I have never had resolved feelings about the Death Penalty. The execution of innocent people due to flaws in our justice system is clealry abhorrent. And I’m not sure that punishing violence with violence is a very contemporary approach to justice. Though, sometimes I’ll hear the stories of some of these criminals and feel a swell of anger and disgust that leads me to feel as though they deserve their sentence.
I recently heard a piece on NPR about how in response to the state of Texas discontinuing the practice of offering a last meal to death row inmates, a former prison cook volunteered to cook these meals himself with costs out of his own pocket. The state declined.
I have always been drawn to practices of culminating preferences t0 essential favorites. I love best of lists and desert island picks. At Ox-Bow we have a tradition of preparing one’s ultimate birthday meal, with almost no recipe, no matter how challenging or decadent, off limits. There is something gratuitously generous about preparing these kinds of meals that I find perversely satisfying.
The choice of one last meal before being put to death indulges a last chance of pleasure for the prisoner. But what of the cook? I was compelled by the man in the story’s compassion for the prisoners. However, I wondered what kind of gratification (perverse or not) he might feel to make such a huge gesture to someone in these circumstances. There is a selfish power play that underlies the seeming benevolence of generosity. I feel this every time some one takes a bite of my food- I have penetrated, altered the chemistry of the body, and sensually satiated. What would it feel like to do this for someone about to die?
So I posed this (hypothetical) question to several subjects. In researching the parameters by which prisons typically set for these meals, there seemed to be an average budget of $40. Some prisons will only use what is on hand in their larder, while others will make special orders or procure ingredients from within a short drive’s distance from the prison. So my limitations were to be a $40 budget, ingredients were to be found on hand or at the local grocery store. Ox-Bow seemed like a proper setting for this project, in that it is an institution itself and has cafeteria style food service. I set up a special isolated dining area, where I served the subject their meal behind a closed door with a single light illuminating the table from above.
The reactions were varied- ranging from sincere reflections upon mortality to pleasure from the experience of eating by oneself.
The history of the last meal on Wikipedia is quite fascinating, particularly this passage:
“In pre-modern Europe, granting the condemned a last meal has roots in superstition: a meal was a highly symbolic social act. Accepting freely offered food symbolized making peace with the host. The guest agreed tacitly to take an oath of truce and symbolically abjured all vengeance. Consequentially, in accepting the last meal the condemned was believed to forgive the executioner, the judge, and witness(es). The ritual was supposed to prevent the condemned from returning as a ghost or revenant to haunt those responsible for their killing.”
Interesting that the consciences of those offering the food is ultimately the primary consideration.
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