Doner donors

Ah, Autumn - season of misseds and mellowed fruitiness.
As the gymnosperms embark upon their annual autophagous process of shedding their leaves before snorting up the mulchy goodness in the spring, the thoughts of Trousers turn to wondering why homophagia is so frowned upon by our society.

For many years now, our society has condoned cannibalism, of a sort, through the donor card system. I don’t know what else you would call it. If you had an old car whose parts you could use to mend another vehicle, we would describe such recycling as cannibalism. All very effective and efficient and a process that has happened in humans, with hearts, lungs, kidneys, livers, blood, bone marrow, corneas etc. etc. being re-used to patch up those folks who have failed their MOT.

Why then is still a continued resistance to using the other, more appetising bits of the body as food ? Why are we not carrying cards that tell people what to do with our buttocks (chateaubriand), ribs (presumably spare) and lips, eyelids and aresholes (saveloys). Maybe rangy old great aunt Hermione would only be enough for a few sandwiches, but uncle Bertrand would see us proud for Sunday lunch and provide enough cold cuts for supper for the rest of the week.

What of the fat: we are constantly bombarded with the message that ever more people are dieing of obesity-related conditions but ne’er a fig is mooted about rendering down these tallow-laden tubbies into a form of biodiesel. This would not only be effective recycling but also a form of poetic justice as they payback for all the extra fuel that they would have consumed during the course of theri lives on escalators and in lifts, aircraft, hearses etc.

It is a shame that, given the British reticence to engage in the consumption of odd things such as horse, snails, frogs, garlic and wine (we’ll leave that to the Old Enemy, thank you very much), I don’t see us adopting this practice anytime soon, unless Europe were to ban it, in which case we might take it up just to spite them.

LargetrouserS: May contain nuts