Hufu (novelty item)

History

Hufu was touted as "the healthy human flesh alternative" for "cannibals who want to quit", as well as a product for anthropology students studying cannibalism. According to its website, hufu is also "a great convenience food for cannibals. No more Friday night hunting raids! Stay home and enjoy the good healthy taste of hufu."

Mark Nuckols (founder and CEO of Hufu, LLC)—then a student at Tuck School of Business—claimed that the concept of Hufu occurred to him when he ate a tofurkey sandwich while reading "Good To Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture", a book on cannibalism by anthropologist Marvin Harris. Nuckols is also an honors JD graduate of Georgetown University Law Center.

Alongside a shopping portal for the joke product itself and merch items like T-shirts and DVDs, the website included recipes attributed to Aztec and Papua New Guinea foodways in which either Hufu or human flesh could be used.

Reaction

Samantha Bee of The Daily Show interviewed Nuckols. In the interview, he said "I think that a lot of the pleasure of eating the Hufu product, is imagining you're eating human flesh. For that moment, you can join the fraternity of cannibals... If you really want to come as close as possible to the experience of cannibalism, Hufu is your best option." Nuckols was also interviewed by a variety of radio and print media, including The Harvard Crimson and The Stanford Daily. Stuff You Should Know, a podcast from HowStuffWorks.com, touched on Hufu during the introduction of the "How the Donner Party Worked" episode in March 2012.

It has been argued that Hufu presented consumers with a way of circumventing both the taboo and the illegality of eating human flesh. Others have commented on how Hufu's branding made it unclear whether the product was meant to be a true substitute for eating human flesh, or merely a novelty substitute for animal flesh, like other vegetarian meat-like products. In response to public skepticism, Nuckols has gone on the record calling his product a "bona fide undertaking."

Closure of site

The Hufu home page eathufu.com closed as of mid-2006. According to Mark Nuckols, he closed the website simply because "the world has moved on past hufu, and the site was more expensive to run than it was worth." The web design studio that created the site maintains a case history illustrating the design concepts that were present in the site.

References

References

1. Duray. (12 May 2005). "Tuck student markets flesh-flavored tofu on website". The Dartmouth.
2. (2006). ["The Future of Meat Without Animals"]({{Google Books). Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd..
3. Hudak, Kevin C. (9 May 2005). "The Dartmouth Review: Interview with a Cannibal".
4. (2008). ["Social Violence in the Prehispanic American Southwest"]({{Google Books). The University of Arizona Press.
5. Samantha Bee. (2005). "Daily Show: Bee - Flesh in the Pan". [[Comedy Central]].
6. Doherty, Elizabeth M. (30 November 2005). "Pushing the Culinary Barrier".
7. Flail, Gregory James. (9 June 2006). "The Sexual Politics of Meat Substitutes". Georgia State University.
8. Roth, Luanne K.. (December 2010). "Talking Turkey: Visual Media and the Unraveling of Thanksgiving". University of Missouri-Columbia.
9. (2006). ["Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S."]({{Google Books). Harvest.
10. "Eat Hufu".
11. "Case Studies: Argument from Design".