Placenta Sushi

Image: MorgueFile
Last night I was minding my own business when Karen from Baby Sideburns put up a link to a woman's blog where she describes eating her own placenta. Karen said, "Someone needs to write about this. Jen?" If you know anything about me, you know I'm a little crazy about placenta. I like to make sure that everyone knows about the proper accessory to carry your placenta around the town in. Or if you're more of an eater, I enjoy telling you about how much I love to eat placenta. OK, I really don't. But I do love to watch others eat it.

Nope. That's not true either. I gag a little every time I think about anyone ingesting ANY sort of organ meat, but especially one that many people would consider medical waste. I mean until Gordon Ramsay makes human placenta the secret ingredient on "Master Chef, Jr." I won't consider this delicacy mainstream. Can't you just see Gordon? "All right, young home chefs. You have a mystery box in front of you that contains the ingredient you must all use tonight. Please lift your boxes to reveal ..... YOUR OWN PLACENTA! That's right, young home chefs, years ago we suspected you might be on this cooking show and we asked your mothers to carefully preserve their placentas so that you could create a mouth-watering, delectable dish that I would proud to serve in one of my restaurants! You'll have one hour and all of the ingredients in the Master Chef Jr. pantry to properly season and prepare your placenta. Ready...GO!"

I was curious about the blog Karen had shared. I thought I'd seen it all when it comes to the various ways one can prepare this blob into a chewy culinary delight. I've seen it dried out and eaten like jerky. I've seen it dried out and ground into easy to swallow pills. I've seen it fried up in a pan and served like a steak. I've seen it liquefied into a smoothie.

I really wondered if Karen's link to Melissa's blog held any new recipes for my forthcoming cookbook: Eat Your Placenta Cookbook -- 15 Easy Recipes Earth Mothers can Prepare While Simultaneously Nursing a Newborn and Spinning Hemp. (Available just as soon as I find eleven more recipes.) Maybe someone's finally come up with a placenta dessert, I thought. I can't imagine eating my placenta, but I do love dessert. I am a firm believer that chocolate makes anything delicious. So I could probably get behind deep-fried placenta on a stick dipped in chocolate. Actually, I'm going to add that to my cookbook. I'll make sure it's fried in coconut oil and dipped in vegan chocolate.

I was just going to start researching placenta shish kabobs when I saw the headline of Melissa's blog: "Placenta Sushi."

It was like a miracle. Why didn't I think of sushi?! Now Melissa might not have been spinning hemp or drawing water from her hand-dug well while she ate her sushi, but man, did she bring it with her sauce pairings. Not only was her sushi made of placenta, it was served with gluten-free soy sauce and extra organic wasabi. I'm married to an Asian guy who just rolled his eyes so hard at these condiments that I have to go and find them now. Hey, at least it wasn't a side of mucus plug.

Now Melissa didn't start out with a sushi roll. That would be hardcore. No, she started with a small piece that she tucked in her cheek right after her baby was born. I currently have a piece of gum tucked in my cheek and I'm imagining the sensation was the same. Both are chewy and relaxing. Except my gum is minty and her placenta was "salty." Mmmm.

Later on she made a smoothie. I think the part that killed me was when Melissa worried about eating a fingernail size piece of placenta pulverized in a smoothie. Not because it was a bloody organ that she recently expelled through her vagina, but because she's a vegan. That's right, folks, Melissa hasn't eaten meat in years. Oh Melissa, there are so many good meats you've been missing. Why in the world would you start with placenta? Go get one of your free-range chickens out the backyard and fry it up! Yummmm.

Finally she moved up to sushi. Chewy, salty, chewy, chewy sushi. She described placenta sushi as tasting very similar to normal sushi which is just "soy sauce with ocean funk (seaweed)." Wow with imagery like that, this girl should write a food blog.

When are these women going to stop forcing this shit on themselves? They don't want to eat it. I've read enough of these Earth Mother blogs now to know that so many of them must psych themselves up for that first bite. They're always worried. Will it taste bad? (I assume so.) Will it be hard to eat? (Chewy is the word that keeps popping up. And membrane-y.) They're nervous, but they must do it! They go on and on about how they know eating placenta is good for them and they wax poetic about the generations of women trapped in their bones who are whispering to their souls that they must do it and they ruminate on how most animals except humans eat their own placentas and thus we must too.

Newsflash: animals eat their own shit and babies, should we do that too?

Stop it, stop it, stop it. This isn't like eating your veggies. It shouldn't be this hard. This is really gross and those messages you're getting from deep down in your bones are actually cries for help. Those millions of cave women who gagged down their placentas are trying to tell you: "Trust me. You need to skip this rite of passage through womanhood. It's no big thing. I only did it because do you know how hard it is for my husband to get me a steak with a spear? I needed the protein. You, on the other hand, have an entire well-stocked grocery store at your disposal about a mile from your house. Go get yourself something tasty, girl, and plant this thing in the backyard where it can fertilize your organic tomatoes."

Oh Melissa, you are a funny, girl! No. Really. She's kind of funny. Melissa is the first placenta-eater I've seen who can actually make fun of herself and what she's doing. That's all I've ever wanted. I just want us all to stop taking ourselves so seriously and just find the humor in the silly things we do. I kind of like Melissa, so if you go and read her blog, be NICE in the comments section. She's just doing her thing like I'm going mine. We're more alike than I thought, because I have to gag down a spinach smoothie later today. It will go down much smoother when I thank Gaia there isn't any placenta in there ... or is there????

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7 comments:

Full Spectrum Mama said...

I live in Southern Vermont and am surrounded by these people and, trust me, they take themselves Very seriously.
Now I like a good progressive anarcho-commie value and health regime as much as the next person but these dames make me feel like a fascist for eschewing eating my placenta. Oh, and immunizing my autistic kid.
Please send help,

Mandi said...

Oh yes, I am completely and totally grossed out. I can't get my stomach to stop doing somersaults. My gag reflex works well. Dry heaved through the entire post. I will never be Earth mother strong!

Notes From ABroad said...

When I had my son, there were a lot of hippies doing things like that ... I was the girl who begged for drugs when I was in the hospital and couldn't get the hang of nursing .. eating my own organs/ or close to it .. was not on the table.. pardon the pun.

Notes From ABroad said...

Mandi, I am drinking a coke to ease the gag reflex going on ... try that.

SDJaye said...

Sorry, couldn't bring myself to read.

Dragon Reads said...

To each their own--placenta, I guess. Not my entree of choice under any circumstances but the village has turned in to the walled fortress, we're all special little snowflakes, I guess, and if you want to chow down on biological waste, knock yourself out but this does not prove to me you're an evolved, spiritual being--quite the contrary.

Jessica said...

Okay, you win! You finally managed to gross me out! Yew! Yew!

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