I’ll have mine to go
Celia A. Shapiro, John William Rook, 9/19/1986, from the series Last Supper, 2001
The idea of offering prisoners on death row a last meal of their choice – prepared by a fellow inmate – has always struck me as odd.
I’ve no doubt it’s meant as an act of kindness, but still… stuffing a soon dead-by-your-hand body with food seems to me one inch away from a taunt. (Unless of course you believe that the soul should be well-fed for its trip to the great beyond – those long line-ups at the gates can be hellish.)
Interesting too is how many of the prisoners wolf those meals down – most of which consist of comfort foods from their probably uncomfortable childhoods. And surely there’s some significance in being able to make one last choice – foist an order on your captor and executioner.
Filmmakers, James Marsh and Mats Bigert have each made a documentary on the subject.
Both were struck by prison officials’ compulsion to note not only the condemned’s last meal, but also every minute of their last 24 hours on earth – their final movements (bowel, etc.) and words.
William Prince Davis left us with this thought: “Oh, I would like to say in closing, `What about those Cowboys?”’
Now, I’m not sure if this careful note-taking is proof of some stifled uneasiness with the death penalty, perverse fascination with legal murder, or just an extreme example of the bureaucratic mind. Whatever it is, it’s telling of an obsession with people society has voted to eliminate.
Says Marsh:
The ritual of the last supper is also a way for the guards, or for the people working in the prison, to ask for forgiveness, to indicate to the prisoner that it’s not their fault, that it’s the system…
Nobody is certain where the ritual of the last meal came from. Most think it echoes Christ’s last supper, but there is apparently evidence of Ancient Greek and Egyptian traditions of the kind.
And more recent examples – some barbaric:
… from East Timor, at the beginning of the 1800s. There was a sultan whose wife was killed in an ongoing blood feud, and the sultan found out who actually did it. His revenge was to first capture the entire family of 20 people and to bury them alive in a field and plough over them. He first saved the youngest daughter though and put her in his highest tower. He had a chef come there every day and cut off a piece of her flesh with a knife, fry it in curry and feed her with it, feed her with herself. So she was eating herself to death slowly…
And others more humane:
…in 18th-century England … executions were “reminiscent of Bacchanalian orgies.” Noting the word “gala” is derived from “gallows”…
A prisoner would be given an elaborate banquet – and the services of a prostitute – before being walked to the execution site. Along the route, the condemned would pass through the Newgate section of London, where pubs line the street, and the gallows party would stop for drinks en route. By the time the execution site was reached, the condemned man often was quite spiritually numbed.
I don’t know what my last words would be (I’m just not that organised), or what I’d order… but I’m certain both would turn to ash in my mouth.
(And, if reprieved, I’d probably fall permanently to pieces like Dostoyevsky.)
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Comment
- think that’s bad, why not get tortured on end by trailer trash in Abu Graib, Pakistan, Libya, Guntanamo or anywhere else the US can send unmarked planes to.
God it’s good to be Canadian!!!
— troublefete May 19, 8:48pm # - “Trailer trash” is a no less bigoted a term than “nigger” or “kike” or “wog”, and I find it seriously offensive.
One aspect of the last supper is its personalizing of the experience, it makes it easier to project into, and since the whole grim process is supposed to be about cathartic warning, an object lesson that serves as well to gratify the hunger for suffering – seeing that metabolic link, that commonality, brings it in close to the viewing audience. Scares the bad guys and thrills the good guys. As it were.
— Juke Moran May 19, 10:41pm # - the word “gala” is derived from “gallows”
I find that strangely comforting.
— cmb May 19, 10:56pm # - “In her later years, Julia Child often was asked to describe the ideal menu for her last meal. Her most detailed answer, from Noel Riley Fitch’s 1997 biography, Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child:
• Caviar with Russian vodka and oysters with Pouilly-Fuisse wine.
• Foie gras
• Pan-roasted duck, with onions and chanterelle mushrooms
• Pommes Anna (thinly-sliced potatoes baked in butter) and fresh asparagus
• 1962 Romanee-Conti (a red Burgundy) or a red Bordeaux, such as Chateau Palmer or Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
• French bread with Roquefort and Brie, with a Grands-Echezeauxs Burgundy
• For dessert, her answers varied, and included sorbet with walnut cake; ripe pears and green tea; and crème brulee from Le Cirque in New York, served with a 1975 or 1976 Chateau d’Yquem sauternes dessert wine.”
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-08-13-child-obit_x.htm
— Andy May 20, 9:07am # - Hi Gail,
Fascinating topic. I had an entry on this on March 14th last year and feel you should know the weblog Dead Man Eating!
http://deadmaneating.blogspot.com/
I don’t believe your quote’s etymology of gala, though.
Always fun to read you,
Margaret
— MM May 20, 9:11am # - I don’t believe your quote’s etymology of gala, though.
Nor do I.
Plus, it’s not true.
gala:
1625, “festive dress or attire,” from Fr. en gala, from It. gala (as in phrase vestido de gala “robe of state”), perhaps from Ar. khil’a “fine garment given as a presentation.” Sense of “festive occasion” (characterized by display of finery) first recorded 1777.
gallows:
c.1230, pl. of M.E. galwe “gallows,” from O.N. galgi, or from O.E. galga (Mercian), gealga (W. Saxon); all from P.Gmc. *galg- “pole” (cf. O.Fris. galga, M.H.G. galge “gallows, cross”), perhaps cognate with Lith. zalga “pole, perch,” Armenian dzalk “pole.” Originally also used of the cross of the crucifixion. Plural because made of two poles.
I just thought it was funny how people will say anything when trying to make a point.
— gail May 20, 9:36am # - when i was studying in Florence and living on Via Ghibellina, there was a fanstastic restaurant down the block called “Osteria del Boia”, which translates to “Restaurant of the Executioner” (the sign outside, the menus, etc. all had a wonderfully cheery image of a large hooded man holding an axe).
their signature dish was a plate of tagliatelle in a sauce of champagne, smoked salmon and caviar, called “il piatto dell’ultima alba”—or, “the meal of the last dawn”. never before, or since, have i eaten anything so simultaneously decadent and disturbing.
— shiraz May 20, 12:02pm # - but still… stuffing a soon dead-by-your-hand body with food seems to me one inch away from a taunt. (Unless of course you believe that the soul should be well-fed for its trip to the great beyond
In the US right now there’s a prisoner on Death Row in Georgia who wants a stay of execution so he can donate an organ (his liver, I think) to his sister. I heard a newscaster say, brightly, something like: “Doctors say it would take about two months of recovery after the surgery for him to be healthy enough to be put to death.”
Talk about a taunt. When is my country going to join the civilized world and abolish the death penalty?!?
— Amy H. May 20, 3:26pm # - I do think it’s meant to be kind (in a fashion) – to feed one’s self as an act to nourish one’s soul…
What often appalls me, working in the world peace field, is how often people take for granted the food readily available to them. Daily work shows me how much of the world is not nearly as fortunate as some of the poor among the population of my country. I’ve yet to grow immune to their suffering or the nutritional largesse available to me.
And then, I know that humans (being the contrary lot that we are) imbue an astonishing array of emotions to & meanings about what is no more than the fuel that is required by our bodies to function. Which, in the end, contributes to the continuance of humans being perverse.
This is a subject I long to bring up over dinner with friends, but I’ve yet to find the friends who’s eyes don’t go blank and they begin mumbling about the time…
— roggey May 20, 4:58pm # - We Westerners’ relationship with food is indeed fascinating and perverse, and proof that we have an infinite capacity to create problems for ourselves—now that we’ve solved the basic challenges of survival.
I can think of few conditions more revealing of a decadent society than anorexia (except perhaps gourmet food for pets).
We stuff or starve ourselves—having made eating an integral part of our psychological condition.
And as a measure of class distinction, it’s apparently one of the last remaining acceptable bastions of snobbery.
— gail May 20, 5:42pm # - I don’t know what my last words would be either, but I would try to put some “gay” into “gala” – maybe sing some Barry Manilow songs or something – but I’d totally demand my Last Oreos, dammit.
— peggy May 22, 1:47am #
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