The Final Feast: Exploring The Last Meal of Death Row

What would you have for your last meal?

If you could have any meal you want what would it be? Sounds great doesn’t it, there’s only one catch….it’s the last one you’ll ever have. Today we are discussing Death Row’s last meal.

The idea of the last meal has perplexed me from the first time I heard of it until right now. Is an inmate who is set to be executed going to be able to receive anything they want, and why?

As a chef, I think about this more than the average person, or at least I assume I do.

What would it be like to prepare a person’s last meal? A person on death row knows they are going to die, they know it’s their last meal.

I may have in the past unknowingly prepared a last meal for someone who wasn’t expecting to die but unfortunately did at some point after consuming that meal. Not saying it was the meal that killed them, hopefully not but who knows?

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When did we start the tradition of feeding a meal of their choosing to persons who are set to be executed? Where and when did this practice start, and is it still an option today for a death row inmate?

I assume that allowing a condemned person to choose their last meal was done out of compassion for the human condition, as a sign that no matter what this person did, we will not treat them as they treated others, we will give them one last bit of free will that they may have denied to someone else.

The gesture of the last meal could be that sort of courtesy although it could just be the state’s way of saying hey, we have to execute you, it’s nothing personal but we must do it and, as a consolation prize you get to choose your last meal. Yay!

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There is evidence that the last meal for the condemned can be traced back to ancient Greece. The Greeks would make sure that the prisoner was sent into the afterlife with a full stomach so their hungry ghost wouldn’t return to Earth to haunt the living. This is not a compassionate reason at all, in fact, it’s quite selfish.

As this tradition spread from Greece to Rome, Gladiators would partake in a feast before facing their mortality in the Collesium. The Puritans in the New World would also hold fantastic meals for the condemned, believing it emulated the Last Supper of Jesus Christ.

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I can’t imagine being hungry enough to eat a feast knowing that right after it will be time to die, but I can’t imagine being on death row either.

As inhumane as it sounds to deny an inmate on death row their last meal, we have to remember that the majority of people who are executed in our prison systems have committed some of the most heinous crimes imaginable.

Does the tradition of a last feast still stand today, yes it does, but a death row inmate’s “Last” meal may take place a few days before the execution, and there are some stipulations. For example, if an inmate orders 300 tacos they may only get three etc.

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Steak is one of the most popular choices for a last meal, it’s always a good choice and you gotta get your protein somehow.

Ice cream is almost ubiquitously requested and why not, if you’re going to die you’re probably emotionally eating but let’s face it, no one who is about to die wants to eat any kind of healthy food.

We hear stories of death row inmates requesting steak and lobster or an obnoxious amount of pizza or fried chicken. Sure they can request all they want, but they usually get whatever the prison gives them and they can choose to eat or not, after all, they were put on death row for a reason, right?