“We all have two things in common: we all gotta eat and we’re all gonna die”.
If you’re unfamiliar with theYoutube series “Last Meals” this catchphrase may be a bit off putting. However, it serves as the backbone for Mythical Kitchen’s most popular show to date.
Each episode, hosted by Josh Scherer, features a celebrity guest who chooses 4-5 courses they would want as their hypothetical final meal, exploring culinary memories, personal achievements, and the dreadful reality that we will all die someday.
As someone who has always felt emotionally tied to food, this series intrigued me from the moment I came across a clip of it on Instagram Reels, an episode featuring one of my favorite celebrities of all time: Mr. John Green.
I think about my last meal almost daily. In fact, if you are a close family member or friend of mine, I may have already asked you the same question I have yet to finally answer:
“What would your last meal on earth be?”
The Rules
Essentially, there are (close to) no rules.
I encourage you not to think too deeply about what foods pair with what or what truly constitutes a “course”. Of course, you cannot have every food you’ve ever loved make it onto your list, nor should you try to.
A course can consist of one item or many. It can include a beverage– it can be only a beverage. It can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and in no particular order. You can have one course or three, but never more than five (for the sake of the show, which you are starring in).
The kitchen is limitless in this scenario, which is part of what makes answering the question so difficult.
After months of deliberation, my current last meal will proceed as follows:
Course #1
Mom’s japanese barbeque grilled chicken, pan fried cheesy potatoes, italian pasta salad, corn off the cob, watermelon, and brownies à la mode.
Learning to cook on my own was a feat I tasked myself with around the age of 13 years old. I remember having been terrified of sizzling pans, amazed as I watched my mother dodge spits of oil as she fried potatoes on the stovetop. Too, I feared the sharp knife she used to slice through the rind of a watermelon with a level of speed only professionals had.
My mom was no professional in the kitchen, not by any culinary standard, but in my youth, I liked to believe she was on the same level as Gordon Ramsey or Anne Burrell. And although I can’t tell you the exact moment I began helping my mom in the kitchen, I can remember a few things quite vividly.
Raw, slimy, chicken breasts have become a friend of mine now. But my first time handling them felt more like a battle than meal prep. The impending doom of salmonella poisoning grew stronger as I threw another tenderloin onto the cutting board, my face stuck in a grimace as I dipped my knife into the muscle, carving out the tendon.
I must have wasted 5 bucks worth of chicken that night; there was no chance we had any leftovers. But my mom let me hack away at the meat, coat it with japanese barbeque sauce, and place it into a bowl for her to take to the grill.
Needless to say, I didn’t do the chicken often. I was typically tasked with shucking corn, cutting up vegetables and boiling rotini for the pasta salad, or even haphazardly flipping the cheesy potatoes in the pan. And once I got skilled enough at all of that, cutting the watermelon, which my mother still shivers at to this day while watching me bring the blade towards me, despite that she taught me to do otherwise.
We still have this meal often, typically when I come home in the summer or early fall. It has become a fourth of July staple, where brownies and ice cream bring up the rear. With my jeans unbuttoned and just barely enough room in my stomach, I can never say no to earth’s most perfect pairing.
The rich, warm brownie, gooey centered and crisp around the edges, is a flawless fit for the ice–cold vanilla ice cream. Alone, the two are mediocre desserts. But together? They’re nothing less than God sent.
Course #2
A Texas roadhouse sirloin served medium rare– but closer to rare than medium. A baked sweet potato and house salad served with bleu cheese dressing on the side, a bucket of peanuts, and a basket of rolls.
This is a midwestern delicacy.
Texas Roadhouse was for special occasions– dad’s birthday, father’s day– for when Nana came to visit– for the last day of school. At my current age, it has become more of a staple for when the groceries have run out and nobody wants to order pizza.
And despite that there is always a wait and the restaurant is freezing cold, I’ll never say no to an invite to the Roadhouse.
Our meal begins with a bucket of peanuts, ones you have to deshell yourself, along with an empty bucket for the leftover carcasses. Hot rolls drenched in butter make their way to the table, and are most often consumed by the dozen before we can even order our drinks.
My salad always comes out first, and I use every bit of restraint not to start stabbing at it. But it is worth the wait. When my steak comes out– medium rare, which disgusts my mom and sisters– I slice it into thin strips to top the salad, eaten alongside a caramelized sweet potato that I can somehow never emulate in my own kitchen.
Course #3
Sitto’s Grape Leaves, Kafta Egg Rolls, and The Greek Burger from Souk Mediterranean Kitchen and Bar in Toledo, Ohio. Paired with The Standard’s banana cream cheesecake.
My boyfriend, Lindsey, has permanently altered the way I view food. We started going out in October of last year. Our first date took place at Kabob It, a Mediterranean restaurant in Bowling Green. I don’t remember much about the food, but I do have a distinct memory of myself looking up at the turquoise ceiling and stating:
“Cool ceiling.”
He dropped me off at my apartment that night, a wave of dread washing over me as I stepped inside, thinking, “Well, he’s never going to talk to me again.”
Later that night, he asked when I’d be free for a second date.
We’ve gone on a hundred dates since then, most often to try out local restaurants like Call of the Canyon or Easy Street Cafe. It was shocking to a lot of people that I was dating, but it was even more shocking to them that I was seen at a restaurant more than once or twice a year.
I have been terrified of eating out at restaurants since I was in 5th grade. Having a long history of eating disorders and OCD, the thought of having someone else cook for me in a kitchen I’ve never seen has always made my skin crawl. I avoided it as much as possible, and when I did force myself out, I ordered the most measly thing on the menu– typically a salad– no cheese, no dressing, no oil– just vegetables.
That was until I met Lindsey.
A few months into our relationship, we began going out to eat at least once a week. Jersey Mike’s, Souk, Beckett’s, Fusian, Cooper’s Hawk– you name it. At first, I still played my game of finding something small, something that wouldn’t fill me with enough guilt to ruin the rest of the date. But, somewhere along the road that changed.
He has made me view food, not as something to be controlled, but as something to be enjoyed, to be shared.
I’ve always been someone who wanted to control everything. But even outside of my relationship with food, my relationship with Lindsey has allowed me to explore parts of myself that I have been afraid of for my entire life.
Because living is not about controlling every situation. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Living is about accepting the present moment for what it is— more than accepting, it is about loving it. Loving what you cannot control, loving the things that make you uncomfortable. If there’s anything that loving someone has taught me about life it is this.
My third meal is one that we shared on my birthday, and one we still talk about often. Never in my life have I been a “burger girl”, but I’d eat that one from Souk every day if I could.
Course #4
A slab of vanilla ice cream in between two crunchy Chips Ahoy cookies.
I have a dozen memories of coming home from elementary school, my bookbag left sitting in the car, and racing up to our family computer with a bowl of vanilla ice cream in one hand and a stack of cookies in the other. There, I would assemble two or three or four ice cream sandwiches, which I would eat as I watched Pentatonix, nail art tutorials, or whatever I was into at the time.
Too, on this computer, my older sister Abbie and I would regularly play games like Poptropica or Pixie Hollow, cramming our bodies into the same spinning desk chair. When we weren’t here, we were curled up on beanbags playing Minecraft on our iPads and listening to Jessie J.
And maybe the chips ahoy cookies weren’t present in all these moments, but they remind me so much of the fun I insisted on having growing up.
In my mind, the moment I stopped allowing myself to make ice cream sandwiches on a whim was the exodus of my eating disorder. Something had changed within me then, in which I no longer prepared and consumed food for joy, but for control.
It has taken a long time for food to become fun again. And still, my boyfriend has to remind me constantly that my last meal need not be hypothetical. In fact, I have free will to eat any of these things whenever I want.
“Fun” can be a difficult thing to prioritize as a college student planning a rigorous career. However, in times of reflection such as these, I am reminded of the importance of enjoying life– enjoying love– enjoying food.