Holy mucal crustacean!

I hate to belabour the point, but my lunchtime Facebook checks have just acquired a punitive element.

Why pay for the cream when you can cut out the middleman?

The Healthy Human Flesh Alternative

I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who had gastronomic fantasies while reading about Hannibal Lecter’s meals of human cheeks, thymus glands and brains. I enjoy eating weird food. I frequently patronize this stall in Adam Road that sells a mean bowl of lamb-brain soup. I’m the person you’ll find scraping and sucking at bones to get at that chunk of marrow. I have fond memories of the plate of pig lung I found at a Taipei roadside stall.

So I was quite pleased to stumble upon a webpage describing Hufu, which is the tofu facsimile of human flesh, for “cannibals who want to quit”.  

What does it taste like? According to the FAQ,

“If you’ve never had human flesh before, think of the taste and texture of beef, except a little sweeter in taste and a little softer in texture. Contrary to popular belief, people do not taste like pork or chicken.”

Just ask the shade of William Seabrook, an American journalist-occultist-explorer who died in 1945. He somehow managed to obtain a chunk of human flesh from a hospital intern, then cooked it and ate it and wrote at length about its taste.

“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 colour, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable.”

‘Tis a strange sensation to feel my mouth water and my stomach churn at the same time. 

Seabrook’s account sounds authentic.

Too bad Hufu is not.

It’s just a spoof that never really existed. Its ‘creator’, Mark Nuckols (Knuckles??? How apt) actually had a website that closed after about a year in existence. People tried to buy Hufu online but never received their goods. When they called the number listed in the site, all they got was this poor besieged woman who was completely bamboozled at the weird calls.

The official Hufu website has disappeared as well, but various sites remain that still describe the stuff.

If Mr. Nuckols had pulled this stunt in Singapore, somebody would have sued the pants off him before applying the rattan.

Still, I wonder about Hufu.

“I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner.” – Hannibal Lecter

Loincloths: Liberation From The Oppressive Panty

Today’s post is on the latest Japanese innovation in intimates…

… LOINCLOTHS FOR WOMEN <thunderous applause>…

Proudly presented by Wacko Wacoal, based on the Japanese fundoshi and billed as the “ultimate liberation item for women”.

They come in a bra-and-panty loincloth set, and the bra looks like this:

Image from Wacoal

There are two versions of the loincloth. The hourglass shape kinda makes sense to me, but the oblong one looks like it has to be bunched up in the middle… hmmm…

Images from Wacoal

 

The loincloth is tied like a butt apron, then brought forward between the legs, tucked under the apron strings, and then the rest of the material hangs in front like a skirt… so:

Image from Wacoal

So far, about 5000 women have bought these, and numbers will rise as they begin to be imported into Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

What, no Western representation?

OK, while the skirty look is quite cute, there are 5000 women who now have to deal with the following problems:

1. First of all, cannot even wear the damn bra the normal way. Must tie top, must tie bottom.
2. Bulge-fest with jeans, slim-fit pants or skirts, leggings, or snug dresses. Peekaboo-fest with shorts and miniskirts.
3. Therefore, stuck with trapeze dresses, big skirts and T-shirts with baggy bermudas.
4. Unless brave enough to wear to the beach as is.
5. In which case, must pray very hard that wind does not blow.
6. How to wear stockings????? Over… cannot. Under… gross.
7. Must untie and retie at every trip to the ladies. Good luck if having stomach flu.
8. How to stick the pad on every month??? Paste where??? These people must be in league with the tampon manufacturers.
9. For relevant populations, average guy = clueless at normal female underwear. By the time he figures these out, it will be time for breakfast… in which case, the loincloth can be relocated around the neck for use as an apron. Aha. Multifunctionality.

I have to wonder if this is an April Fools’ joke.

A Mouthful Of Death

While reading about the monitor lizard I saw on Saturday, I also did a quick Internet search on Komodo dragons, and found a fascinating fact.

Komodo dragons are a giant species of lizard and are also carnivorous.

Here’s what I found so interesting about the way they kill: in addition to having 60 sharp teeth, these teeth are almost completely covered with a thin layer of gum tissue. When the K-dragons bite, the gum tissue is naturally lacerated and will bleed a little.

The blood in the saliva provides an excellent growth medium for about 60 types of highly-toxic bacteria that cause potentially-fatal septicemia. In the end, the victim of a K-dragon’s bite dies either of being bitten or being poisoned.

The really clever bit is that K-dragons seem to be immune to these poisons. When they fight among themselves, they don’t die from mutual bites.

They also have really bad breath.

Foot-Binding

While casually surfing about shoes, I came across the topic of Chinese foot-binding. Being Chinese myself, one would expect that I’d possess an instinctive knowledge of the subject, but this is simply not true.

Having bandaged feet doesn’t sound so awful, but what usually isn’t described is the process of having a child’s second to last toes broken, then wrapped underneath the foot and kept there over time until they stay of their own accord and the foot takes on the shape of an ice-cream cone with the pointy end forward. Not to mention having the arch broken and super-arched till the foot becomes folded in half like so much origami.

 Looking at this picture gives me a distinct sensation of physical unwellness. That cleft in the middle of the foot. Those boneless toes. Does she have to unwrap them from the bottom of the foot for cleaning? Peel them away from the sole? I don’t see any toenails. And just how long are those toes?!

Not many things make me queasy, but this certainly does. Human beings have a lot to answer for. Thank God He let me be born in this modern age. All the same, I’ll never look at a pointy shoe in quite the same way ever again.