My Last Meal

"What is your Death Row meal?" This is Anthony Bourdains favorite question to ask chefs. He has gone around the country and asked the best of the best what meal they would want to be last thing they ever eat. And from the best of the best he always gets the same answers. It’s never a whole lobe of roasted fois gras or truffles or fried sweet bread "mcnuggets" for that matter, it’s always something simple and usually links back to either their mother or grandmother.

Now why would you think that these chefs, the men and women who are at the pinnacle of the culinary world, would request at their last meal their mothers classics? I think it all comes down to the simple fact that our senses trigger memories and emotions. It’s the same reason why people can get all nostalgic for their ex when a girl walks by wearing the same perfume. The same thing happens with food, except the impact is much more concentrated. The food reminds us of the people we were with, the location, the weather; the world itself can stand still on tines of a fork.

So what would my last meal be? I have thought about this one for a while and come up with only option that would send me off in the right way. It would have to be a meal from my grandmother, a wonderful woman raised on the farm in North West Missouri, who taught me the importance of a small metal can full of bacon grease.

Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes (whose only ingredients were potatoes, butter, salt, pepper and a touch of milk), her own canned green beans with little bits of bacon, fried eggplant, and gravy made in the same pan as the frying with milk as the liquid. All followed by her home made peanut brittle, the stuff is legendary. Not a healthy meal but if I am going out I want to do it smiling.

There you have it my last meal. It’s the kind of meal that I have cravings for, the kind that no matter how many times I try to replicate it I can never get it exactly right. Every time it brings me back to her kitchen but not all the way. That’s what your final meal is meant to do, take you back to another place and time, to reconnect you with those loved ones in your past. Ask a real chef and they will tell you, truffles are nice but grandmas’ cooking is what I dream about.

Stewart