Winnipeg resident Jim Sulkers lay dead in his apartment for two years before his body was discovered.

Sulkers was estranged from his family, and automated banking processed his disability checks and paid his bills.

When police finally climbed through the window in August 2004, they found his mummified body in the bed, spoiled food in the refrigerator, and a wall calendar that was two years out of date. Everything else was in perfect order.

A masochist’s lunch menu:

• Casu marzu is a Sardinian cheese riddled with live insect larvae that can jump up to 6 inches. Wear goggles.
• Kopi luwak, sometimes described as “cat poop coffee,” is a Sumatran beverage made from berries that have passed through a civet’s digestive tract.
• Lutefisk is a Nordic dish made by soaking whitefish in lye. It is the only food refused by Jeffrey Steingarten, author of The Man Who Ate Everything: “Lutefisk is not food, it is a weapon of mass destruction.”
• “Stinky tofu,” a favorite of Mao Zedong, is marinated for months in a brine of fermented vegetables. Reportedly it tastes like blue cheese, but its smell has been compared to sewage, horse manure, and “a used tampon baking in the desert.”

Mark Twain wrote, “Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”