Hufu

Hufu, a no longer existing product, was marketed as a soy-based food designed to resemble human flesh in taste and texture. The Hufu website was in existence from May 2005 to June 2006. The creators claimed that Milla Jovovich coined the term after hearing about the product's development while on the Eurostar from London to Paris.^[1]

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.^[1] Nuckols is also an honors JD graduate of Georgetown University Law Center.^[2]

Publicity

Samantha Bee of The Daily Show interviewed Nuckols. ^[3] 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^[4] and The Stanford Daily.

Closure of site

The Hufu home page eathufu.com^[5] 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.^[6]

See also

• ManBeef.com

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Dan Duray (2005). "Tuck student markets flesh-flavored tofu on website". thedartmouth.com. The Dartmouth. http://thedartmouth.com/2005/05/12/news/tuck. Retrieved 2011-01-06. 
2. ^ http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/05/09/interview_with_a_cannibal.php Interview with a Cannibal, Kevin C. Hudak interviews Mark Nuckols
3. ^ Samantha Bee (2005). "Daily Show: Bee - Flesh in the Pan". The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Comedy Central. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-october-27-2005/flesh-in-the-pan. Retrieved 2011-01-06. 
4. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510180 The Harvard Crimson article
5. ^ "Eat Hufu (Archive maintained at Archive.org)". Archived from the original on 2006-05-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20060527220146/http://www.eathufu.com/. Retrieved 2011-01-06. 
6. ^ "Case Studies: Argument from Design". http://ardes.com/casestudies/smallbiz/hufu/. Retrieved 2011-01-06.