Last Meal Choices

What would you choose to eat if you had only one more meal to eat (just a hypothesis, I am not sending the executioner to put you in the electric chair)? If you said, "Why would he ask that?", you probably don't like food enough to be interested. if so, I feel sorry for you. Good food is one pleasure that all humans can enjoy with high intensity. I think it is good to search out those special meals whenever possible. Thus, what would your last meal be. (If you chose too many vegetables in it. I will say a Novena for your lost soul).

It's sad to think that some day we probably will be having a last meal at a very old age, and that most probably we won't enjoy it as much as we would now! If old and decrepit, the taste acuity, even my ability to breathe and swallow could be compromised enough to make the most heavenly tastes seem bland. That being the case, I think we should always strive to enjoy a last meal every day while we still can enjoy it lest I miss out on the chance to savor the tastes.

I am betting you probably choose some food item for your last meal, that was a memory of your childhood, and in the very least you choose something that is locally available. People who chose a generic last meal.."I just want a steak or noodles", might not have the appreciation for food as those who have a more specific choice.Too, when was the last time you allowed yourself to have your favorite meal? The food people today, and the diet wackcos have convinced many of us that eating should be a spartan, tasteless experience that is done only to serve "good nutritional purposes". But I think that if we make nutritious, balanced choices most of the time, the body's cravings for the rich and favored foods we crave must be satiated. To not feed our passions is to die slowly each day.

My last meal choice would be a New Orleans style Shrimp Po Boy. Sweet deep fried Louisiana shrimp with only light mayonnaise on the famed Leidenheimer's German/French bread. It's simple and heavenly. My side item is a steaming bowl of Seafood Gumbo made with a dark roux and filed with seafood and served with plenty of rice. For dessert, an apple Hubig pie ( it's a local version of pocket pies with an ethereal crust from a recipe a German immigrant brought to New Orleans more than 125 years ago and cooked on the same machinery and with the same ingredients as done 125 years ago ). To finish off my last meal I would grab a New Orleans style snowball, spearmint in flavor with creamy vanilla ice cream in the middle.

It's simple fare, and part of the food of my upbringing, and I hope I'll have many more last meals like it in the years ahead.