Death Be Not Gluttonous

FM Staff

If you knew you were going to die what would you have for your final meal? That was a question posed to 50 famous chefs by photographer Melanie Dunea. She recently published the results in a spectacular (and perhaps spectacularly morbid) coffee table book titled My Last Supper (Bloomsbury USA).

The answers are fascinating as a psychic probe into the minds of some exquisite culinarians, and some of those minds are definitely weird. For instance. Jacques Pepin would want…a hot dog! (What, no cassoulet, Jacques?)

Nobu Matsuhisa would go with a dozen pieces of sushi and a cucumber roll. Impressively minimalist, but not really in the spirit of the thing, is it? After all, if you are going to go to that great back-of-thehouse in the sky, why not live a little?

Most of the chefs got the idea, which is why the entries are filled with ingredients like truffles, caviar and foie gras. For instance, Gary Danko has a Normandy invasion scale event all plotted out, down to the musical selections and the wines—15 in all! He even has eunuchs as servers, something he may want explore with his analyst.

Perhaps the most appropriate entry is from Masa Takayama, who selects fugu, the notorious Japanese blowfish dish that, if not prepared correctly, kills the diner. Hey, if you gotta go…

The illustrations for FM's Just Desserts column are by Dave Clark. You can see more of his work at Clarktoons.