Last Meal

The theme of my cookbook is essentially "comfort food", although I don't like using that term in this context because people often turn to junk food for solace. My focus for the book is on foods that are good for you -- ingredients that are known to elevate moods, increase energy, and provide much-needed nutrition to a person suffering (and likely starving themselves) in a depressed state. There are scientific reasons for stuffing our faces with potato chips or drowning ourselves in alcohol to cope with hardship. Our bodies may be seeking a glycemic high, for example, but without realizing that foods with a high glycemic index will burn out fast and lead to an insulin crash that only makes you hungrier and more worn out.

But I digress. Here's where I'm going with this: the link between comfort food and personal crisis is never more evident than when a death row inmate is asked to choose his or her last meal. I apologize for this morbid association and I mean no disrespect to anyone. The germ for this idea started while I was doing my research for the book. I stumbled upon "My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals". It's one thing to ask the average person what they would like to have as their last meal, but a world class chef is sure to have the most extravagant request... or would he/she? The biggest revelation of the book is that most of these chefs cherish the simplest foods, foods that they've loved since childhood, foods that remind them of happy memories and family. As H.B. points out in his book (I'm not even going to say his name any more because I've quoted him too many times in one week already), the "perfect" food is usually linked with memory and personal preference, not the culinary prowess it takes to make it.

The polar opposite of a star chef's last meal is the last meal request of a hardened criminal on death row. It is interesting but not exactly surprising to me that there are so many websites, articles, books, etc. that track this bit of trivia. Dead Man Eating is a site that compiles and archives the final menus of executed convicts.

Take for example the May 2007 execution of Christpher J. Newton in Ohio. He was imprisoned for burglary but sentenced to death for murdering his cellmate: they had gotten into a row over a game of chess. Newton's final meal request consisted of steak, asparagus, brussels sprouts, feta cheese, a soft drink, cake and watermelon. For those of you who know how much I hate brussels sprouts, you can imagine my bafflement over his choices.

Texas used to publish an online list of last meal requests of the inmates executed in their state. Due to numerous complaints that the list was "in poor taste and too voyeuristic", the page was removed. But is it really so morbid and strange to be curious about it? As I see it, it's one last grasp at the things we loved most in life, at least in terms of food. There's an irony, of course, that they are savoring life as a last act -- the very thing they robbed from their victims.

"Meals to Die For" by Brian Price is a record of the last meals he cooked for 300 death row inmates over 11 years. Price was already in prison for a lesser offense when he earned the job of prison chef as part of a plea bargain. He learned how to cook on the fly and made everything from scratch. Cheeseburger with french fries was apparently the most popular last meal. Most convicts chose dishes rooted in their ethnic or cultural origins. Price tells this anecdote which I find poetic:

"One man ordered butter beans which was difficult to prepare, but it was something his mum made him when he was a kid and I knew it would take him back to a time when it was peaceful. So I cooked them real slow. There was this little old black guy -- a prisoner named Monroe who walked up and smelt the cooking and said: 'Mmm, I love butter beans, who they for?' and I said, 'Well, Monroe, they're for the guy they're fixin' to kill'. And he said: 'Mmmm, don't want no dead man's beans, I got enough problems'."