49 - Charles Domery Ate Cats, Grass & A Fellow Soldier's Leg

There are many stories throughout history of individuals with freakish appetites, who seem to be able to consume quantities of food well past what a human stomach should be capable of handling.

Today, we’ll be diving into the story of Charles Domery, a Polish-born soldier who tried to eat the whole world.

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Sources for this episode's research:

• https://historianandrew.medium.com/the-man-who-couldnt-stop-eating-including-cats-rats-grass-and-his-friend-s-leg-c7ec7e1fce01
• https://www.weirdhistorian.com/domery-the-man-who-ate-anything-and-a-whole-lot-of-it/
• https://allthatsinteresting.com/charles-domery
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Domery

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fantastic-history-of-food--3591729/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
In previous episodes, we've mentioned menlike Nicholas Wood, the great Eater of
Kent, Ping Body, the NewYork Yankees baseball player who beaten Ostrich in
a spaghetti eating competition, and recentlywe even spoke about William McKenna, the
man who could eat all sorts ofglass and metals. Now there are hundreds
more stories, I'm sure of menand women with equally impressive or horrific eating

(00:21):
habits, depending on your point ofview. But today we'll be focusing on
one of history's most notorious. Hisabilities defy traditional human limits and in fact
defy traditional human decency as well.His unquenchable appetite and insatiable hunger brought him
global acclaim and praise, but italso ultimately proved to beat his downfall.

(00:43):
Today we'll be diving into the storyof Charles Domeri, a Polish born soldier
who tried to eat the whole world. These are the bizarre but true stories
from history and in some way involvedfood. I'm Nick Charlie Key, and
this is the fantastic history of food. Charles Domri was born in seventeen seventy

(01:23):
eight to a Polish family as oneof nine boys. Now, according to
most accounts, all of these boyshad larger than normal appetites, and I
feel incredibly sorry for their poor parents, who must have gone through roughly twenty
loads of bread on a slow week. But even so, Charles's appetite stood
out amongst his brethren. Despite hisvoracious eating habits, he grew up a

(01:45):
healthy child with an average frame,although he did grow up to be around
six foot three inches tall at theage of just thirteen, although in the
seventeen hundreds this was basically middle aged. Charles decided that the time was right
to join the Prussian Army. Heexpected to see some battle, some adventure,
and to make a name for himselfdefending his country. What he didn't

(02:07):
expect, however, were the meagerfood rations that the Prussian army handed out
to their soldiers Each day. Hewould complain loudly to his commanding officers that
there was just not enough food andhe was still hungry. Eventually, in
an effort to shut him up,the army doubled his proportions, and yet
still this was not enough to satisfyCharles's hunger. So Charles did the only

(02:29):
thing he could think of. Inthe situation, he defected to the French
army to see if they would beprepared to feed him more now. Upon
his arrival to the French lines,he was given a whole fresh melon to
eat, which he immediately devoured,not even stopping at the rind, but
forcing that down his throat as well. The French army matched his Prussian counterparts
in affording him double rations, andhis fellow soldiers, who would usually grumble

(02:53):
at this form of special treatment,simply watched on in amazement as domer ate
whatever he could get his hands on. When inevitably the French daily ration still
proved too meager to fill his belly, he began spending every single cent of
his military pay to buy himself morefood, and would greedily scoop up his
fellow soldiers leftovers onto his own platebefore devouring those as well. And yet

(03:15):
it was still not enough. Hiscommanding officers watched on in amazement and simply
made notes of his gluttonous behavior,without having any real reason to stop him.
It's recorded in one of these journalsthat in the span of just one
year, Charles Domeri is said tohave eaten one hundred and seventy four cats
that he caught while on duty.Now, the disturbing part of all of

(03:38):
this is that, by some accounts, he was so hungry sometimes he didn't
even wait to kill them first beforehe began feasting on them, and that's
some pretty gruesome stuff. In lightof this, it's probably worth noting that
when these insatiable hunger urges first appeared, he was sent to be evaluated by
some form of early psychiatrist, who, for all intents and purposes, found

(04:00):
nothing wrong with him, either physicallyor mentally, and just described him as
being a man of average intelligence withno outward signs of mental illness. But
this assessment didn't always seem to correlatewell with his actions. Asign from the
raw cat fiasco, it was alsonot uncommon for Domery to consume between four
and five pounds of grass each daysimply to try and fill his stomach and

(04:21):
make the hunger pang subside for justa while, surprisingly, or perhaps not
surprisingly after what we've just heard earlier. As much as he loved food and
meat in particular, cooked or roastedmeat would more often than not make him
sick to his stomach, and sohis preferred method was to eat his meat
entirely raw. Now I know you'rethinking what could possibly top the cat story

(04:46):
from earlier, but allow me toyet again one up it by sharing an
incident that happened aboard a French militaryship while in the heat of battle.
The soldiers aboard the vessel were engagedin a sea battle with another ship,
and as was the custom of theday, cannon balls zipped through the air
as they were fired from ship toship. Anyone unlucky enough to be in

(05:09):
the way of a giant metal ballhurtling through the air at a fairly rapid
pace was not going to be infor a very good time, and so
sailors were often hit full on bythese cannonballs and found themselves heartily shifting off
what remained of their mortal coils.Other times, sailors were simply sideswiped by
the hurtling metal objects, and oftenwhen this happened, it would simply and

(05:30):
neatly remove from their bodies whichever limbhad been unlucky enough to have been in
the way. And so it wason this fateful day that a soldier standing
alongside Charles Domery had their leg detachedfrom their body as a cannon ball was
gone by. In that moment,something in Charles's eyes lit up, just
like in the cartoons when their hungerpangs start to turn their friends into chicken,

(05:50):
drumsticks or some other delicious food.The soldier's leg was still rolling around
on the deck, and before itcould come to rest, Charles had grabbed
it and began gnawing on it likea Viking wood on a roasted leg of
lamb. The other soldiers around himwere horrified at what they saw, and
once the initial shock had worn off, rushed towards him, grabbing the leg

(06:11):
out of his mouth and throwing itoverboard before Charles could snatch it back again.
Charles could then be heard sulkily sayingwhat a waste as he trudged below
decks, presumably to raid the ship'sstores. Not long after this happened,
and during the course of yet anotherof these battles, Charles was captured by
the British Army in seventeen ninety eight. It's hilarious to me to think that

(06:31):
at that very moment they had noidea what they were getting themselves in for.
At the time of his capture,the average daily ration for a wartime
prisoner was one loaf of bread,one cup of vegetables, and a small
block of cheese. Naturally, thisjust wouldn't do for our Charles and his
captors soon became aware that they hadsomewhat of a freak of nature on their

(06:51):
hands. Rather than growing flustered byhis dietary requirements, they instead saw it
as somewhat of a game, humorousreprieve from an otherwise mundane military existence.
Soon they too agreed to double hisrations, but quickly realized that this was
mere child's play for Domri and slowly, but surely, they began increasing his

(07:13):
allotted rations, until at one pointhe was devouring in just one sitting the
entire daily rations of ten other men. When even this proved to be insufficient
for Charles, he began literally swallowingand or eating anything that wouldn't immediately kill
or poison him. He would snatchaway other prisoners medications and swallow them,
or would chew and eat entire candlesmeant to light the cells at night.

(07:36):
And obviously, he went back tohis old ways by not only capturing and
eating all of the rats he couldget his hands on raw, mind you,
but he even managed to capture theprison cat and gobbled that poor creature
up too. Prison doctors watched himwith fascination and made notes of his health
for as long as he was undertheir care. He was noted as sweating

(07:58):
profusely each night while he slept,but this would immediately stop as soon as
he woke up and ate something.A year after his capture, a word
of his escapades spread throughout the BritishHigh Command, and in seventeen ninety nine
he was given over to the RoyalNavy for a more in depth study of
his condition. It was decided thatthey would do an experiment on him to
test and see if he had anylimits whatsoever to how much he could eat

(08:22):
in a day, And so onthe seventeenth of September seventeen ninety nine,
a physician by the name of doctorJ. Johnston began the experiment. He
had made sure to include a numberof other respectable witnesses on the day so
as to validate whatever his findings were, as he feared no one would believe

(08:46):
him if what everyone had said aboutCharles was true. That morning, at
four a m. Sharp, Charleswas woken up and fed four pounds of
raw cow's udders. He made lightwork of that meal and promptly went back
to sleep again. At nine thirtya m. He was awoken once again
and fed the following firstly a mealof five pounds of raw beef, followed

(09:07):
up by twelve candles weighing one poundthat were made from the rendered fat of
cows, as well as a bottleof porter Ale, a rather heavy bodied
beer. Onlookers were astonished to seethat before even one full hour had elapsed,
his plate and mug were empty.One o'clock rolled around, and yet
more was laid out on the tablebefore him. This meal was almost identical

(09:30):
to the last, and that theyhad gained fed him five pounds of beef
and twelve more tallow candles, butfollowed it up this time with three bottles
of porter Ale instead of just theone. An hour later and Domeri was
observed to be in good spirits,chatting with a few friends as he slowly
made his way through the lass ofthe candles, with a good chunk of
the meat still to go. Ata quarter past sixth that evening, he

(09:52):
had finally finished everything that was onhis plate and finally declared that he could
eat no more, asking kindly ifhe could go in lie down in his
cell. Doctor Johnston was astounded,but for a variety of reasons. Firstly,
it was insane to think that thisman had consumed almost fifteen pounds of
food in one day, without evencounting the beers. But a number of

(10:15):
his other observations shocked him as well. Not once did Charles need to use
the bathroom that entire day, andwhilst monitoring him, found that his heart
rate remained normal throughout even that night, when one should have been too full
to even move. Domeri was observedto be dancing around his cell while smoking
a pipe, and even finished thenight off with yet another porter ale before

(10:35):
retiring to bed. I think it'ssafe to say that this may very well
have been the best day of hislife. Eventually, as time wore on,
Charles Domrie and his insatiable hunger slowlyfaded from the public consciousness, and
his later life and ultimately his deathare unknown or at least undocumented. Modern

(10:56):
doctors have speculated that he may havebeen suffered from some form of glandular disorder,
but without being able to test theman directly, it will forever be
a guessing game as to what leda man to such hunger that he would
devour live cats, pounds of grass, and even a fellow sailor's leg,
just to make the pain in hisstomach go away, knowing that soon it

(11:18):
would start all over again. Thisshow is made entirely by me, Nick

(11:41):
Charlie Key, with our theme musichaving been made by the enigma that is
the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. If you'dlike to support the show, the simplest
way to do that is over onour Patreon account. There's just one option,
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(12:01):
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Wall of Fame over on our website, and then maybe listen out for your
name in an upcoming episode. Sountil next time, bon appetite,