Placenta Helper

Lee Cronk (CRONK@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU)
Fri, 30 Sep 1994 16:35:29 CDT

The thread on placenta-eating reminded me of two things. First, I had
a boss at a summer job 12 years ago who had eaten his two sons' placentas.
The first time it was easy for him to obtain them since he lived on
a commune and his wife gave birth at home. The second time was in
a hospital, so he had to give the staff some excuse about wanting to
plant a tree on it (another ritual in some circles, I guess), but
actually he took it home, cooked it up somehow, and ate it. It had
something to do with bonding with the kids. Or maybe he was just
hungry. :-)

It also reminded me of a fake ad for "Placenta Helper" that was
written up and rehearsed for Saturday Night Live back in the
late '70s (the Gilda Radner/John Belushi era), but not actually
used in the show. Apparently somebody thought it wasn't tasteful
enough for the show. Imagine that. I learned about this in a
book published at the time based on the show.

************************************************************************
Lee Cronk
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4352
Office: 409-847-9254
Fax: 409-845-4070
E-mail: cronk@tamvm1.tamu.edu
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