So many people have written/blogged on the topic that this post has turned into somewhat of a research paper. I don’t know what value-added I can bring to the dialogue on death row meals, but I hope this post is informative or at least amusing nonetheless.
Les Détenus
Last night I was reading this article about the guy who was executed by firing squad in Utah this morning. The article mentioned that his last meal was steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream and 7UP. It got me thinking about this one time, sophomore year of college, when in the midst of conducting some stoney internet research on John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (I was really into the Sufjan Stevens song at the time, duh), I stumbled upon Wikipedia’s “Last Meal” page. Here’s some of my favorites (in terms of me actually having heard of them or what they requested). Most of these meals were “requested” but probably not granted.
Allen Lee Davis: One lobster tail, fried potatoes, a half-pound of fried shrimp, six ounces of fried clams, half a loaf of garlic bread, and 32 ounces of A&W root beer
Dennis Wayne Bagwell: Medium rare steak with A1 Steak Sauce, fried chicken breasts and thighs, BBQ ribs, French fries, onion rings, bacon, scrambled eggs with onions, fried potatoes with onions, sliced tomatoes, salad with ranch dressing, two hamburgers, peach pie, milk, coffee, and iced tea with real sugar
Joan of Arc: Holy Communion
John Wayne Gacy, Jr.: A dozen deep-fried shrimps, a bucket of original recipe chicken from KFC, french fries, and a pound of strawberries
Martha Beck (one of the “honeymoon killers”): Fried chicken, fried potatoes and salad
Perry Smith and Richard Hickock (from In Cold Blood): Shrimp, french fries, garlic bread, ice cream, and strawberries with whipped cream
Timothy McVeigh (the unibomber): Two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream
Velma Barfield (serial poisoner): Cheese doodles and coffee (bought from prison canteen, not requested)
Victor Feguer: A single olive with the pit still in it
If you’re interested, I think this website lists pretty much all of the death row meals on record.
It turns out that serial killers/death row criminals, on the whole, do tend towards the hearty and somewhat low-brow (maybe not low-brow, but comfort food – perhaps due to their psychological state?) when it comes to their last meals. I’ve noticed lots of fried chicken, fried shrimp, fried pork chops and ice cream but also luxury-ish big ticket protein items like steak and lobster, and a fair amount of soft drinks and snack food. According to Slate Magazine, the most requested death row meal in the US is a cheeseburger with fries. According to this article, most inmates request meals from fast food chains like McDonald’s or KFC. There’s an obvious sociological/socioeconomic argument to be made. Or maybe it’s more regional – most executions do take place in the south, after all. Southern-born criminals, southern prisons, affinity for southern/American food? There’s also definitely a cultural element to the death row meal choice. According to Brian Price, who was a death row chef in Texas for over a decade, most inmates choose food unique to their culture. Perhaps this is because it reminds them of their childhood. I should write my dissertation on this if I ever do a Ph.D. I’ll add that to my list of things to do along with starting an Ethiopian burrito truck. (Jane says the injera is too flimsy to function as a tortilla but I disagree.) One last thought: to what extent are the last meal requests submitted by inmates colored by their knowledge of the restrictions on what they will actually receive? Maybe they refrain from requesting sashimi or caviar or bone marrow not because they lack sophistication or don’t truly crave those things, but because they know such a request would be denied. I’m guessing it’s mostly the former. The limitations to the types of foods prisons can provide have not stopped loads of death row inmates from requesting filet mignon or food in ridiculous quantities. I venture to say that the death row meal choices of inmates do in large part reflect their preferences, with the exception of those trying to make a statement. (The olive guy thought maybe an olive tree would grow inside him post-mortum, symbolizing peace.)
Les Chefs
But enough about the death row meal choices of people actually scheduled to die — what about the fanciful, hypothetical last meal choices of celebrity chefs? I could tell you off-hand from watching his show that Anthony Bourdain’s death row meal is roasted bone marrow, though he later declared that blood cake topped with a fried, runny-yolk egg might be his “new death row meal” when he traveled to the UK. I researched the hypothetical last meals of a few other chefs and found that someone has already made a book about it, entitled My Last Supper. Here’s a slideshow of some selects from the book. Even this small sampling shows more than one famous chef saying their last supper would include caviar and similarly decadent delicacies, and obviously one of them is Gary Danko. Makes sense I guess – it was at his restaurant in SF after all that I sampled oh-so-decadent bone marrow butter for the first time. Mario Batali’s last meal sounds pretty delish – an 8-10 course Italian feast starting with an antipasto of marinated anchovies and ending with an affogato and sponge cake with rum syrup. Full excerpt here. Thomas Keller’s last meal of choice, also in this book, consists of osetra caviar, o-toro tuna, quesadillas, roast chicken, brie with truffles, and profiteroles or lemon tart. For the most part, the death row meal choices of celebrity chefs seem to reflect their culinary identities with the exception of Alice Waters, who apparently stated at a forum that her last meal would be shark fin soup, to which Anthony Bourdain replied, “I don’t think shark fins are local.” She later backtracked on this. Go here for more extensive coverage on what was said at the “Food for Thought” forum with AB and AW. I found it to be a pretty fun read. You know what I would be curious to know though? If these chefs would order similar last meals to the death row inmates were they subject to the same constraints (i.e. a budget of $40, locally sourced ingredients, chef is a fellow inmate, etc.). The caviar and truffles wouldn’t make the cut. I guess if everyone’s hypothetical last meal had to be subject to these limitations then the ‘death row meal game’ wouldn’t be fun anymore.
Moi
In case you were wondering, I don’t really know what my last meal would be, though I do have a few ideas, most of them involving raw flesh. (As I have a fairly small stomach, I think I can safely say that I would not want to waste my stomach capacity on popcorn chicken or kimchi ramyun, both of which are perpetual guilty pleasures of mine.) I would definitely like to see some beef carpaccio or steak tartare (like the steak tartare with egg yolk they serve at Garibaldi’s) and some super fresh sashimi (salmon and/or hamachi) on my death row plate. I would also probably have a small portion of udon from Kappo Honda. Beyond that I cannot say. Carnitas or some kind of slow cooked pork? Oooh, maybe that pork shoulder, raw oyster and kimchi lettuce wrap thing that David Chang serves Anthony Bourdain on one of the “food porn” episodes of No Reservations. I think Caro and I are gonna attempt to make that soon so then I’ll know for sure.
Beyond these cursory musings, my last supper fantasy is rather incomplete. I guess I’m more in Thomas Keller’s boat, in that my last meal is shaping up to be more a smorgasbord of things cherry-picked from different culinary genres rather than one ultimate dish (or cohesive set of dishes constituting the ultimate meal). I guess I’m just hoping that I haven’t discovered my last meal yet, and that when I do I will know instantaneously, because it has to be that good right?
.
. 
. Note however that there were two sausages originally but that Ryan and I each have only half a sausage in the final photos. That’s because the other sausage was still in the Pyrex when it exploded and we were afraid of swallowing shards of glass so we threw it away. Yayy!!!!!!
