Would you be prepared to sacrifice your testicles, stomach fat or ears for the sake of high-class cuisine? A soon-to-open Berlin restaurant is touting for diners willing to do just that: Donate body parts that it says it will turn into gourmet meals according to the age-old cooking habits of an Amazonian tribe infamous for its cannibalism.
The promotion has been declared grossly distasteful by a growing number of protesters, who say it is in particularly bad taste following the case of a real cannibal in Germany.
In a prominent advertising campaign on the Internet, in German newspapers and on television, the restaurant, Flime, is appealing for willing donors and diners to become members of what it hints at being a new dining movement.
“Members declare themselves willing to donate any part of their body,” the advertisement reads, adding that any resulting hospital costs will be taken on by the restaurant. They say they are also looking to employ an “open-minded surgeon.”
The location of the restaurant — if it exists — is being kept a secret, as is the identity of the owners and investors behind it. As a foretaste of its menu, Flime is suggesting traditional Brazilian dishes such as bolinho, which it describes as “fried tatar balls with a sweet-sour dip,” or feijoada, a main course consisting of “various pieces of meat with black beans and rice.” It does not specify what type of meat is used.
The restaurant cites as its inspiration the indigenous Brazilian Waricaca tribe, which once practiced the ritual of “compassionate cannibalism,” or eating parts of the corpse of a loved one to emphasize the connection between the living and the dead, which was said to help with mourning.
The advertising campaign has provoked incredulity and outrage in equal measure. Michael Braun, the vice chairman of Berlin’s Christian Democrat party, said he had received several protest e-mails calling for the restaurant to be banned. He had been unable to get to the bottom of who was behind what he said might be “a stunt.”
“I’m working on the assumption that this is some sort of a warped joke,” he told Bild. “But it’s disgusting, not least because it wasn’t long ago that we had the case of the Berliner who was murdered by a cannibal.”
Braun was referring to the case of the computer technician Bernd Jurgen Brandes, who in 2001 volunteered himself to the self-confessed cannibal Armin Meiwes, who chopped off his penis and prepared it as a dish seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic.
Meiwes then killed Brandes and consumed his flesh over the following months. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006.
The case drew attention to a growing underground cannibal movement. Experts believe cannibalism has about 800 followers in Germany alone, only a minimal number of whom have carried out the practice.
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