Houston might be dropping in the fat city rankings, but the folks at Slate.com can’t stop talking about our cuisine. First, there was the write-up on wholesaler Sysco. Now they’ve got an item on our latest delicacy: human flesh.
As you’ve probably heard by now, a local man has been charged with killing his ex-girlfriend and allegedly barbecuing her remains on an outdoor grill.
This alleged atrocity prompts Slate to ask: What’s the smell of burning human flesh?
The answer: “Burning skin has a charcoallike smell, while setting hair on fire produces a sulfurous odor…The operators at crematoriums heat bodies to 1,750 degrees Fahrenheit for two to three hours; they liken the smell close-up to a burnt pork roast…Emergency workers and survivors of war atrocities say charred flesh simply smells like nothing else.”
You can read the whole story here. — Keith Plocek
This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2007.
