My Last Supper and Why You Should Know Everything About Yours
When the big guy up there asks what you want, you can retort that you came prepared.
In anyone’s journey there THE day, the one where we realize that life could stop at any moment. For an unknown reason, this day happened for me in September 2017.
I spent weeks looking over my shoulder on my way home from the station, walking away carefully from construction sites and wondering whether the bump that had appeared behind my ear was worth calling an ambulance. I was happy and well-too aware that this could stop at any minute, as life was not in reality a gift, but rather a loan.
I am an overly vigilant/prepared-to-face-any-situation human. This pushes me to consider ANYTHING that could happen to me or the people I love and make a plan for it.
Of course, my therapist could tell you more about her guesses concerning the traumas that made me opt for a rather stressful way of going through my days but this is not what we are here for.
We are here to discuss how we make the most of this rather weird loan we all got: life. And what better way to discuss this than food?
One day, on my way home from school, as I was preparing for when the doctor would share that I had only a few weeks left, I stopped and realized I might have to choose what I wanted for dinner.
My last supper. And I had no freaking idea.
Right then and there, I decided to solve that issue and spent weeks thinking about all-dente pasta covered in truffles, apricot pies with a flaky crust, and butter chicken curry with fresh coriander pesto.
I also ended up interviewing people around me about what their last supper would be and discovered two clear categories of people:
The extravagants: the ones who are going all out and choosing a selection of the best of the best meals they had in their life. Often the most expensive dish that they had once during their holidays in France at this very bougie restaurant. Why choose for restraint on your last day on earth?
The nostalgics: the ones that need to have their grandmother’s pie as the dessert because she puts this special twist on it, where she tops it up with steamy hot chocolate and a kiss on your cheek.
My answer puts me in the second category: each of my favorite foods is a memory, lying deeply in the most colorful places of my journey through life.
My last supper would start with a bowl of creamy spinach, the one my mother would start cooking whenever she felt tears in my voice coming home from school.
Still licking the spoon, a small plate filled with dozens of shrimp covered in garlic & butter would appear in front of me. I would put my sleeves up (or maybe not, who cares when you’re never wearing this shirt again?) and start taking apart the shrimp shells with an intense feeling of freedom. Just like I would do every summer sitting in my dad’s garden.
Finally, I would finish my supper with the most simple and best thing out there: fresh pasta with brown butter and sage. Pasta was always my favorite.
One day, Louis decided it was more than the time that we went to Italy to learn how to make pasta from scratch. To this day, the memories of him and me frowning over our dough, debating whether it was thin enough have always been the most precious. We made pasta while fighting about carbonara, we made pasta while kissing on my favorite Supertramp album and we made pasta for each other when life felt daunting.
I could not think of a better way to finish my journey than with the simple yet exquisite taste of well-buttered pasta in my belly.
You never know what will happen to you, life is a big box full of traps and surprises. But if you think about your last supper you will revisit what makes your life great and perhaps you will feel like me: a tad more ready to face anything.
Also when the big guy up there asks what you want, you can retort that you came prepared.
I am so curious to hear what your last meal would be and why, seriously think about it (this is a serious affair) and drop it in the comments.
Also if you are like me and never know what to talk about in social contexts that make you feel like running home and eating pasta under a blanket, well you now have an answer.
This story was brought to you by Rooted, a publication dedicated to deep dives through food and drink culture. They are for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not be considered as nutritional or health advice.
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