Rations
For most of us our last meal will be delivered through tubes or cradled within a trembling spoon.
_
I wonder what my father’s last meal was. A watered-down bowl of soup, polished cubes of red gelatin, a protein powder masquerading as food...
_
Eustace de Blois, son of King Stephen of England, choked on his supper. This was at the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, shortly after the prince had ordered for its plunder. Whether the death was an act of divine reprisal or poor fortune is as yet unclear.
_
Foods present at Da Vinci’s Last Supper:
leavened bread
citrus slices
fish
salt
wine
_
Note that the only apostle with an empty plate is Judas.
_
Victor Feguer, the last prisoner executed in the state of Iowa, requested for his final meal a single olive with the pit enclosed, in the slender hope that a tree might spring from his remains.
_
Hours before crashing his sports car on Route 466, James Dean stopped at a roadside diner for a slice of apple pie and a glass of milk.
_
Had he known his time was coming to a close, would he have ordered pecan or cherry?
_
Elvis Presley, notorious for roaming the halls of Graceland at the flush of dawn, treated himself to six chocolate chip cookies and four scoops of ice cream. Later that morning he collapsed on the bathroom floor.
_
What would I decide for my final meal? Something sumptuous and generously salted or a delicacy from youth, dipped in the golden honey of memory?
_
Because isn’t that privately what we desire from our food: to remember...
_
On the eve of battle, Roman gladiators were treated to a ceremonial banquet (cena libera), open to the masses. This served the twin purpose of introducing combatants to the public and ensuring good sport in the morning, as a famished gladiator wouldn’t last long in the arena.
_
Parishioners in the colonial town of Ciudad Real, at the southernmost extremity of Mexico, were threatened with excommunication if they persisted in drinking chocolate during mass. The Bishop who issued the decree perished after his own hot cocoa was dosed with poison. No confession was made for the crime.
_
First class passengers aboard the Titanic dined on a ten-course meal the evening of the ship’s foundering. The menu featured oysters, pâté de foie gras, and a choice of roast duckling or lamb.
_
Some of the items found inside the stomach of a 37-foot gray whale, stranded on a beach in West Seattle:
two dozen shopping bags
surgical gloves
sweatpants
a braided rope
electrical tape
a golf ball
_
A half-eaten apple was left on the bedside table of Alan Turing. The apple is suspected to have been bathed in a cyanide solution, an allusion to his favorite fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
_
For Dutch still life painters, moldering produce—akin to a withered flower or slow-burning candle—was a type of vanitas object, meant to remind one of the impermanence of life, the fruitlessness of material pursuits.
_
Hindu funeral ceremonies call for the eldest son to sprinkle the body with clarified butter (ghee) and place several grains of rice at the mouth of the deceased—the butter for its purity and the rice for nourishment.
_
Years later I still remember the cold leather of my father’s lips on my fingers.
_
Following the defeat of Marc Anthony at the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra arranged for an asp to be conveyed to her, concealed in a basket of figs. After consuming several pieces of fruit, the condemned queen offered her arm to the snake.
_
Was there a moment when Cleopatra sunk her mouth into the fruit and returned to the palace of her youth? Lush orchards flooded with sun and figs that fell with the slightest touch...