Cannibalism - #15: The Kidneys

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TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE: Cannibalism (munching) “could you eat a whole human being? (munching) With the help of a doctor, a scientist and a chef, I set out to see if it’s possible. Cannibalism: part fifteen – the kidneys”. (burp)

It’s odd that cannibal will eat hearts, brains and eyeballs, but you rarely hear of them eating a kidney.

It was in the mid-19th century penny dreadful series ‘The String of Pearls’ that Thomas Prest unleashed the seemingly fictional account of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd. As a typical British story of class, poverty and money, Todd slit the throats of his wealthy customers, robbed and flipped his barber’s chair so their bodies slid into the basement where Mrs Lovett made them into savory pies.

Nicknamed ‘the pie eaters’ by Germans, British people love pies, especially when topped with a thick crust, made of off-cuts of offal, sprinkled with a stingy assortment of six peas, and drenched in gravy. And yet, you rarely hear of a cannibal, especially a British one, turning the victim’s kidneys into pies.

Located below the rib cage on either side of the spine, the kidneys are two bean-shaped organs about the size of a fist, which remove waste from the blood, produce urine and help control blood pressure. Although relatively small, they filter 50 gallons / 200 litres of blood a day, roughly 2 ½ baths, and able to generate Vitamin D, when your skin and liver fails to process it, your kidneys will finish the job.

In Steve, our average UK male, it’s normal that his right kidney weighs 130 grams, and the left one is heavier as it’s slightly higher and closer to the heart. According to the study of paleolithic era cannibals, the kidneys are ranked among the least calorific body parts with just 375 calories each, barely enough for a single meal. Dr Jim Stoppani, a Yale nutritionist said “kidneys are filled with waste so best to avoid those”, and yet they are incredibly nutritious, as a single kidney would fulfil a cannibals recommended daily intake of vitamins B1, B2, B6, B12, copper, niacin, folate, biotin, iron, zinc and selenium, helping to provide greater energy, lesser risk of cancer and heart diseases, and a stronger immune system.

In 1963, Czechoslovakian child-killer Josef Kulík lured two young boys - Vladimír (aged 6) and Oldřich (aged 9) - into a car, attacked them with an axe, cut their stomachs open, masturbated over the bodies, roasted their intestines and offal over a fire and ate it. Later found wrapped in a handkerchief was the boy’s kidneys, as well as a spleen and a heart. Like others, this cannibal derived a sexual thrill from the killing and ingesting of body parts, but for whatever reason, neither kidney was eaten.

Lacking the heart’s symbolism, kidneys are unfairly lumped with other offal like the intestines and the tongue. In the brutality against the Taiwanese Formosa tribe by Chinese Army in 1981, having killed a tribesman, “the head was severed and exhibited.... the body was either divided among its captors and eaten, or sold to high officials… with the kidney, liver, heart, and soles of the feet considered the most desirable portions, and they were cut up into small pieces, boiled, and eaten in the form of soup”.

So, why don’t cannibals tend to eat the kidneys if they’re so tasty and nutritious? Possibly the smell, as kidneys have a pungent aroma of urine, and when the urine crystallises, they form kidney stones.

Also, like the heart and other offal, kidneys require preparation, which as consumers we don’t realise as when purchased they are pre-prepared by a skilled butcher to remove the membrane, the filament layer, the fat lobe, the connective tissue and are soaked in salt water and lime to remove the stench.

Chef Delia Smith wrote “provided they’re cored and washed, they should have no trace of urine”, and being flavoursome, “they make a superb meat for curries”, or if flash-fried, “they have a tender texture and a deep, slightly gamey flavor” said to be “silky and rewarding”, but only if prepared properly.

Only in fiction do we hear of cannibals with a refined enough palate to know how to cook a delicate and flavoursome piece of meat as the kidney, as often being nothing but uncouth yobs, they might as well munch on a Big Mac. And although in Britain we traditionally put kidneys in pies, stewing makes them tough and leathery, so again, if prepared properly, a kidney is best served flash-fried in clarified butter, or with cayenne pepper, cream and a bit of paprika, you’ve got yourself a devilled kidney. Yum.

The nearest we get to a real-life Sweeney Todd & Mrs Lovett is Dmitry & Natalia Baksheeva ‘The Krasnodar Cannibals’, who killed dozens over 18 years, which they documented in videos, kept detailed recipes of and boasted that they baked the flesh and offal into pies which they sold to cafes.

Having feasted on human remains for two decades, it’s no surprise that in 2020, Dimitri died of type one diabetes, as (although hard to prove) it was suspected that with kidneys being high in cholesterol and likely to cause hemochromatosis, that (ironically) it was their victim’s own offal which killed him.

Join me tomorrow as we explore another delicacy among the offal… the lungs.