h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What an interesting question. Well done, that man (or woman!)

Apparently, one of the most requested dishes in the American penal system for a last meal is hamburger, but if you've been raised on a diet of processed food, that's hardly surprising. Much as I enjoy a proper, homemade burger, I think I'd have to opt for something else.

I think it would have to be Cod goujons and chips from Rick Steins takeaway place in Padstow- every time I go to the West Country I end up there. I think if it was going to be my last meal I'd like the memories of the sea, the beach and rolling waves, fishing boats bobbing in the harbour, the smell of the salt and vinegar mingling with the smells of the sea. And, hopefully, in jail there'd be no pesky seagulls chasing me for a chip!!

Simple pleasure for a very simple man

>>>I think it would have to be Cod goujons and chips from Rick Steins takeaway place in Padstow- every time I go to the West Country I end up there. I think if it was going to be my last meal I'd like the memories of the sea, the beach and rolling waves, fishing boats bobbing in the harbour, the smell of the salt and vinegar mingling with the smells of the sea

Aha! That's the kind of thing we're after, not just the food but the pictures, the associations, the Proustian mental flights of memory! Nice post

For me it just has to be BBQ food- lovely steaks, chicken, corn on the cob and jacket potatoes in the coals. It brings back memories of lazy summer afternoons in the garden, lying in the grass half cut with a jug of Pimms and laughing with friends.
Ok the food is often charred and the salad soggy, but it's the best way to spend summers!

Definitely a barbeque.

Seafood to start- grilled Pacific salmon with tzadziki, cod cheeks in butter, cold Dungenese crab and spotted prawns (small portions). A nice, cold Gewürztraminer and a green salad with that. Grilled corn on the cob and jacket potatoes with sour cream and chopped green onions.

Sliders (mini burgers) with ground bison that has stilton cheese inside. A nice Sangria to go with that, lots of sliced fruit in it. Maybe some *lamb pospsicles*- those lamb ribs that grill so well.

Finished up with a melon collie baby- a watermelon that has a 1" hole cored to the opposite side of the melon and that hole filled with overproof rum (topped up occasionally from the day before)and a cheese plate.

So.... when's the execution?

Oh, the connections.

That is a very local type meal for me, everything is growable or catchable within 100 miles of where I sit right now. Even the local wines are award winning. Of course, if you asked the same question in the middle of winter the answers would probably be more *comfort food* like a Sunday roast or turkey (or goose!). The Fall says vegetables and the last of the Summer fruit to me, the Spring is lamb and asparagus and oysters. Summertime was always a *gather up what you want to eat* time where I grew up, lots of seafood and garden veggies. Even on vacation we trapped crab and dug up clams and they'll never again taste as good.

I'm on a gluten free diet. If I knew it was going to be my last meal I'd have some things I can't eat now. Either chicken fried steak or fried chicken, mashed potatoes and cream gravy, garlic bread and a slice of apple or cherry pie. Heck, it's my last meal. I'll have a brownie, too.

Hypatia has it right. All of the things that I'm not supposed to eat right now, in heaping portions, with coconut on top.

Of course, the correct answer is "Oh, just a salad for me, I'm watching my weight"

Seriously, I imagine most people would choose comfort food of some sort for a last meal. It would be disappointing to try something new and not like it!

I suppose that is why burger and fries is so popular in the States. They even let the prisoner wash it down with a beer. Like you say, comfort food.

I'd also like a bowl of raspberries and ice-cream for pudding, maybe with some scrunched up meringue. Dee-lish!!

Ok but if you could choose what the last thing you do is?
Do you do something you always planned to liek jump out of a plane?
Or do you gather your family and spend time with them?
I think I would like to be totally alone really, that way you only take happy memories with you.
Sorry, rather morbid!Still, it's not as if the planet is facing imminent destruction right now......?

Sod the family, I'd go diving in the Red Sea!

It appears I'm outliving all the family members I'd care to spend my last hours with, so doing something special would work better for me. This will take some thought. There are a lot of things I'd like to do and probably never will.