Heart, testicles and brain are on the menu at anatomy dinners. The $115 meal 'weirded me just the right way,' says one patron.

When Dr. Jonathan Reisman was in medical school, he unexpectedly found himself thinking about food while dissecting a human cadaver. During the dissection, his professor talked about which parts of the body corresponded to different cuts of beef, and Reisman was fascinated by the connection.

To learn more about how meat is processed and its connection to the human body, Reisman visited butchers and a slaughterhouse. He started giving himself "a culinary education along with his medical education," he says. During the process Reisman says he learned people are essentially "made up of food."

Later, Reisman found out his friend Ari Miller, a chef, hosted a class about cooking animal hearts. Miller, who's interested in "whole animal cooking" and has created recipes like stuffed spleen, seared testicles with long hot peppers and brains on toast, knew how to make animal hearts taste delicious, but he knew nothing about how hearts work.

So, Reisman suggested the two team up to create a one-of-a-kind dining experience.

The duo held a series of inaugural "anatomy dinners," now called Anatomy Eats, at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Each of the three ticketed dinners were focused on different animal body parts, like hearts, tongues and livers. At the dinners, Reisman delved into how each body part functions in both animals and people, with an explanation of how the part gets turned into food. Miller demonstrated cooking techniques, then guests ate a dish made with each part, using recipes he had created.

Word about the wildly popular anatomy dinners spread. Reisman teamed up with a chef in Oxford, Miss. to host a similar dinner there. Then, Reisman joined with Al Goldberg, owner of Mess Hall, a community space in Washington, D.C. dedicated to food, and chef Marcelle Afram to host another anatomical dinner. During the dinner, Mess Hall set up a screen so guests could watch Reisman dissect a cow heart while they dissected their own duck hearts, which were served on skewers.

The menu, which also included duck liver and crispy cracklings, included dishes based on some recipes Afram already had, plus some that were completely new. "The most exciting thing to make was the chocolate blood cake," he tells Yahoo Life. "When making the ganache base, I incorporated pig's blood, which gave the cake an added earthiness in addition to retaining a beautiful amount of moisture." Other anatomy dinners have included bone marrow ice cream, blood cookies, beef cheek confit and tendon soup.

Megan Mileusnic, attended the anatomy dinner at Mess Hall after seeing an online ad for the event. "[I was] instantly intrigued by the night's MO: learn about the anatomy of body parts while eating those animal body parts," says Mileusnic. "It weirded me just the right way."

While Reisman concedes anatomy dinners, which cost around $115 per ticket on average, aren't for everyone, he thinks "people want to know where food comes from." Often this takes the form of developing an interest in farm-to-table vegetables, but others, like Mileusnic, are interested in where their meat comes from, too. "We are living in an era where people are concerned about waste, including food waste," Reisman says.

He explains some parts of animals, like pigs' feet and chitterlings (small intestines), have traditionally been considered excess or undesirable, but shouldn't be. Afram's anatomical menu put this concept into practice. Afram, who is Palestinian, says a traditional dish in Arab cuisine is fermented confit of meat (typically lamb or goat). For his meal, he instead made confit with beef cheeks, which are often tossed in the trash, and duck fat. Reisman hopes through his anatomy dinners, he can teach others "there is no body part that can't be delicious if cooked right."

Afram adds because there's a cultural bias against using some of these parts for food, they are "much more affordable" than many cuts of meat Americans typically eat.

Mileusnic says before attending the anatomy dinner she "was nervous about what [they] would be served and felt a little out of [her] comfort zone." Now, she describes the experience as "incredible."

"I was so surprised by every dish and the accompanying discussion, and I wasn't expecting to experience a shift in mindset related to food," she says. "I got to know parts of my own body and things I eat in new ways, and I suddenly appreciated them in new ways too."

Mileusnic wasn't alone in enjoying her anatomical dinner at Mess Hall. Goldberg says interest was so high they had to open a second dinner seating to meet demand and most guests "sent their plates back clean."

Although Mileusnic says she wasn't sure what to expect she says "nothing was too gross."

"The event's advertising was spot on: 'adventurous, but not grotesque,'" she says. Her favorite dish of the night was duck heart kebab served with caramelized pearl onions, braised fennel, smoked gourd mutabal (a Middle Eastern dip) and pomegranate. Mileusnic says while she probably won’t start cooking anatomical foods at home, she "will be more adventurous and appreciative of foods that are outside [her] norm."

Interest in anatomical dinners is growing among both chefs who want to collaborate and curious diners who want to experience one for themselves. Reisman is currently planning anatomy dinners in Seattle, Wash., Austin, Tex., Philadelphia, Pa. and New Zealand, each with a different chef. He hopes to eventually bring anatomy dinners to cities all over the world, teaming up with chefs who will each put their own spins on dishes along the way.

Each anatomy dinner is different because Reisman tells the chef they can choose "any organ, any body part" to create a meal. He notes in the U.S. it's legal to serve any animal body part for human consumption except lungs, although he's tried to get that law changed because he believes "there is no medical reason for the ban." And, it's not hard to find the parts Reisman and the chefs he works with need for their dinners. "Most butchers can get anything on request," he says.

We are "living in a golden age of food exploration," says Reisman, because cooking shows are ubiquitous and social media has brought different foods to everyone's home. Those developments have caused a lot of people "to question both what they eat and what they don't," says Reisman. It's also introduced many to foods from different cultures, where eating anatomical parts is not unusual. In fact, many dishes at past anatomy dinners have been inspired by traditional foods from Nigeria, Palestine and the American South that incorporate anatomical parts.

Reisman, author of The Unseen Body: A Doctor's Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy, has plans to bring anatomical cooking to an even larger audience: He's currently working on a book about cooking and anatomy, and exploring the possibilities of writing a cookbook with anatomical recipes and launching a television show about anatomical cooking he'd like to call Body Parts Unknown, a play on the title of Anthony Bourdain's iconic show Parts Unknown.

More than anything, Reisman hopes to reach more people who are curious and want to expand their food options, in part, because the "American diet is very anatomically boring," he says.

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