From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!bj
Newsgroups: net.singles
Title: Re: Rabbit!jj"s lunch menu
Article-I.D.: yale-com.537
Posted: Tue Dec 14 19:43:00 1982
Received: Wed Dec 15 19:33:13 1982
References: u1100a.264

     For all its persistence, the custom of Man eating Man (and @i(vice
versa)) has never become really common .  .  .  One problem is that
widespread enthusiasm for the practice tends to be self-limiting, if
not self-extinguishing.  Another is that if the enthusiasm doesn't
infect the intended donors, their uncooperative behavior leads to no
end of wrangling and bitterness.  And then there is the problem of
disease.

     Now, lumberjacks catch neither the Chestnut Blight nor the Dutch
Elm Disease.  Lobstermen are likewise immune to the ills that affect
their crustacean prey.  But some diseases of poultry can be caught
by their keepers; and with mammalian livestock, matters are much worse.
When Man is both predator an prey, @i(everything) is catching, from
the Common Cold on up to the Black Plague even before the donor is
dispatched, along with a variety of ailments which can be ingested
with the meal itself.

     Some, like Tuberculosis, are quite rare, especially if one
exercises reasonable care in selecting one's prey.  Hepatitis is more
common; more difficult to detect without an elaborate routine of testing
and questioning of the donor, which tends to alarm him prematurely;
and in the case of some virulent strains, almost impossible to destroy
without burning the meat to a cinder and sometimes not even then.  As
for Trichinosis, one study has shown about a 2% infestation of pork
and a 20% infestation of people.  In theory, one could limit one's
diet to devout Buddhists and Orthodox Jews; in practice, however, one
can never be sure that the donor isn't a late convert.  The usual
precaution is simply to cook Man very thoroughly, as with pork only
more so.

                                        -- *To Serve Man: A Cookbook
                                           for People*, by Karl Wu:rf
                                           (Owlswick Press, 1976)

[Found in *Orbit 19*, edited by Damon Knight (Harper & Row, 1977)]

I, personally, am a vegetarian, but I do not want the more adventurous
usenet readers to get in trouble when they start eating each other.
Cooking should be no problem with all the flamers on the net.
					B.J.
					decvax!yale-comix!herbison-bj
					Herbison-BJ@Yale