this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
839 points (96.9% liked)

Comic Strips

15698 readers
2471 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 59 points 2 months ago (13 children)

Human flesh is said to smell and taste very similar to pork. At least one culture that partook in cannibalism called human meat "long pig" probably because of that. I'm also fairly sure I've heard stories of fire and rescue workers reporting delicious pork-roast smells that turned out absolutely horrifying and put them off pork for a very long time.

It may also be one of the reasons that certain religious texts and cultures forbid the eating of pork. It's probably more to do with how pork spoils quickly in the climates where those religions originated, as well as the risk of roundworms if it isn't cooked properly, but it does also stop the butcher from selling you a pork steak that isn't actually pork, so that's a bonus.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Origin of “long pig”, copied from this Reddit comment:

I think you might be right. In A St. Johnston's Camping among Cannibals (which the OED quotes in its etymology of the term), he describes how:

The expression "long pig" is not a joke, nor a phrase invented by Europeans, but one frequently used by the Fijians, who looked upon a corpse as ordinary butcher's meat, and call a human body puaka balava, " long pig," in contradistinction to puaka dina, or " real pig."

Which makes it sound like they were just distinguishing between the length of pigs and people.

load more comments (12 replies)