UNHAPPY M EALS What would famous chefs eat— if they knew their goose was cooked?
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ake it from me: There really are last meal fantasies of those for whom food foods “to die for.” For once, that is their life? What would famous chefs hackneyed phrase has a proper use. ask for? Someone did the research for us: There’s a rich recorded history of what fa- editorial photographer Melanie Dunea, mous people—condemned criminals as whose coffee table book My Last Supper well as heads of (Bloomsbury USA) state—requested is filled with stunand consumed just ning portraits of 50 before they degreat chefs along parted this earth, a macabre specialty field with interviews and recipes. Anthony full of surprises. Bourdain writes in its introduction, “Chefs The about-to-be-executed have their have been playing the ‘My Last Supmenus recorded by law, so we’re able per’ game, in one version of other, since to learn that Timothy McVeigh desired humans first gathered around the flames quarts of mint-chocolate chip ice cream to cook.” and nothing else, while John Wayne Gacy Here they have the perfect chance to ordered shrimp, fried chicken, French dream of the foods they would choose, fries and a pound of strawberries. Some and also the setting, possible guests, even of these records include food-related favorite music backgrounds. In the amazing range of these choices, choic many are quite last words as well, like the mordant quip, unexpected. “Well, gentlemen, you are about to m George So ome ar see a baked Appel,” from Some are really grandiic ose. Dan Appel, facing the electric Daniel Boulud, with eponym chair in 1928. eponymous restaurants ad in New York, Florida and Then there are the sad Montr last meals of luminariess Montreal, sees himself in the Hall Ha of Mirrors at Verwho ended their own sailles, with “Apicius, Baclives, like Marilyn Mon-uffet chus, Careme, C roe’s cheap Mexican buffet Escoffier, d and Pau supper (guacamole and Paul Bocuse” and a feast pr albondigas—meatballs)) and prepared by contemarefully porary master chef Alain Ernest Hemingway’s carefully ip steak, Ducass prepared New York strip Ducasse. Ducasse himself alad and baked potato, Caesar salad (he has restaua glass of Bordeaux. rants all over the Unlikely figlobe, from Plaza nal eats abound. Athenee in Paris Who would have to London and thought that James Las Vegas) says, Dean had a slice “I would choose of apple pie and to go to Mars for Before the bell tolled for Hemingway, he polished off a New York steak and a baked potato. a glass of milk at my last supper, but a roadside diner not because I have just before crashing his Porsche Spider become bored with terrestrial pleasures.” in 1955, or that flamboyant LiberAs creator of recipes for the astronauts in ace enjoyed a bowl of cream of wheat the French Space Agency, he would include sprinkled with brown sugar? four of those dishes in his meal. These doomed people are fun to read Most of the book’s subjects choose far about, but what if we could find out the more familiar surroundings: their homes,
by Pat Fusco
16 PACIFIC SUN OCTOBER 28 - NOVEMBER 3, 2011
a beach, their own restaurant, a forest setting. Their food choices are simpler, too. Simpler does not always mean undistinguished— many named foie gras in one form or another, and caviar was a favorite (with Champagne, of course), all with simple luxury. Eric Ripert (Le Bernadin) would ask for toasted country bread, olive oil, shaved black truffle, with rock salt and black pepper. Tempestuous Gordon Ramsay (with 16 restaurants For his last meal, Mill Valley’s Tyler Florence has a special place all over the world and hit television in his heart for the bourbon ice cream he enjoyed as a kid. shows) returns to British Sunday: happens with Marin’s own Tyler Florence. roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and red He says, “I want the last thing I taste to be wine gravy. Gabrielle Hamilton, whose the first thing I remember tasting.” Among Manhattan restaurant Prune is a gour- such foods are fried chicken, shrimp and met mecca, would like roe (“even salmon grits with andouille sausage, black-eyed roe”), radishes, scrambled eggs with sea peas with cornbread, biscuits and gravy, salt, cracked black pepper and parsley to and peach cobbler “with hand-churned be eaten with “yeasty toast” and a hand- bourbon ice cream.” Revered chef Jacques ful of good ripe cherries. Tony Bourdain Pepin includes everything from hot dogs wants simple, too. “Roast bone marrow and lobster rolls to French classics (squab, with parsley and caper salad, with a few pheasant), and a childhood dessert, his slices of toasted baguette and sea salt.” mother’s crepes served warm from the And a perfect Guinness. pan. He would have family and friends Everyone knows who Thomas Keller “and my dog, Paco” gathered together to is, but who could predict his answer to “cook, drink, and eat together until the the familiar question? He starts off as one end—weeks or months later—when I might imagine: “I would begin with a would die from the peche de gourmandise half-kilo of osetra caviar followed by some [sin of gluttony].” otoro.” But then? “A quesadilla, followed An amusing response in the book came by a roast chicken, and finally, Brie with from world-famous Guy Savoy, who said truffles. For dessert I would choose to have in a gracious note to the author: “I have a either profiteroles or a lemon tart.” Scott phobic rapport with death, and because of Conant (Scarpetta, D.O.C.G.) wanders this, will never discuss my last meal! This through ethnic cuisines with his dream returns me to my life’s philosophy: I talk of spit-roasted goat, fresh corn cut off the about openings, not closings.” cob, sushi, papardelle with white truffles, Among all of these fantasies, there is a and his mother’s sausage and peppers. story that might be useful to remember. (“Oh,” he adds, “and one more sausage Julia Child answered the familiar quesand pepper sandwich to go, please. I am tion years ago with an elaborate feast not too sure how long this trip is.”) moving from caviar to duck to dessert, Bourdain wrote in the intro, “When we served with rare wines. As it turned out, think of what we would eat last, we revert her real last supper was a bowl of French from the loud, Type A, obsessive, dominat- onion soup. ✹ ing control freaks we’ve become back to Place your order with Pat at patfusco@sonic.net. the children we once were.” That’s what