Ever notice that the last name Cunningham is just a fancy way of saying Smartpig? Yeah. Well, it is.
So, why do we call it “ham” instead of “pig?” Because pigs are smart! And we don’t want to feel bad about eating them! Clever names like “ham” and “pork” and “bacon” and “pork rinds” are buffer words to keep us from having to think that we’re eating “sliced pig” and “gnashed pig” and “sizzling pig fat strips” and “pig rinds.” They keep you from staying awake and night thinking “oh god, I at way too many pig rinds, the crispy, salty rinds of one of the smartest animals! I am monster. I AM MONSTER.”
The only animals we don’t have meat-piece euphemisms for are the really stupid ones. Like fish, or chicken. Meat-vegetables. Think of all the great animals we could be eating if we just came up with cool euphemisms. I’d eat a pound of orangutan if you called it something stupid like “cromp.” Hell, this would be a great way to break through the modern taboo of eating people. “No, no, I’m not a ‘cannibal.’ I’m just eating a nice, juicy, vlarm.”
What would you guys name human-steak? Vlarm? Probably, right? Are there other options? Let me know.
T
I’d call human meat “sapiens meat”. It’s technically accurate and yet sounds better.
Erm, Soylent Green?
In Pirates of the Caribbean, they called it “long pork” –it took me a while to figure that joke out, maybe four or five viewings before my brain said, “Did you hear what I think you heard?”
Dude, long pork is terminology from the *early* 20th century. Cannibals reported to the civilized world that human meat tastes like pork, so we started euphemistically calling it long pork. There are quotes dating as early as 1929 when reputed academics refer to it as long pork.
I’d name Human-Steak “Not-Human Steak”
I would name my human meat “Soylent Green” for no reason than I can think of.
Strictly speaking ‘ham’ just means ‘leg’, so i guess it’s like ‘ribs’.. we’re not specifying the animal but we all know it’s a pig
then again if you eat the pig arms instead of the legs, they call it ‘butt’ and if you eat the meat of an animal’s back they call it loin, so… maybe people aren’t sure how body parts work
I’m really curious about when pigs starting having arms. Are you referring to forelegs, or do your hypothetical pigs have wings, too?
So they’re buffer words for individual body parts!
In the book “Under the Skin” by Michel Faber they called humans “vodsels,” and their meat when prepared as a food was called “voddissin.” I have to admit, it sounds pretty tasty. Sort of like venison.
My question: what would you consider Organic Human, and/or Free-Range Human? As an American, I’m pretty free range but certainly not organic. I imagine people who are both could get top-dollar, as a rarity.
I always just thought it was called SPAM
If you deep fry it enough and label it “Golden____s” based on the shape of the piece, human meat could probably make quite a profit.
“Humans thought they were smarter than dolphins because humans built stuff, like guns and cities, whereas all dolphins did was play around in the water. Of course, the dolphins thought they were smarter for that same reason.”
For shame, ASP. For shame.
The real reason is the animal words are all anglo saxon the meat words are all french who were the ones to eat the meat after 1066 and all that, the poor had who looked after the animals named them and only got to eat the nasty bits, gzzards chittalins and stuff
Ironically, human meat is can be referred to as ‘Long Pork’. Or, Long Pig.
Ong-Lay Ig-Pay in Pork-Latin!