Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.
March 15, 2010 3:54 PM   Subscribe

Fun fact: Cannibals didn't necessarily boil people alive, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been used as a form of execution. [Via AskMe.]
posted by grapefruitmoon (52 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
♪ * The more you know... ♪
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:00 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Also used on terrorism suspects by the Uzbekistan security forces.

From the Guardian - US looks away as new ally tortures Islamists
Or alternatively, Our President's New Best Friend Boils People Alive" [WARNING: Graphic pictures]
posted by knapah at 4:03 PM on March 15, 2010


I love the title inside this post. But I am too much of a wimp to peek at the links. That is all.
posted by the_royal_we at 4:05 PM on March 15, 2010


Death-by-boiling posts appear to be bubbling up everywhere in the last two hours, don't they? Related AskMe question: Dormant Gorilla asks "What exactly would happen if you boiled a person alive?"

No wonder cannibals might prefer their food raw. As snailer reports, "Cannibals who chose to boil their victims alive might have had to worry about the abdominal cavity bursting under pressure due to the lack of disembowelment, or the victim excreting wastes into their carefully prepared soup."
posted by cirripede at 4:08 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Earthlings are much tastier spit-roasted and basted in their own fat. Or so we have heard.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:09 PM on March 15, 2010


"It's a cook book!"
posted by mosk at 4:12 PM on March 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


I screwed up my graphic imagery link, here it is for the curious:

Our President's New Best Friend Boils People Alive

For more Uzbek unpleasantness, see this report on what the UK's former ambassador had to say.
posted by knapah at 4:12 PM on March 15, 2010




cirripede: Pssst. See "Via AskMe" at end of post.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:17 PM on March 15, 2010


I keep picturing Bugs Bunny in a cauldron, with his shower cap on, eating the carrots that are being cut into the rabbit stew, humming "la-da-di, la-di-la-da-di," eventually purring "say, er ... what's up doc?" I don't think that's an actual scene in any of the cartoons, but it's because of this I can keep myself from having a negative visceral reaction to the mental image of actually boiling a human being alive.
posted by jabberjaw at 4:18 PM on March 15, 2010




Interesting post, as was the AskMe that inspired it. Gruesome, but interesting. Good to IRFH around again too.
posted by marxchivist at 4:21 PM on March 15, 2010


Would it be wrong to enjoy yourself for the short time the water was delightfully bathtub water warm?
posted by found missing at 4:22 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


I dunno, they look like they're having an okay time.
posted by applemeat at 4:25 PM on March 15, 2010


Coming from a steel town, I head several stories of people being boiled alive in molten metal. My father assured me some of them were true.
posted by Sova at 4:31 PM on March 15, 2010


That'll leave a mark.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:31 PM on March 15, 2010


Oooh... having looked at the articles now, as well as the AskMe thread.... *shudder*

Jesus H. Christ, it takes a lot to squick me out, but consider me squicked.
posted by brundlefly at 4:50 PM on March 15, 2010


Now I'm hungry.
posted by Splunge at 5:02 PM on March 15, 2010


found missing: Would it be wrong to enjoy yourself for the short time the water was delightfully bathtub water warm?

I always loved the tale of the missionaries who were visiting some of the Inuits in northern Canada, and after regaling them with tales of the lake of fire that awaited them if they didn't get with the program the Inuits asked for directions.
posted by localroger at 5:21 PM on March 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


"It is told of Saint Maurus that when the pagans put him in boiling water, he complained that the bath was too cold; the pagan governor foolishly put his hand in the water to test it, and burned himself." - Umberto Eco, The Name Of The Rose
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:35 PM on March 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


Boccaccio's Decameron includes a nice version of the eaten heart motif (IV.9) Mmm.
posted by woodway at 5:51 PM on March 15, 2010


The first link is the "history" section of a site the main purpose of which is to share pornographic renderings of women being tortured by boiling. Do you really want to link to that? Is it a good fit for metafilter?
posted by Rumple at 6:11 PM on March 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


Bugs Bunny in a cauldron, with his shower cap on, eating the carrots that are being cut into the rabbit stew, humming "la-da-di, la-di-la-da-di," eventually purring "say, er ... what's up doc?" I don't think that's an actual scene in any of the cartoons,

pretty sure it is. The song he's singing is "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair" ("I dream of Jeannie, she's a light brown hare").
posted by toodleydoodley at 6:14 PM on March 15, 2010


"Cannibals who chose to boil their victims alive might have had to worry about the abdominal cavity bursting under pressure due to the lack of disembowelment, or the victim excreting wastes into their carefully prepared soup."

That's what I came in here to say, but the phrasing I had in mind was 'Nobody likes poop soup.'
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:19 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Rumple is right. This website is...questionable.
posted by applemeat at 6:22 PM on March 15, 2010


> I meant not a scene-for-scene shot. I think it's kind of a mishmash of similar Bugs Bunny scenes.
posted by jabberjaw at 6:24 PM on March 15, 2010


Venesa stews in a large copper pot while native cannibals attend to her demise. This is a superb image carefully crafted in Adobe Photoshop. I have since learned that the pot, also used by Pooka in the Layla picture above, is Mr. Mentor's work. It was rendered using 3-D ray tracing software.

I wonder if he ever considered professional help?
posted by digsrus at 6:33 PM on March 15, 2010


The first link is the "history" section of a site the main purpose of which is to share pornographic renderings of women being tortured by boiling.

Whoa. That's some creepy stuff.
posted by brundlefly at 6:33 PM on March 15, 2010


Coming from a steel town, I head several stories of people being boiled alive in molten metal. My father assured me some of them were true.

An ex-flatmate was a shift supervisor on the galv line (ie, where galvanised steel sheets are coated) at Glenbrook steel mill. He assured me that all the workers, including him, had made a pact that if any man were to fall in the zinc pot (temperature ca 420C/800F), the others were to hold him under.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:39 PM on March 15, 2010


Rumple: pornographic renderings of women being tortured by boiling

You write this as if it was a bad thing.
posted by localroger at 6:54 PM on March 15, 2010


Hey, their kink may not be our kink, but as long as they're not actually boiling people to death, can't we leave 'em alone?
posted by jtron at 6:54 PM on March 15, 2010


A friend of mine who grew up the son of a steelworker in Youngstown also told me about guys getting boiled in molten metal, fairly regularly. But the really creepy part -- the widow would get a cube of the metal from the batch in lieu of receiving her husband's remains. Apparently, these cubes could be seen on more than a few mantles across town.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:05 PM on March 15, 2010


I love the title inside this post. But I am too much of a wimp to peek at the links. That is all.

It comes from here.
posted by special-k at 7:27 PM on March 15, 2010


It's as if there was some unwritten rule stating that anything you can think of, someone else has figured out how to make it pornographic.
posted by Mister_A at 7:39 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


You write this as if it was a bad thing.

Sorry, what?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:46 PM on March 15, 2010


Hey, their kink may not be our kink, but as long as they're not actually boiling people to death, can't we leave 'em alone?

Sure! How about by not linking to them?

Many people are disgusted and disturbed by images of torture, and much more so when such images are presented as sexual material. As described here, I would have expected the links to go to a history of execution methods. Instead they explore someone's fringe sexual interest. Not a site many of us would want to go to, if we were warned that's where we were going.
posted by palliser at 7:47 PM on March 15, 2010


He assured me that all the workers, including him, had made a pact that if any man were to fall in the zinc pot (temperature ca 420C/800F), the others were to hold him under.

Holy crap.
If all this has taught me anything it's that I really, really don't ever want to be boiled alive. I mean this just doesn't sound like any fun at ALL.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 8:09 PM on March 15, 2010


The links in this FPP are a great example of why I always check the comments first. I don't think I'd be able to explain why I'm browsing a site that has misogynistic, pornographic BDSM snuff cartoons to my boss.

I vote at the least for an NSFW on that first link for the reasons others have brought up. It's not 5pm yet somewhere in MeFiland.
posted by Decimask at 8:47 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


This website is the worst why does everybody keep linking to this website how about a bit of a NSFW tag before linking to the website?
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:30 PM on March 15, 2010


Apparently, these cubes could be seen on more than a few mantles across town.

Bullion cubes?
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:29 PM on March 15, 2010


Wait, I read the links before I posted them and I never saw any porn of anything.

I apologize if the content has since changed, but I don't think I should be held responsible for other content on the site other than the specific pages I linked to. Checking it out again: still all just text. If other parts of the site have squicky business on them, that's not really an issue with the FPP, which doesn't link to them. If you guys are digging up stuff that's squicky, well, um... sorry? AFAIK, it's still perfectly kosher to post relevant stuff even if other parts of the site that it's on may not be the greatest.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:44 AM on March 16, 2010


As described here, I would have expected the links to go to a history of execution methods. Instead they explore someone's fringe sexual interest. Not a site many of us would want to go to, if we were warned that's where we were going.

No, no they don't. The links do go to a history of execution methods. Click on the links themselves, the ones IN the FPP and they are ONLY descriptions of execution methods. I can't be held responsible for the rest of the site content, but I very specifically did not link to porn.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:47 AM on March 16, 2010 [2 favorites]


With all due respect, grapefruitmoon, you linked to a page in a guy's single-purpose site, the purpose being his torture-unto-death fantasies about women. It is hardly "digging around" to click on the "table of contents" link on the very page which you linked.

I mean, I wish it was that easy to say, "well the rest of the site is horrible snuff fantasy, but the single page I linked to is just the history of this through time". For one thing, the guy has no credibility as a historian, only as a pervert. If you had looked before you posted your rebuttal, you'd see that post of pictures has been there since about 1998 so your disingenuous "sorry if the content has changed" doesn't stand up. Giving any link love to such a marginal site as the primary link in a metafilter FPP is squicky and demeans metafilter and frankly I am surprised you are defending it. Next up: recycling old sheets, with a link to sewing tips at whitepower.com!
posted by Rumple at 8:48 AM on March 16, 2010


It's not my habit to check out the entire site of what I post. So, yeah, apologies if poking around on the rest of the page yielded sub-optimal results for others. I've never had this be a problem in the past, and there's always a first time. Really the reason I hadn't done any "investigation" on this is that I found the links via the AskMe post and well, thought they were worthy of an FPP. My mistake for not doing more research, but it's not like I personally googled "boiling people alive," found this dude's snuff site, and then decided to link to the one text-only page. There was no malice meant. The "sorry if the content had changed" was directed towards the implication that the page linked itself contained porn, which it did not when I posted it, nor does it now.

If the mods want to take it down because the rest of the site is snuff fantasy, that's their call. I'm only defending the fact that the linked page does not contain porn as was the accusation. There is no need for NSFW warning on the actual links - that is all that I am refuting.

As for the rest, yeah, if the rest of the site is squicky and the mods want to remove the post, that's their call.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:57 AM on March 16, 2010


Rumple, are you claiming that credibly historians cannot be perverts? What a silly derail.

Back to boiling alive. Any idea what the statistical odds of this happening to me are? Would it be more / less painful than being roasted alive?
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:00 AM on March 16, 2010


According to the book on execution methods I was just perusing in the bathroom, it is reputed to be THE most painful*. Not sure how they compare methods, though. Is it like Count Rugen in Princess Bride?

*SO CONSIDER THE LOBSTER ALREADY
posted by jtron at 11:44 AM on March 16, 2010


I've heard the most painful was being burnt alive, but I wouldn't be surprised if boiling alive beat it out.

But then, how do you measure that? You can't boil someone alive, bring 'em back, burn 'em and then say "So, which was worse?"
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:52 AM on March 16, 2010


You can't boil someone alive, bring 'em back, burn 'em and then say "So, which was worse?"

You can't?

*goes back to drawing board*
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:54 AM on March 16, 2010


If I ever see the two of you together at a meetup I will perambulate rapidly in an orthogonal direction

ortho, pass me the bbq sauce
posted by jtron at 12:17 PM on March 16, 2010


jtron: We're on opposite sides of the country. You're probably safe. Unless the meetup...

IS IN HELL!
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:55 PM on March 16, 2010


Hell is where I spitroast Vikings.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:32 PM on March 16, 2010


But first, a little roo-roo.
posted by orrnyereg at 3:47 PM on March 16, 2010


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