Cannibal Now Wants Love On The Menu

An Indonesian cannibal is seeking love, promising his people-eating days are over. Sumanto, currently residing in rural Central Java, was jailed after he dug up an old woman's body for a "cheap and tasty meal". "She was delicious," he told AFP from his room at a Muslim mental rehabilitation centre in rural Central Java. "I love meat... all types of meat as long as it's cooked. But I don't eat people anymore." But after a lengthy stint in prison, the former farmer now longs for the taste of love. "What is love? How can I describe it when I've never experienced it, never tasted it?" Sumanto said his cannibal days are over and that spinach was all he ate nowadays in a bid to be accepted back into normal village life."I'm sad. People said so many bad things about me. I will strive to get the villagers to open their hearts and accept me again," he said. But his plea for love doesn’t seem to be working. He was rejected by his village upon his release from prison with a next-door neighbour fearing she could be Sumanto’s next meal. "Sumanto? That corpse-eater. He was a bad-tempered man who often stole our rice and chickens," she said. She said she would never forget the stench of death and the sight of a bowl of whitish-yellow human flesh drenched in soy sauce. "There'll be chaos if he ever comes back. I don't want him to kill me and have me for dinner." Despite admitting his love for meat - and spinach - Sumanto said he will now survive on "water, vitamins and minerals" alone if it helped him find love. "Meat is definitely nicer than vegetables, but if there's no meat I can make do with grass. It's healthy and I could braise or stir-fry it to make it taste good," he said.