On Cannibalism

A lot has happened since I last wrote something on this here blog. The Jays started playing terribly and ditched Rolen and Rios. I took a 2 and a half week vacation in Toronto. I went to the Edmonton Folk Festival. My bloody Master's thesis keeps on dragging on.

I'll cover some of these topics and others in the future, but probably won't be able to write longer pieces for a few weeks (much to your surprise I'm sure). However, on the advice of a wise man, I will try to use this space as a way to clear my head of science when I find myself stuck during my thesis writing. These posts will be shorter and more comedic (at least, that will be the attempt) than most of my work in the past. This is one such post.

A friend of mine has been trying out the online dating scene and recently joined a new site which tries to match people based on the results of a survey. I have no idea if this is the site often advertised on the television; I have not asked. What I do know is that one of the questions in the survey he completed is as follows:

If you were offered the opportunity to eat human meat prepared any way you like, would you at least try it?

* Yes
* No
* Only as a last resort for survival.

Now this question is hilarious for a myriad of reasons, including a large number of inside jokes that I will not go into here. However, something about that last selection struck me because of the stated opportunity to have the "human meat prepared any way you like." How exactly would this situation come about?

I'm sure I'm not the only one whose mind immediately goes to planes crash-landing in the Andes when the topic of cannibalism comes up*. Apparently, planes never crash in any other mountain ranges, or at least no other mountain ranges inspire cannibalism. Anyways, let us run with the Andes situation for the moment.

As the survey question allows us to have the human meat anyway we want, clearly one of our fellow passengers - specifically the non-dead ones, although I suppose we might only be able to count on our undead fellow passengers - must include say, the Iron Chefs. And when the Iron Chefs travel, they (obviously) bring along all necessary spices and cooking apparatus with them in case of such an emergency. As such, our (possibly zombie) Iron Chef friends have access to a fully functional stove, grill, deep-fryer, etc. and an army of assistants (who may or may not also be zombies). This assortment of apparatus were unharmed in the plane crash. Since they can't run on electricity, they must all run on propane, of which there is an abundance (it is preposterous to believe otherwise). The Iron Chefs, because of their love of cooking, will then happily make you a four or five course meal of your choosing, with the not so secret ingredient of human flesh. Personally, I would avoid the flesh of the undead (except perhaps as a garnish), but you are free to do as you like.

Regardless, I think that we have answered the question of whether a situation may arise in which you have to eat human meat to survive but are given the option of eating it in any way you want, with a resounding yes. For any employee of the aforementioned dating site who stumbles across this blog post (or perhaps is already one of my many many readers), I offer a pre-emptive "you're welcome" for devising a situation that will help you make your survey question more concrete. You should start mailing me the royalty checks as soon as possible. Same goes for anyone who wants to make my "zombie Iron Chef crash-landed in the Andes cannibal" story into a movie. Keep in mind, the existence of this blog post will make any lawsuits really easy.

* Note: this assertion is not completely true. I often think of a particular Kids in the Hall sketch seen here.