Imagine asking a chef to select the final meal he or she will eat on Earth. There are no limits set, no foods required. What would the selection be?
Two years ago, photographer Melanie Dunea put that question to 50 of the world leading chefs and she shares their responses in her book My Last Supper. 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals. (Bloomsbury, 2007).
The large, coffee-table book is part photography album, part “Who’s Who” in the world of restaurant chefs. A nice bonus is the recipes for the last supper dishes included at the back of the book.
Jamie Oliver Wants Spaghetti with Three Kinds of Hot Peppers
Dunea asks each chef to set the scene for their last supper – what would the setting be like? What beverage would they enjoy with their meal? Who would prepare the meal and who would they share it with? Their answers are funny, touching and thoughtful. Jamie Oliver, for example, wants a pot of spaghetti all’arrabiata, made with three different kinds of hot peppers. For dessert, he’d like cold, homemade rice pudding served with hot, carmelized peaches. He’d prepare it all himself and share it with his wife Jools at their home in Essex. To accompany it? Oliver chooses a bottle of Hoegaarden beer.
On of the more arresting photos in the book is that of Anthony Bourdain of Kitchen Confidential fame. Bourdain is nude except for a strategically-placed meat bone – an appropriate accessory since Bourdain’s least meal choice is roast bone marrow with parsley and caper salad “with a few toasted slices of baguette and some good sea salt.”
A Seafood Tasting Menu For Ferran Adria
Ferran Adria, molecular gastronomy fan and chef of Spain’s El Bulli restaurant wants a tasting menu of seafood, finishing with fruit from the Amazon “that I had never tasted before.”
Women chefs are included as well. April Bloomfield of New York’s Spotted Pig hungers for an English roast lunch – roast beef with mashed and roasted potatoes, boiled carrots, carmelized Brussels sprouts and roasted parsnips. For dessert, she’d like a pie made with bananas, dulce-de leche cream and grated chocolate.
What strikes the reader is how intensely personal the selections are – recalling childhood meals, favorite food experiences or memories of home. Call it comfort food for the gourmet, but each food selection seems like a tiny glimpse into the soul of the chef – who he or she really is when the restaurant doors are closed and the white jacket comes off. Dunea captures this pure essence in her photographs, intimate portraits all of them – but still, it’s the choices that define a chef, whether those choices come in preparing a four-star dinner or selecting the ingredients for a final meal. The chefs featured in My Last Supper couldn’t be better defined by their choices and their choices are meals well worth considering by food lovers everywhere – no matter where they may be in one’s own timeline.
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