My favourite food critic wrote a book which compiled the varied and strange last meal requests of death row prisoners.
It makes me think of an alternative, less macabre, spin on the choice: if you could, from now on, only eat one meal, every day for the rest of your life, what would you choose?
This is the question that I put to my two sons one evening. I want to see whether, if they really thought about it, they could stand eating their favourite dish if it was foisted upon them day in and day out.
I can see from their nonplussed faces that I’m not getting a quick answer. Ha! I have them in a corner. In a bid to be helpful and make the whole endeavour seem more palatable to their palate, I add: “In this scenario, you can have snacks as well during the day as long as it isn’t counted as a “meal“. And desserts are okay too. This is just about what you eat as a “meal”.”
Boy, I’m getting into this; earnestly starting to build rules and protocols, as if this is something that might actually need to be implemented.
After a moment, a reply comes from one of my sons:
“Roast dinner. With all the trimmings“. He then adds “as it’s a Roast, it could be chicken, beef or lamb – I could mix it up“.
I realise he could also allow himself different types of side vegetable each time. I contemplate momentarily the different permutations of a Roast dinner and come up with at least half a dozen.
“That’s not a meal” I protest, “that’s a buffet!”.
There I was, assuming that he would name a dish, not a semi-genre of food. I am about to argue that, for the purposes of this question, Roast should be a verb, not a noun, but I am interrupted by my other son declaring his hand. I should have seen it coming, but I am like the hapless gamekeeper in Jurassic Park realising too late the blindsiding pincer movement deployed by the pair of velociraptors.
“Pasta” he announces.
“Pasta?” I reply.
“Yeah. Pasta” he counters, as if wondering why this would need any clarification.
Still, I proceed to clarify, for the record: “Pasta. So not Chicken Alfredo or Beef Lasagna or Prawn Linguine. Just “Pasta”. So that could be any type, with any type of sauce, and any type of protein, and any type of veg“. I assume my pointed elaboration will make self-evident the flaw in his response. It doesn’t.
“Yes. I would eat that for the rest of my life” he nods, stoically, as if making the kind of sacrifice that would make Epictetus proud.
I don’t bother to estimate the many dozens of combinations of a pasta dinner or point out to him that his answer to my question is in effect: “I will completely restrict myself……to pretty much all Italian food”.
They both then return to their preoccupations, rather smugly I sense, having neatly sidestepped the lifetime culinary straitjacket I had tried to wrap them in.
I do the same, rather chastised, and resolve that in future I should be less self-righteous when criticizing the flawed wording of the Brexit referendum question.