Friday 8 February 2013

Last meals

Talking of the condemned man's last meal (see 31st January's blog 'Elizabeth David on Death Row') I suppose it's not only the content of the morbid nosh-up that's of interest, but also the venue. 

Prisoners facing execution presumably eat their last meal in their cell, or in a cell adjoining the room where the sentence is to be carried out, by gas or needle or electric chair (and it strikes me as likely that whatever dishes are served will be liberally sprinkled with a powerful sedative, and that perhaps this is  why a last meal - traditionally described as a 'hearty' one - has become part of the ritual). So the question is: 'where would you choose to eat your last meal?' assuming, that is, you're not actually on Death Row.

The restaurant of a Cunard liner; a wagon lit speeding along the Riviera to Menton? Both, ideally in the 1920s. Or in an airship gondola over 1930s New York. Or perhaps - a shade more realistically - a corner table in St John, Clerkenwell, or (yes!) the courtyard of the Manoir du Maine Giraud.

The last of these will feature in tomorrow's blog.

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