. And, really, if Bourdain and others are wondering about cannibalism, you can't be too much of a freak.

If human-flavored Spam existed and I had the opportunity to sample it, would I try it? No. Call me incurious, or weak, but my disgust alarm goes off at the idea of eating human. I couldn't get it near my lips. Of course, I have no idea what I'd do if I were in a situation like the Donner Party. There is no frame of reference, as I've never been close to starving.

This question makes me think of The Road, Cormac McCarthy's book. Did anybody read that? Cannibalism figures readily in the plot.

Once at a dinner party my parents and some of their friends put together to welcome a job candidate, one rather abrasive fellow asked the already freaked out candidate, "Of all the people in our department, whom would you eat first?" Poor guy just froze. Didn't get the job, for reasons I hope were unrelated!

@Jerzee ~ I love how your mind works. Drunks already marinated. Priceless!

Please include fava beans and a nice chianti.

@susquehanna, this is a question addressed by Michael Ian Black in the very awesome McSweeney's.

I do love so love him.

@BobbieAnne: I'd like to read Swift's essay again. Thanks for reminding me of it.

@chisai: Oh! Michael Ian Black from VH1. Seriously, I was not cool enough in 2003 for McSweeney's . . . nor am I cool enough today. I am a big steaming pile of lame.

Don't think of it so much as a fellow human think more along the lines of "long pig". Mmmm, long pig!

my parents were refugees, and while they've never had human meat, there are accounts of starving people on boats who ate, well the remains of someone who had died. it was basically about survival.

as to your question if i would ever try human meat, out of curiosty, no. to survive, well currently i have the luxury of saying no, but you never know until you're thrust into that situation.

No. I would not eat a fellow human. But, I wouldn't judge anyone who did. To each his own. I mean, I guess i would if it was that or die. But, not just for fun. I try to go veggie for the most part, so maybe that is why is it so gross to me.
The chickens who live at my son's school (it's a ranch) eat chicken nuggets every Friday when the kids drop them on the ground. My son thinks it's the greatest thing ever. But then, I'm not sure those spongy frozen things really have chicken in them.

there are more bugs than people, if we're discussing survival. and I'm geeked out by the thought. I don't think I could eat horse, and I am still working on rabbit, so I gotta say human is off. and fuman (very very funny!) - if we taste like chicken, why not just eat chicken?

@sadiepix - Babycakes! Yes, that's a good one.

Reminds me of the classic comic image of the two cannibals eating a clown, and one looking at the other saying: "Does this taste funny to you?"

@chisai--Thanks! I could not remember the title!

I would pay thousands of dollars to eat human meat. I'm not kidding. I've always wanted to try it, but I haven't really figured out an affordable way to. Oh well, I will keep on dreaming the impossible dream.

By the way, I bet the meat on the butt tastes the best.

It depends on the side dishes.

This has to be one of the best Talk topics ever! I've been laughing out loud reading the responses to this post. And eating placenta is soooo not the same as eating human flesh. Please. To answer the question posted: Sure. It's harder for me to consider eating dog over human flesh. This is clearly a problem, I realize...but I probably would hesitate very little if there was a dire need. Out of pure curiosity? Probably no.

i once had a vegetarian restaurant called "the cannibal cafe" ... our
line was "we'd love to have you for dinner"....

@overw8 - Or "To Serve Man," the great Twilight Zone ep where we think the aliens are here to help yus but discover their book "To Serve Man" is actually a cookbook.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Sweeney Todd yet... ("with the price of meat what it is when you get it, if you get it...").

The problem with Soylent Green, is once you know the secret, it's a really boring movie.

What an interesting thread. I would not try human meat out of curiousity, but nor would I try dog or cat meat. I'm sure that if I was starving to death, I would eat it though. I wouldn't try a human-flavored Spam-like product basically because I don't eat that kind of ultra-prepared food regardless of flavoring. Plus, how would I know how accurate their flavor was? Regarding habitual cannibalism, see "kuru," a mad-cow-like disease prevalent among a Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea, which practices ritual cannibalism.

Another thing that totally grosses me out is the idea of meat grown in labs or factories. Or really, anything manufactured like that. Quorn for example makes me queasy just to think about. So definitely no lab-grown synthetic human meat.

yikes, no - especially anything with crispy skin, the smell would be impossible to tolerate ... think that would trigger some genetically-based nausia with me, let alone the horrific thought of all this

I'm thinking it'd be a great way for child molesters and cop killers to pay their debt to society. Plus, it would solve that whole "overcrowded prison" quandry.

sign me up. i've been waiting to taste me some good people meats