Dinner at Sebastian Zoesch’s new European cafe will cost you an arm or leg.
Or you could just swallow your pride and order the human liver pate.
When a
website recently launched to promote a Berlin restaurant offering up people on the menu as well as the reservation list, it caused an online sensation.
The unsettling eatery was not only trolling for customers, but also for menu items, as it asked those interested to donate any unwanted body parts.
In its job openings section, the restaurant was also looking for an “open minded” surgeon to fill out the restaurant's kitchen staff needs.
As background, it explained the cafe, called Flime, was inspired by the “compassionate cannibalism” of a Brazilian Waricaca tribe that founded a similar human meat market in South America.
Many figured it was a hoax, but there were just enough semi-true details — a thin skin of realism — to whet the palate.
Like the fact there is no apparent law in Germany outlawing one person from munching on a hunk of another, as long as it doesn’t involve murder and is consensual.
Local politicians condemned the cafe. Many on Berlin talk-radio found it distasteful. It made headlines around the world.
“And people were interested,” says Zoesch, who helped hatch the idea. “Even from as far away…as Afghanistan.”
Then, on Monday, the website — which some thought might be publicity for a new slasher film — morphed into a statement by The German Vegetarian Society (Vebu), lambasting meat eaters.
It was likely the most attention their cause has received since the society was formed back in 1892.
“I think, at the beginning, the message was all about cannibalism,” Zoesch tells QMI Agency from Berlin.
“Then it was about (manipulation) of the media. Now, at the end, our main message has been conveyed.”
Eating meat, no matter where from, is harming the planet, they argue.
And is there such a stretch from a cow to your brother-in-law Bill?
When they put ‘human liver pate’ up on an online auction, Zoesch says they managed to attract a high bid of around $1,000.
Which is almost enough to make you bite your tongue.
