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The Disturbing History of Last Meals, Part One: A Creepy Origin Story · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give a special shout out to
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Speaker 1: our guest super producer Paul Wygo Decands.
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Speaker 2: For whom the bell tolls decand Yes, as an alternative.
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Speaker 1: I'm Ben Bowling, You're Old Brown. We have a very
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Speaker 1: strange series for you today, folks. For a while, long
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Speaker 1: time listeners to both this and our show stuff they
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Speaker 1: don't want you to know. You may have noticed that
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Speaker 1: NOL and our good buddy Max Williams and I have
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Speaker 1: been going through kind of a phase. We go through
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Speaker 1: phases with fascinations, right.
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Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, fascination phases, the.
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Speaker 1: Fascination phases, which does feel like an album name for
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Speaker 1: a group you would have at some point.
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Speaker 2: Like a new wave band.
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Speaker 3: I guess I'm thinking of Fascination Street by The Cure,
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Speaker 3: but Fascination Phases maybe would be by the Human League,
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Speaker 3: perhaps along those lines.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And one of our phases recently is the concept of
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Speaker 1: a last meal, if you could have one last meal
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Speaker 1: before you died, if you knew you had one final
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Speaker 1: nach before you passed.
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Speaker 2: From this mortal plane. What would you pick?
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Speaker 3: And Noel Spaghetti speak Spaghetti, did not miss your chance
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Speaker 3: to be there?
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Speaker 2: It's worth it, Uh, Noel.
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Speaker 1: I I feel like I owe a lot of our
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Speaker 1: colleagues at Apology on this subject because for what a
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Speaker 1: month now maybe more, just been trying to work last
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Speaker 1: meals into conversation.
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Speaker 3: You've definitely been getting people thinking about their own mortality
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Speaker 3: and their food choices, because I think I made the
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Speaker 3: point when we talked about this on air on one
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Speaker 3: show or another, that it tells you a lot about
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Speaker 3: a person, you know, what their last meal might be.
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Speaker 3: One could argue it's more of an arbitrary choice or
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Speaker 3: based on superficial things, but I think, as we'll see
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Speaker 3: in this episode, it can show more than one might think. Agreed.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, this is kind of an almost folkloric idea at
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Speaker 4: this point, and nowadays, I think for most people in
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Speaker 4: the West, it's associated with stories, some true, some fictional,
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Speaker 4: about convicts on death row.
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Speaker 2: But as we will see in this two part.
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Speaker 1: Episode, we're doing it on purpose. The idea of last
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Speaker 1: meals is an ancient tradition. The most famous last meal
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Speaker 1: is the Biblical Last Supper.
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Speaker 3: Right, Yes, immortalized in the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci.
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Speaker 3: Obviously a scene directly out of the pages of the
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Speaker 3: Old Bible, so lots of other slightly less famous versions.
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Speaker 3: Definitely a bit of an artistic trope, Yeah, because artists
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Speaker 3: in those days we're always kind of beholden to their benefactors,
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Speaker 3: who are usually the Roman Catholic Church or some sort
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Speaker 3: of clergy.
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Speaker 2: Some operative thereof. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: The last supper of the alternate title is let's all
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Speaker 1: eat on the same side of the table.
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Speaker 2: It's more convenient, you know, for portraiture purposes.
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Speaker 1: I would say, hey, you know, this has nothing to
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Speaker 1: do with anything, but on that subject, what is you
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Speaker 1: and your partner's stance on eat on sitting on the
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Speaker 1: same side of a booth? You know, like you go
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Speaker 1: to a four top or a booth, do you guys
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Speaker 1: sit across from each other or do you sit well
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Speaker 1: next time?
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Speaker 3: I'm left handed and my partner's right handed, so you
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Speaker 3: run the risk when sitting next to each other of
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Speaker 3: elbow bumping. So I tend to want to sit like
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Speaker 3: on the outside. But yet if it's just the two
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Speaker 3: of us, we'll we'll sit across from each other side sitting.
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Speaker 3: You know, if anyone watches Curb, your enthusiasm can be
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Speaker 3: a bit fraut in and of itself. But yeah, just
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Speaker 3: saving the elbow bumping by just going ahead and sitting
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Speaker 3: on the other side. But then it becomes the question
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Speaker 3: of who gets the chair, and who gets the booth,
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Speaker 3: and who wants their back facing the door, right, It's
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Speaker 3: all really relationships are tough, ben I feel like I
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Speaker 3: feel like the proper choice as a gentleman is to
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Speaker 3: defer to the other person's preference.
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Speaker 1: But we all know back to the intro is the
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Speaker 1: is the worst of the seats.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you don't want to be caught on awares.
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Speaker 3: Someone could bum rushes the restaurant, you know.
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Speaker 1: And that's how that's how everybody ended up on one
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Speaker 1: side of the table.
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Speaker 3: Must be nobody wanted to Nobody wanted to back to
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Speaker 3: the I mean they're speaking of fraud.
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Speaker 2: I mean these were fraught times.
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Speaker 3: Everyone knew that Jesus was about to be murdered, you know,
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Speaker 3: they they saw the writing on the wall. So that's
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Speaker 3: actually really funny, man. I never thought that aspect of it.
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Speaker 3: I thought it was just a convenient artistic device. But
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Speaker 3: maybe that's how it went down. But however it went down,
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Speaker 3: this is very much representative of, you know, how important
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Speaker 3: food is to us as humans, not just for nourishment,
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Speaker 3: but the idea of enjoying it, of it being something
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Speaker 3: of a luxury once we got past those caveman days
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Speaker 3: where where sustenance was all that was required.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And while the idea of the Biblical Last Supper, and
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Speaker 1: that story may be the most popular example of a
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Speaker 1: famous last meal in the West, we found a fascinating
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Speaker 1: paper by Sarah Gerwig Moore and her colleagues at Mercer
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Speaker 1: University who trace the actual origin the concept of last
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Speaker 1: meals in the West. You can trace it back to
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Speaker 1: ancient Greece, and we'll see it in other cultures as well.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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Speaker 3: Greek authorities in those days would feed a prisoner something
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Speaker 3: before they were killed, for fear that when they entered
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Speaker 3: the afterlife, or as Prince calls it, the after world
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Speaker 3: the underworld. Let's combine the two that if they did
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Speaker 3: so on an empty stomach, that means that they would
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Speaker 3: have an angry ghost on their hands. Angry ghosts on
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Speaker 3: their hands. Dare we say the idea of hungry ghosts.
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Speaker 3: That's actually kind of a pop cultural trope in and
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Speaker 3: of itself, the idea of a hungry ghost.
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Speaker 2: I think there's a couple of restaurants.
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Speaker 3: I've seen with that name sant Here in Atlanta that
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Speaker 3: used to be pretty popular that was called hungry ghost.
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Speaker 3: But yeah, that it could actually return out of vengeance
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Speaker 3: for having a rumbly tumbly mm hmmm.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what Snickers is talking about. When they say
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Speaker 1: you're not you when you're hungry, they mean you'll return
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Speaker 1: for there.
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Speaker 2: You've been there. Yeah, I've all been there, you know.
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Speaker 3: I mean if I if I have any nods easy
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Speaker 3: to do where like you know, with the busy schedules
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Speaker 3: and busy lives and all the podcasting, you go all
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Speaker 3: day and you forget to even eat a little snack
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Speaker 3: and then your partner gets home and you bite their
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Speaker 3: head off because you're hungry.
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Speaker 2: Yes, okay, that's a real world example. I was.
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Speaker 1: I was for some reason. It's probably a sleep deprivation.
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Speaker 1: I was thinking, Yeah, we've all been there. You're interacting
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Speaker 1: with a ghost and the ghost is agro and you
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Speaker 1: realize it's hungry.
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Speaker 3: And you give it a little snack, just a little
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Speaker 3: little piece of salami just for a treat.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what the Wija board says. So man, I'll
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Speaker 2: tell you my not to de row.
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Speaker 3: But my most formative memory of like candy bar, it's
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Speaker 3: scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.
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Speaker 3: That scene in Gremlin's Part one where the gizmo or
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Speaker 3: whatever has, unbeknownst to the hapless scientists, transmuted or whatever
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Speaker 3: into the evil Gremlin and he sticks his hand inside
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Speaker 3: the little doggy carrier with a candy bar, and you know,
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Speaker 3: cut to screaming face, pained expression because his hand has
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Speaker 3: presumably been bit off. That's a perfect example of the
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Speaker 3: movies where it's so much more effective when they don't
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Speaker 3: show you the violence, right they just show you the
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Speaker 3: aftermath or they kind of leave it to your mind,
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Speaker 3: and it's so much scarier that way. But we're not
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Speaker 3: talking about movie tropes today. We're talking about well, that's
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Speaker 3: not true, definitely, the last meal movie tropes, last words
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Speaker 3: is another example of things that kind of get immortalized
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Speaker 3: in this way.
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Speaker 2: But a lot of.
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Speaker 3: The things people think they know about last meals, like
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Speaker 3: all bets are off, you can have whatever you want.
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Speaker 3: This is a right bestowed upon you given constitutional rights,
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Speaker 3: not exactly the case.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, sir.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of like when we learned that there is
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Speaker 1: actually no law requiring you to have home insurance. I
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Speaker 1: thought last meals were like I thought they were a
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Speaker 1: matter of of litigation.
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Speaker 2: Well they are kind of. We'll see. We know can
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Speaker 2: be can be no, and it can't, but it varies.
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Speaker 3: But that practice that we're talking about continued for millennia,
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Speaker 3: and that story of the Last Supper that we talked
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Speaker 3: about in the context of his time was very recognizable,
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Speaker 3: a real cultural you know, milestone, and to put Jesus
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Speaker 3: in that position almost humanizes Jesus in a very interesting
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Speaker 3: way because it is something that well even Jesus needed
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Speaker 3: to eat, you know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I love your pointing this out. In the
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Speaker 1: context of the time in which it occurred, the Biblical
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Speaker 1: Last Supper was a normal thing. It's something people would
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Speaker 1: have been familiar with. And we know that this practice
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Speaker 1: also echoed throughout Europe as a result, you know, as
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Speaker 1: Christianity spreads throughout Europe, this became a cultural touchstone for people.
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Speaker 1: In Germany, authorities often participated in what they call a
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Speaker 1: hangman's meal, and we were talking about this off air
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Speaker 1: a while back because I just think it's surreal and
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Speaker 1: honestly it's a little bit disturbing. But we have a
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Speaker 1: great quote about it from the takeout dot com.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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Speaker 3: Lawyers, judges, clergy, local dignitaries, and even the executioner presumably
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Speaker 3: wearing his hood or would he take it off, you know,
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Speaker 3: for dinner, would attend what was essentially a feast for
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Speaker 3: the condemned in Nuremberg. Providing an entire roasted goose to
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Speaker 3: the person set to be executed was an established part
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Speaker 3: of this tradition.
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Speaker 1: During the hangman's meal, the condemned would participate in a
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Speaker 1: scripted exchange in which they were told to seek forgiveness
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Speaker 1: for them their actions. The sharing of a meal between
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Speaker 1: the condemned and those who had condemned them was symbolic
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Speaker 1: representing both forgiveness and acceptance. Hey, I refuse, you know
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Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, I don't want to sit down
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Speaker 1: and have some goose with the guy who's gonna hang
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Speaker 1: me in. You know, in a couple of hours, I
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Speaker 1: respectfully asked for that guy to send this one out,
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Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
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Speaker 2: Maybe, like, you know, let my family come or something.
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Speaker 3: But it's a little weird, and in a way it
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Speaker 3: seems to me to be more for the people doing
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Speaker 3: the killing right and the one being killed. It's a
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Speaker 3: way of kind of normalizing the act of ending someone's
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Speaker 3: life at a functional, governmental kind of level.
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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's I think it's gosh.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's to asswatch the moral hang ups of the
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Speaker 1: other people, like the functionaries of the state who are
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Speaker 1: about to murder someone want to be able to sleep
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Speaker 1: at night, and so this is there a little.
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Speaker 3: Stop to insert like this semblance of empathy into the
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Speaker 3: proceedings of what ultimately is the least empathic thing that
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Speaker 3: could be done to a person. Not to say that
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Speaker 3: we're not here to litigate whether or not the death
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Speaker 3: penalty is okay or humane or whatever, but you know,
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Speaker 3: in general, the act of taking someone's life is frowned upon.
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Speaker 2: If we're coming back to the Bible, you know.
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Speaker 1: That's a great takeaway quote. In general, the act of
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Speaker 1: taking someone's life is frowned upon. An Old Brown August
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Speaker 1: twenty four. I love it. It's true. And it's also true
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Speaker 1: that this practice, this last meal practice, was not unique
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Speaker 1: to Germany.
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Speaker 2: But there is a.
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Speaker 1: Just over the channel in London, there is a practice
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Speaker 1: that is a little bit more helpful, perhaps to the
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Speaker 1: condemned person. I did not know this. I don't think
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Speaker 1: a lot of us knew this. In London. Around the
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Speaker 1: same time as the Hangman's Meal, in Germany, prisoners were
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Speaker 1: allowed to hold a similar party, but they got to
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Speaker 1: decide who the guests were, and they would stop by
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Speaker 1: a pub on the day of the execution for a
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Speaker 1: quote last refreshment in life.
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Speaker 3: A bit of a death day party. I mean, yeah,
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Speaker 3: get your birthday party, why not. Yeah, this is what
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Speaker 3: I was talking about. Like with the Hangman's meal, where
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Speaker 3: it seems like, you know, it's just like the folks
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Speaker 3: that are literally putting you to death. That felt a
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Speaker 3: little bit egregious and kind of like almost adding insult
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Speaker 3: to injury that you have to sit and eat a
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Speaker 3: share a meal, which is a very intimate thing with
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Speaker 3: these people. This feels a little more right. I like
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Speaker 3: this last refreshment in life situation.
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Speaker 1: It's like a bachelor party, you know what I mean.
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Speaker 1: It's it's a weird invitation, you know, it's I was
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Speaker 1: the hot.
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Speaker 2: Cops showing up doing their tear away pants.
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Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like, hey, that's not really the quick
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Speaker 1: that is perhaps a little bit more on the airing,
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Speaker 1: on the side of celebrating the life of a condemned person,
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Speaker 1: letting them, letting them right have one last crazy ride
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Speaker 1: in a bittersweet jubilee of life. Life lived the Puritans
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Speaker 1: in early Massachusetts a little later on they would hold
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Speaker 1: feast for the condemned, and it was an homage to
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Speaker 1: the Last Supper of Jesus Christ. So this was around.
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Speaker 3: Likely foregoing the pub aspect of it, right, you know,
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Speaker 3: I mean, no shade on the Puritans, but I kind
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Speaker 3: of doubt it was like as much of a rabble rousing,
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Speaker 3: you know, U soiree as the old last refreshment in
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Speaker 3: life situation.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I don't think they had you know, I
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Speaker 1: don't think they had Jaegermeister shots and a DJ maybe
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Speaker 1: a little soft cider, you know, something like sure for refreshments.
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Speaker 2: Because the cider had turned exactly.
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Speaker 3: But you know, all of that's, to your point, been
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Speaker 3: an absolute parallel of Jesus's Last Supper. And a lot
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Speaker 3: of this, I mean really does come from a place
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Speaker 3: of religiousness. It feels like that even when it does
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Speaker 3: turn more towards the secular.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and this is where you get to the
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Speaker 1: rise of the modern last meal. Let's be honest, if
15:24
Speaker 1: you live in the United States, and I would say
15:27
Speaker 1: if you live in most western countries, you probably associate
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Speaker 1: last meals with the idea of death row. Not death
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Speaker 1: row records, the actual death row where inmates who have
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Speaker 1: been convicted wrongfully or not of crimes like murder or
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Speaker 1: treason are going to be executed by the state. And
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Speaker 1: there are so many, like, there are so many cultural
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Speaker 1: touchstones about this, in so many films, in so many songs.
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Speaker 1: What's that one song, Mercy Seat.
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Speaker 2: I believe that's nick Cave and the Bad Sea, Nick
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Speaker 2: Cave and the Bad Seeds.
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Speaker 3: And I believe that's even a biblical reference right there,
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Speaker 3: the the idea of the mercy seat being a physical location.
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Speaker 2: That housed the arc of the Covenant, right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the it's the list, actual actual chair, like
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Speaker 1: I see. Yeah, And in the nick Cave song, it is, uh,
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Speaker 1: the mercy seat is euphemism for, I believe, for the
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Speaker 1: electric chair. They they don't mention, they don't mention food specifically,
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Speaker 1: unless I'm misremembering a verse and that probably.
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Speaker 2: Say those sinister dinner deals. That's right, the meal trolleys of.
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Speaker 3: Jesus in my soup in the meal trolley's wicked wheels. Yeah, no,
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Speaker 3: it does and absolutely references. That's pretty pretty cool, Ben,
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Speaker 3: I did not know that. I'm a big Nick Cave fan.
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Speaker 1: It's a weird one, and we would love to hear
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Speaker 1: your examples of of when last meals occur in pop fiction.
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Speaker 1: But this hits on a point that you brought up
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Speaker 1: earlier in l We have some myths to bust about
17:08
Speaker 1: last meals in fiction versus last meals in the real world.
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Speaker 1: And one of the biggest ones that you introduced here
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Speaker 1: is the idea that anyone preparing for their last meal
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Speaker 1: has free range to order whatever they want, you know,
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Speaker 1: like I'll have a tiger filey and the ortelawn with
17:28
Speaker 1: the side of milk steak and jelly beans.
17:31
Speaker 2: That's not the case. No sloppy steaks all around.
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Speaker 3: Not to mention Ben that not in every state is
17:39
Speaker 3: the death penalty legal. As of this year twenty twenty four,
17:43
Speaker 3: as we sit and record this the year of our Lord,
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Speaker 3: there are twenty one states that still have capital punishment
17:49
Speaker 3: aka execution in the law books. Those are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Monte, Nebraska, Nevada,
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Speaker 3: at North Carolina, Oklahoma.
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Speaker 2: South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming in alphabetical order.
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Speaker 2: It sounds it's a thing.
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Speaker 1: It sounds like such an evil alphabet. But it's also
18:15
Speaker 1: a lot of spaces of death there it is. Wait,
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Speaker 1: that's actually a film, too, isn't it. I think it's
18:21
Speaker 1: like an anthology horror situation. And there are another six
18:25
Speaker 1: states where the death penalty is legal, but for one
18:29
Speaker 1: reason or another, no executions are taking place. Maybe the
18:34
Speaker 1: attorney general temporarily halted them, maybe the governor prohibited them
18:39
Speaker 1: via executive order.
18:40
Speaker 2: Those would be.
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Speaker 1: Arizona, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. So not everybody gets
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Speaker 1: a last meal, because not every state in the US
18:51
Speaker 1: currently executes people, and the ones that do execute people,
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Speaker 1: this is the next myth, not all of them allow
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Speaker 1: a special room, quest or accommodation for that last meal.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes you just you just get whatever is in the cafeteria.
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Speaker 3: At Etah, get what you get and is it you
19:09
Speaker 3: don't pitch a fit or you don't get to pick
19:13
Speaker 3: I always I'm never sure which one.
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Speaker 2: I think it's you don't pitch a fit. But yeah,
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Speaker 2: just a little quick mention.
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Speaker 3: I mean, you know, the death penalty, of course, has
19:20
Speaker 3: always been a hot button issue for a very very
19:22
Speaker 3: long time, and we're I'm here to fall on one
19:24
Speaker 3: side of the debate or another, but there has been
19:26
Speaker 3: some very interesting evolution. I guess, maybe not in the
19:29
Speaker 3: way the death penalty is carried out, but just in
19:32
Speaker 3: like so many cases of people like being exonerated at
19:36
Speaker 3: the last minute. You know, we've done some episodes on
19:38
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know with the folks
19:41
Speaker 3: related to Lava for Good and the Innocence Project, and
19:44
Speaker 3: you know, we know that because of new developments in
19:48
Speaker 3: DNA testing and forensic technology, there have been numerous cases
19:53
Speaker 3: where folks nearly made it to the hangman's noose and
19:56
Speaker 3: then we're at the last minute some new piece of
19:59
Speaker 3: evidence came out. So I think that may well be
20:01
Speaker 3: why some of those states that have temporarily halted it
20:03
Speaker 3: have done so because it's tricky to navigate, and we
20:06
Speaker 3: know stays of execution have always been in play. It's
20:09
Speaker 3: a movie thing as well, and it's very expensive and
20:13
Speaker 3: very dangerous in a way in terms of liability, I guess,
20:18
Speaker 3: you know, for the state.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And honestly, that is a all things considered, that
20:26
Speaker 1: is an ideal, an ideal situation because unfortunately, often people
20:34
Speaker 1: are exonerated posthumously. Someone has been executed and later evidence
20:39
Speaker 1: proves that they were in a stet.
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Speaker 3: Probably is more common than what I was describing, the
20:44
Speaker 3: idea of being saved from the hangman's news that usually
20:46
Speaker 3: it often happens after the fact. But you can look
20:48
Speaker 3: into that stuff. That's sort of outside of the scope
20:51
Speaker 3: of this episode. But as you mentioned, many of the
20:54
Speaker 3: states that do execute people, there really isn't any special
20:57
Speaker 3: dispensation or you know, cost five language laying out this
21:02
Speaker 3: notion of some grandiose last meal.
21:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh a pro tip for pro tip if
21:11
Speaker 1: you're ever in this situation. Also, we hope that you
21:13
Speaker 1: are never in this situation. The authorities generally prefer to
21:17
Speaker 1: call these things special meals instead of last meals.
21:23
Speaker 3: Oh, there's semantics as a hell of a drug. Yeah,
21:25
Speaker 3: I love you pointed out something out Ben by the
21:28
Speaker 3: way that you're the research associated extraordinary for this episode.
21:31
Speaker 3: And this has been a pet interest of yours and mine,
21:34
Speaker 3: you know, through you, for for some time. But you
21:37
Speaker 3: pointed out something that I found ironic and a little
21:40
Speaker 3: little twisted. There's some situations where, due to the method
21:43
Speaker 3: of execution, you gotta have an empty stomach. It's like
21:47
Speaker 3: getting a physical only it's like the opposite of getting
21:50
Speaker 3: a physical it's a non physical. Speaking of which, have
21:55
Speaker 3: you heard of the proliferation of the term unlived or unlived?
22:01
Speaker 2: Yeah? Have we gone too far, guys with political correctness?
22:06
Speaker 2: I think maybe a little bit.
22:08
Speaker 3: I saw an article where a reference to Kurt Cobain
22:11
Speaker 3: ending his own life at a museum that I've been
22:14
Speaker 3: to actually in Seattle, the Museum of Pop Culture. In
22:16
Speaker 3: one of the little plaques, it referred to him as
22:19
Speaker 3: having unalived himself.
22:21
Speaker 2: And I don't know, man, it just doesn't sound right
22:24
Speaker 2: to me. But whatever I.
22:26
Speaker 1: Believe, and I'm guessing here, but if I were to guess,
22:30
Speaker 1: which I am, I believe that term came about in
22:36
Speaker 1: service of social media algorithms, right, because if you use
22:41
Speaker 1: the S word, then maybe your post or your content
22:45
Speaker 1: gets buried.
22:46
Speaker 2: True.
22:47
Speaker 3: That's a really good point Ben you are, like, I
22:49
Speaker 3: do notice that in text or on screen, you know,
22:52
Speaker 3: translations or whatever, they'll asterisk out a couple of letters.
22:55
Speaker 3: We've even done it on our social videos for stuff
22:57
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know.
22:58
Speaker 2: I think we did an episode and.
23:00
Speaker 3: A robot potential robot suicide, and our social media person
23:04
Speaker 3: recommended that we have you know, like X those letters
23:08
Speaker 3: out because it does tend that to you can videos
23:11
Speaker 3: can be demonetized at the very least fall in the ranking.
23:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the issue you're talking about the physical museum plaque.
23:22
Speaker 1: To me, that's going too far, But it may be
23:26
Speaker 1: it may be a situation again, like special meals instead
23:29
Speaker 1: of last meals. We use these linguistic tricks to make
23:34
Speaker 1: ourselves feel a little bit better right, or to feel
23:39
Speaker 1: less conflicted about these horrible things. All of the states
23:43
Speaker 1: that here's the other myth. Of the states that do
23:46
Speaker 1: execute people and do provide a last meal, most have
23:49
Speaker 1: some pretty significant restrictions of what you can or cannot request.
23:55
Speaker 1: Another thing of the very last myth in this I
23:59
Speaker 1: don't know, this kind of blew my mind. Often times,
24:03
Speaker 1: prisoners who do get a last meal, they don't request
24:07
Speaker 1: super fancy stuff. They're not, you know, they're not like
24:12
Speaker 1: I have a giants two from Skyrim, or you know,
24:16
Speaker 1: I'll have a giraffe neck bone soup.
24:19
Speaker 3: So you're saying most inmates on death row aren't similar
24:24
Speaker 3: to the late Great Hannibal Elector, right, he would have
24:28
Speaker 3: asked for something fancy. He would have asked for something
24:31
Speaker 3: real fancy, I think, you know, yeah.
24:33
Speaker 2: Just to be inconvenient. But no sharks.
24:35
Speaker 3: But I mean the guy was a you know, he
24:37
Speaker 3: was the late great doctor Hannah Elector was a bit
24:40
Speaker 3: of a foodie, you know. And this is not to
24:42
Speaker 3: say that there aren't highbrow people that make their way up.
24:45
Speaker 2: To death Row.
24:47
Speaker 3: We're not here to stereotype people that, you know, have
24:50
Speaker 3: their lives ended by the state. But it does, to
24:54
Speaker 3: your point, been seem much more common for it to be.
24:56
Speaker 3: Maybe there might be a volume of food, but it's
25:00
Speaker 3: usually a volume of like good old American staples, you know,
25:05
Speaker 3: like the cheeseburger, the hot dog, some hot wings, you know,
25:09
Speaker 3: a bucket of fries, whatever.
25:11
Speaker 2: Fried chicken is a huge one. Popka.
25:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's a reason for this, arguably, you could say,
25:20
Speaker 1: I mean, it's important to remember that by the time
25:23
Speaker 1: people get to this point, wrongfully convicted or rightfully convicted.
25:28
Speaker 1: They have been in the prison system for years, for decades,
25:33
Speaker 1: and so at this point they've been eating the same
25:36
Speaker 1: stuff day in and day out. So they probably spent
25:39
Speaker 1: a lot of time yearning for some nostalgic, as you said,
25:44
Speaker 1: comfort food. So maybe they don't want to try a
25:47
Speaker 1: new thing. I mean, can you imagine the gosh, the
25:52
Speaker 1: existential kick in the pants if you say, I want
25:56
Speaker 1: to try something I've never tried before in my life,
26:00
Speaker 1: just to just to see, right before the state executes me,
26:05
Speaker 1: I want to try something wild, Like I want to
26:08
Speaker 1: try Nato, the fermented beans that basically are taste of diapers.
26:14
Speaker 3: That's what I've heard. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm good
26:16
Speaker 3: with that. More for more for the rest of you.
26:19
Speaker 3: But you know, it is interesting, you know, we always
26:20
Speaker 3: say it's sort of a cliche, but like death is
26:23
Speaker 3: the one thing that everyone knows they will experience, but
26:26
Speaker 3: no one knows what it's like. And typically, even like
26:31
Speaker 3: in the case of terminal illness, you're probably not going
26:34
Speaker 3: to know the exact moment of your snuffing, you know
26:38
Speaker 3: what I mean.
26:39
Speaker 2: And so this is a very unique situation.
26:42
Speaker 3: You know, the idea of being executed and facing it
26:45
Speaker 3: so directly whatever you've done, you know, whatever horrific deeds
26:50
Speaker 3: led you to this place. We are at our at
26:53
Speaker 3: our root, all human and and this has to be
26:55
Speaker 3: a bit of a mind.
26:58
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I agree.
27:06
Speaker 1: So can a death row inmate request anything they want
27:10
Speaker 1: for their final meal?
27:11
Speaker 2: Of course?
27:12
Speaker 1: Sure, request request exactly, Yeah, but I respectfully decline, right, Yeah,
27:19
Speaker 1: the state.
27:20
Speaker 3: I am the state, and I respectfully decline your requests.
27:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, requests.
27:25
Speaker 3: There are examples though, like I believe Texas you pointed
27:28
Speaker 3: up in go out of their way to do the
27:31
Speaker 3: best they can to accommodate any orders. But typically, uh,
27:36
Speaker 3: like in Virginia, for example, there's kind of like a
27:39
Speaker 3: rotating death row menu. Tell me more about this. Is
27:43
Speaker 3: this like is this just the regular like like fun
27:47
Speaker 3: meal day menu for all the inmates or is this
27:50
Speaker 3: specifically for death row Because people don't get executed every day.
27:54
Speaker 3: It takes a long time, and we don't we usually
27:56
Speaker 3: hear about it when it happens because it's such a
27:58
Speaker 3: big deal, right or am I am? I maybe over
28:00
Speaker 3: generalizing there, Yeah, you're.
28:02
Speaker 1: One hundred percent correct. Before Virginia abolished capital punishment in
28:08
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one for everybody outside of the US. Virginia's
28:12
Speaker 1: a state in the East coast. Here, Virginia prisons had
28:16
Speaker 1: a twenty eight day rotating menu for all the prisoners,
28:20
Speaker 1: for all the inmates. Got it, So you might have
28:22
Speaker 1: hot dogs on the first and then on the second
28:26
Speaker 1: day you might have chili. And if you were a
28:28
Speaker 1: prisoner on death row and you were going to be executed,
28:32
Speaker 1: your last meal could be one of the thing, one
28:35
Speaker 1: of the meals in that twenty eight day rotation.
28:38
Speaker 3: So this special could I have a chili dog? Could
28:41
Speaker 3: I combine to I would hope that. Well, it seems reasonable, right, It.
28:47
Speaker 1: Seems like you're not asking for the moon and stars
28:50
Speaker 1: at that point, you know, so surely they.
28:52
Speaker 2: Could work with you.
28:53
Speaker 1: You noted the Texas penal system, how they pride themselves
28:58
Speaker 1: on doing the best to a any order that actually
29:02
Speaker 1: comes from the chefs themselves, not just the warden and
29:06
Speaker 1: the guards, because a lot of those chefs are themselves incarcerated,
29:10
Speaker 1: so maybe they have a bit more empathy with someone
29:15
Speaker 1: who's on death row. But they can't get everything right
29:18
Speaker 1: because budgets are real. A lot of people for instance,
29:22
Speaker 1: request filet mignon. You got to get as close to
29:25
Speaker 1: that as possible.
29:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, they might cook up a hamburg steak.
29:30
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sorry, I say I love like in
29:33
Speaker 3: like cowboys stories and like a prison story, they call
29:36
Speaker 3: it a hamburg instead of a Hamburger. I've always found
29:39
Speaker 3: that interesting. But yeah, you know, again a close approximation.
29:42
Speaker 3: This is coming from a place of empathy outside of
29:45
Speaker 3: the system, really, because to your point, Bend, these are
29:48
Speaker 3: folks that are inside as well oftentimes, so they might
29:52
Speaker 3: do a little go a little bit more above and beyond.
29:54
Speaker 3: I do love this quote though, from this article on Slate.
29:57
Speaker 3: I'll have twenty four tacos and the f y'aw can
30:00
Speaker 3: a prisoner request anything for his last meal? By Christopher Beam.
30:04
Speaker 3: If twenty four tacos were requested, they might cut it
30:07
Speaker 3: down to four. Yeah, it seems a little insulting. I
30:11
Speaker 3: don't know, you think they could like do eight. You know,
30:14
Speaker 3: it's a taco. You just slap it on there. It's fine.
30:17
Speaker 2: I just ge't.
30:18
Speaker 1: I've still stuck on this idea too, of ordering something
30:22
Speaker 1: for the first time. You know, you're like, oh, I've
30:25
Speaker 1: never tried snake or eel or you know some other
30:29
Speaker 1: very specific food and you eat it and you hate it.
30:33
Speaker 2: This is awful. Mull again, can I I'm sorry, Yucky, I.
30:39
Speaker 1: Don't think you get redos, which is I think you
30:41
Speaker 1: do to the point of death row.
30:43
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about how it works.
30:45
Speaker 1: So if you've met all these caveats and conditions, if
30:49
Speaker 1: you're in a state that does this, and you are
30:52
Speaker 1: on death row, you're usually going to put your final
30:55
Speaker 1: meal or excuse us, your special meal request in a
30:59
Speaker 1: couple of days before the execution date, and then that
31:03
Speaker 1: request goes to the prison chef, often themselves incarcerated, and
31:08
Speaker 1: they try to figure out the best way to prepare
31:11
Speaker 1: the meal, and once it's ready, it's brought to your
31:14
Speaker 1: cell at some point before execution. The most popular request
31:19
Speaker 1: and nol, you already nailed this, my friend, the most
31:22
Speaker 1: popular request. Paul will like this as well. A cheeseburger
31:27
Speaker 1: and fries. Also people like steak, fried chicken, chicken fried steak,
31:32
Speaker 1: and ice cream.
31:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, all things that sort of fall under the slightly
31:38
Speaker 3: decadentd category, but really more like comfort food, you know,
31:44
Speaker 3: stuff that you might eat more of if you weren't
31:45
Speaker 3: really watching your figure, you know, or like being super
31:49
Speaker 3: health conscious, because who cares at this point? You know,
31:53
Speaker 3: A communication representative often announces the menu to reporters, but
31:59
Speaker 3: prisoners are allowed to request of the choice remains secret.
32:02
Speaker 3: I believe the Texas Department of Criminal Justice would post
32:06
Speaker 3: these up until two thousand and four, but then it
32:10
Speaker 3: was determined to be offensive or there was some kind
32:13
Speaker 3: of backlash. So Florida, you know, they have those Sunshine laws,
32:17
Speaker 3: you know, where it's like everything is a public record
32:21
Speaker 3: more or less, which is what allows so many of
32:23
Speaker 3: those Florida man did some crazy stuff stories to proliferate.
32:28
Speaker 3: So you got to wonder if because of that law,
32:30
Speaker 3: like last meals of Florida death row inmates are unable
32:34
Speaker 3: to be suppressed.
32:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's a great question. You can still
32:40
Speaker 1: find the Texas list online courtesyfarchive dot org. The last
32:46
Speaker 1: request listed is from a guy named Larry Hayes, who
32:50
Speaker 1: is convicted of double homicide. He asked for the following
32:55
Speaker 1: two bacon cheeseburgers, French fries, onion rings, catch up coleslaw,
32:59
Speaker 1: two diet cokes weirdly enough, one quart of milk, one
33:03
Speaker 1: pint of Rocky Road ice cream, one pint of fried Okra,
33:07
Speaker 1: salad dressing, tomato and onion.
33:10
Speaker 3: Just like a bowl of salad dressing that you would
33:12
Speaker 3: just dip the maybe as a dipper. You know what,
33:14
Speaker 3: who are we just sad? Also, I want to know
33:16
Speaker 3: salad dressing is too vag Was he a ranch guy
33:19
Speaker 3: the two thousand Island a little blue cheese? Because at
33:21
Speaker 3: that point it get you know, I don't know, I
33:23
Speaker 3: have questions, but Texas no longer offers last meals at all.
33:27
Speaker 3: In the last one they served so far occurred in
33:30
Speaker 3: twenty eleven when a prisoner asked for steak, fried okra,
33:34
Speaker 3: a triple bacon, cheeseburger, three fajidas, an omelet.
33:38
Speaker 2: Pizza, half a loaf.
33:40
Speaker 3: This guy ruined for everybody half a loaf of bread,
33:42
Speaker 3: Bluebelt ice cream, peanut butter fudge, and three root beers.
33:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and notice how we now that's it. We're pulling
33:51
Speaker 2: the program. This is too much this guy. Yeah, why
33:54
Speaker 2: stop at half a loaf?
33:56
Speaker 1: We also mentioned that tendency to public size last meals
34:01
Speaker 1: to the press. This is this is speaking directly to
34:06
Speaker 1: the heart of this episode. Yeah, the universal nature right,
34:10
Speaker 1: everybody dies, everybody has to eat, just like Checkers said,
34:15
Speaker 1: I've got to stop referencing that.
34:16
Speaker 3: What a lackluster I'm sorry, it's just like you gotta eat.
34:21
Speaker 3: I love some of this slop.
34:22
Speaker 1: You know, You're like, are we the best? No, that's
34:25
Speaker 1: not gonna work. But people do have to eat. And
34:28
Speaker 1: someone in the boardroom said, wait, say that again.
34:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just said, you gotta. It's got a real
34:35
Speaker 2: ring to it. Hold the phone. We'll have the Mayo,
34:40
Speaker 2: hold the may slather it with mayo. What does the
34:42
Speaker 2: matter gonna die? Yeah? Who cares about the calories.
34:45
Speaker 1: We're going to have a stay of execution for this episode.
34:51
Speaker 1: We are making this a two parter and hey, Noel,
34:54
Speaker 1: look at us.
34:56
Speaker 2: We called it in advance this time, the preemptive two parter.
35:00
Speaker 2: Gotta love it.
35:01
Speaker 3: Baby's all grown up by baby, I mean.
35:03
Speaker 2: Meet me and you we're baby. Yeah.
35:07
Speaker 1: Big, big thanks to our producer mister Max Williams, and
35:11
Speaker 1: big thanks to our guest producer Paul wygu Decad.
35:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the quist aj Bahama
35:20
Speaker 3: Breeze Jacobs the puzz Isn't that a drink? Isn't that
35:23
Speaker 3: like a like a tasty tiky drink of Bahama Breeze
35:26
Speaker 3: aj Bahama Breeze, Jacobs the Puzzler, Chris frosciotas.
35:31
Speaker 2: Eve, Jeff cos Here in Spirit.
35:32
Speaker 1: Oh dang it, well, we forgot to ask our pal
35:35
Speaker 1: the Quister about his last meal, probably human flesh. Yeah, classics,
35:42
Speaker 1: strict classics trick.
35:44
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.
35:52
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
35:56
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,