Cannibalism - #20: The Senses

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

Of all the parts of a body, nothing epitomises a human more than the four sensory organs in our skull; the eyes, ears, nose and tongue. But do they fascinate serial killers and cannibals, or freak them out?

Andrei Chikatilo, The Rostov Ripper, a serial killer, cannibal and necrophile who murdered at least 52 women and children – it is said - chewed off their noses, cut out their tongues, sliced off their ears, and – having become obsessed with the Victorian theory of retinal optography - many had their eyes gouged out, as he believed that the last image his victims saw was recorded into their retina.

Weighing about 7.5 grams and one and a quarter inches in diameter (the same as a ping pong ball), the eye is composed mostly of water, proteins, lipids and carbohydrates with the cornea made of collagen. Held in place by the optic nerve and the ocular muscles, eyes can only be removed by force or trauma. With the vitreous and aqueous humors made of salts, sugars and proteins, although Dr Jim Stoppani, Yale certified nutritionist said “eyes contain an acidic solution which can make humans sick”, each eye contains 57 calories, the equivalent of 125 grams of apple, 12 grapes or 2 marshmallows.

In 2009, Angelo Mendoza Sr attacked his 4-year-old son and ate his left eye. He was charged with child cruelty, torture, and inflicting an injury to a child, and was later found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The eating of sheep eyes is common across many cultures, and according to those who have; "the trick to eating an eyeball is to keep it in your mouth for as long as possible, it’s slightly squishy, and delivers a succulent pop like a cherry tomato”, with “a rush of fatty flavour with a gelatinous, spongy texture like eating the fat and cartilage from a lamb chop, but a bit better”, and “whilst the inky black liquid” (the aqueous) “seeps down the throat, you’re left with the hard chewy lens like a pigs trachea”. Nice.

Eyes gross us out. In 2022, when Djalma Figueiredo was caught, the headline read ‘Cannibal who 'ate the eyes of victims' captured’ – as (apparently) it’s fine to eat the eyes of a different species, but it’s newsworthy to eat the eyes of our own.

James Serpell of the University of Pennsylvania said, “eyes represent faces… it's through the face that we learn to recognize and empathize with others”, which could be why many killers cover, close or remove their victim’s eyes after death, as once they’re gone, they want the victim to appear less like a human.

Ears. In 1942, at the Battle of Wake Island, veterans recalled “seeing Marines walking around with Jap ears stuck to their belts”. Lacking the symbolism of eyes, ears have long been a sick trophy of war.

As the only visible part of the ear, the pinna is on average 2.5 inches long and weighs just 3-6 grams. Made of skin and ridged cartilage, an ear contains just 25 calories, but it has no flavour and although it only takes 7lbs of pressure to rip an ear off, its texture can only be described as tough and chewy.

Most butchers state “the preparing of ears is tiresome”, as they require the wax to be scraped out and the hairs to be singed “to get rid of any scum”, before being boiled for 2 to 3 hours, then either sliced and heavily seasoned as they can be quite bland, or coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. Although, if you are looking for a bitter and buttery taste, leave the earwax in, as it contains 12.7 calories a gram.

The nose. Across 1997 and 1998, Mikhail Malyshev nicknamed ‘The Perm Cannibal’ was suspected of six murders, who he dismembered and ate. Having killed 16-year-old Natalia Suvorova with an axe, aided by his friends they ground her flesh into mince to make pelmeni (a Russian dumpling). But with the threesome falling out, he bit of the tip of his friends’ nose, chewed it, and then swallowed it,

Excluding the nasal bones, weighing roughly 14 grams, a nose contains 45 calories, and also made of cartridge, it’s neither tasty nor hygienic as we produce 1.5 litres of mucus a day as the nose is our first defence against dust and allergens, and – according to a study by a medical school in Southern California - “the average number of nose hairs in each nostril is 120 in the left and 122 in the right”.

When Andrei Chikatilo murdered his first victim, he bound her, beat her, stabbed her, and (like many others) although he severed her nose, there was no evidence that he ate it. And who can blame him?

The same can be said for the mouth, tongue and vocal cords, the last of the four sensory organs in our skull. In 1973, serial killer Edmund Kemper murdered his abusive mother with a clawhammer and slit her throat. In retaliation for years of humiliation, he cut off her head, screamed at it, smashed in her face, and (sick of her voice) he cut out her tongue and larynx, and threw it down the waste compactor.

But being too tough for the machine, it spat her tough vocal cords back up, of which Ed said “that seemed appropriate, as much as she'd bitched and screamed and yelled at me over so many years".

As mentioned before, with the tongue “soft, tender with a luxurious taste”, Ed Gein having turned a pair of lips on a window shade drawstring, the windpipe as slightly chewy and the larynx too tough for kitchen equipment, for good reason, few cannibals would consider these organs are suitable snacks.

And rightly, as although the eating of a thigh, a heart or even the genitals is sexually motivated, the sensory organs are symbolic of who a victim was, as most of our memories are sensory experiences.

The idea of retinal optography – where the last image a victim sees (being their death) is imprinted on their eyes - may seem ludicrous to a rational mind, but across many cultures, that theory holds weight in the more superstitious; with a nose retaining its last smell and the ears its last sound, just as often (in a mortuary) a corpse will seem to speak its last word. So, is it really that strange that a serial killer would attempt to destroy every piece of evidence, no matter how silly that may sound?

Join me tomorrow to uncover even more body parts which a cannibal couldn’t or shouldn’t eat.