Customer Reviews

Dinner with a Cannibal: The Complete History of Mankind's Oldest Taboo

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The history and psychology is far more interesting, ancient, and intricate than Thomas Harris would lead you to believe after reading The Silence of the Lambs. Travis-Henikoff takes her dual loves of food and cultural anthropology and weaves an excellent description of cannibalism. She begins with a very clear description of all the kinds of food humans eat. This puts the reader in the proper mindset: to understand cultures other than your own, you have to stop thinking that your culture is the only one that has it right. I must admit, I learned more about the edible parts of an animal from this book than I would have liked, but this knowledge helped me to remember throughout the book that humans have a special relationship with food.

She then explains the various types: exocannibalism (eating enemies), endocannibalism (eating loved ones) and survival cannibalism (the Donner Party). All of this goes along with the special relationship with food. She is not judgmental of the societies that practiced cannibalism; in fact, she makes it feel foolish to denigrate "savages" who eat their loved ones (sometimes negatively effecting their own health) to make sure their souls are completely gone to the other side. She is not judgmental of those who are forced into cannibalism because of their situations, such as soldiers forced to eat their captives (though she does appropriately rebuke their commanders) or the men who crashed in the Andes. She does a wonderful job of describing their situations and of showing how these people accepted their acts as their new normal.

She gives almost no attention to those who act outside of societal norms; cannibalistic serial killers do not tell us useful things about a culture in the same way as cannibalistic funerary rights do. She does, however, show how deeply rooted cannibalism is in our psyches, both by showing how long humans have been cannibals and also by delineating all the cannibals in our children's stories. Unfortunately, she does go into quite a few tangents-all related to anthropology and interesting, but not adding significantly to understanding her thesis.

Dinner with a Cannibal shows the reader what so many books on the anthropology of food try so hard to explain: food is a vital part of our lives, cultures, histories, and futures. Our religious beliefs, health, and societal structure all circle around what we put into our bodies. This is a book about life more than death, about food more than sickness, and an attempt to overcome ethnocentrism.

Travis-Henikoff (T-K), the daughter of a master chef and paleoanthropologist has written the book she was born to write. Dinner with a Cannibal is a superior book on every level that is researched well enough to be useful to both Anthropologists and lovers of the quirky, strange and interesting. As a reader who falls into the latter category, I recommend this book to absolutely everyone.

T-K uses her extensive research to tell a story that moves as it illuminates, covering topics that give context to cannibalism beyond sitting down to a nice meal of human flesh. Do not expect a glorification of salacious events, but rather a style of writing that allows the facts and her conversations to shine in a way that makes you want more after 304 pages.

Buy this book and share it with a friend. (My roomate dibbed it as soon as I brough it home). Better yet, leave it on your coffee table as a conversation starter.


For people who love these types of books I also recommend: Stiff by Mary Roach, Mutants(s) by Armand Marie Leroi (little heavy on the science if that's your thing), Execution by Geoffrey Abbott, and Infection by Gerald N. Callahan. But not until you finish this one.

There were a few grammatical errors, and I wish there was a complete set of end notes, but overall this book was fantastic. This is the kind of nonfiction I deeply enjoy: hard facts mixed with personal stories and a lively use of language. The range of coverage of the book is impressive - from cannibalism in animals to simply odd culinary practices to the amazingly variable forms of cannibalism throughout human history all over the world. Simply a documentation of early-20th century Amazonian and New Guinean cultural practices this is not. My reactions while reading this book ranged from laughing out loud to jaw-on-the-floor wonder. Highly recommended.

This is a great book. It should appeal to everyone, from academics to laymen. It's not just about cannibalism but about the human condition, history, food and a lot of topics that are germane to us all. Travis-Henikoff's writing is excellent...it is hard not to read it in one sitting. I was initially turned on to the book's website where you can get a good idea of what is in the book: http://www.dinnerwithacannibal.com. You will love this book...interesting stuff.

When one mentions cannibals, we cringe as an image comes to mind of men dacing around a cauldron boiling another human. Many do not realize that we, too, may be cannibals, most people are! How is that, you say? Travis-Henikoff's DINNER WITH A CANNIBAL delves into the history of cannibalism with gusto leaving nary a culture uninvestigated, including us. I joined the cannibal clan at three years old, when did you? Wonderfully written and entertaining, it humorously answers that question, but the book is no joke. It is a well researched, scholarly work into man's indulgence in any sort of human substance.

Great book, fun, scholarly and irreverent. If you are too PC to have a sense of humor about who you are or are still caught up in the myths of the "noble savage," it will offend you (of with luck it may educate you). I thoroughly enjoyed it and ended up reading many excerpts from it to friends. Yes, she may have missed or miss-quoted a few scholarly references, but the basic facts and some great stories are there. If she is ever in town, would love to have her for dinner (sorry, over for dinner)!

This item came in the condition mentioned, fast shipping and great price for the product.

I'm sorry. I wanted to like this book, I really did.

It was referenced in a blog posting of a photographer whom I admire. Interestingly this 20 year old photographer has written a better account of meeting a cannibal than Mrs. Travis-Henikoff. [...]

Regardless - this book is simply atrocious.

Let's start with basic grammar and story-telling. In well written books most grammatical errors can be overlooked. Comma splices and run-on-sentences can detract from a well crafted tale but won't ruin it. Unfortunately there is no well crafted tale to detract from and Mrs. Travis-Henikoff's overuse of parentheses, commas and colons is just painful.

Moving onto the story-telling aspect of the book we are once again left wanting. Oh there are plenty of stories to be told but most of them aren't about cannibals.

In an attempt to show that many animals practice cannibalism Mrs. Travis-Henikoff states that salmon die after spawning to provide food for their young (p58). As an Ichthyologist I was amazed at this new fact. Typically salmon eggs hatch 2½ months after being laid; too long a time for bodies to lie around waiting to be eaten in bear country.

How about Native Americans? In chapter eight we learn that not only did they practice various forms of cannibalism but they converted to Catholicism instead of being burned at the stake so they could continue to practice the Sun Dance ritual. Interesting - offensively naive, but interesting. The Meso-Americans evidently ate meat from arms and legs. Why and when, how was the belief system perpetuated and to what social level you might ask - you could find that information somewhere, but not here.

It is telling that a book about cannibals written by an "authority" on the subject contains no references to her scholarly work on the subject. Perhaps that is because "Dinner with a Cannibal" is a literature review at best. Carole A. Travis-Henikoff appears only to fancy herself a cultural anthropologist.

She's a poor one at best but, sadly for us, she's an even worse writer.

Dinner with a Cannibal presents a refreshing, insightful examination of possibly the single barrier many insist separates the civilized from the savage. It is not merely the gruesome details of survival in extremis, although that is covered, but the cultural consumption of one's own species for one's own betterment. Cannibalism becomes a "normal" culturally protected activity. Travis-Henikoff's research was excellent. The topic presented clearly. I will not say deliciously. I am reconsidering my daughter's admonition to become a vegetarian.

was not pleased with the book. the tounge in cheek references of eating eating human flesh and more traditional fare caused me to drop the book after a couple of dozen pages. It could certainly get better furtherr into it (I hope so), but I lost interest in a hurry.