August 20, 2024 • 35 mins
It's a classic trope of crime stories and folklore across the planet: a criminal due for execution is granted one last meal as a send-off to the afterlife. But where exactly does this strange practice come from? The Biblical Last Supper is by far the most famous example of a last meal in the Western world -- but, as Ben and Noel learn in this special two-part episode, this is far from the first example of this bizarre, at-times ghoulish practice. Tune in to learn more.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's give a special shout out to
our guest super producer Paul Wygo Decands.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
For whom the bell tolls decand Yes, as an alternative.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm Ben Bowling, You're Old Brown. We have a very
strange series for you today, folks. For a while, long
time listeners to both this and our show stuff they
don't want you to know. You may have noticed that
NOL and our good buddy Max Williams and I have
(01:07):
been going through kind of a phase. We go through
phases with fascinations, right.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Sure, Yeah, fascination phases, the.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Fascination phases, which does feel like an album name for
a group you would have at some point.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Like a new wave band.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I guess I'm thinking of Fascination Street by The Cure,
but Fascination Phases maybe would be by the Human League,
perhaps along those lines.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And one of our phases recently is the concept of
a last meal, if you could have one last meal
before you died, if you knew you had one final
nach before you passed.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
From this mortal plane. What would you pick?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
And Noel Spaghetti speak Spaghetti, did not miss your chance
to be there?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's worth it, Uh, Noel.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I I feel like I owe a lot of our
colleagues at Apology on this subject because for what a
month now maybe more, just been trying to work last
meals into conversation.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
You've definitely been getting people thinking about their own mortality
and their food choices, because I think I made the
point when we talked about this on air on one
show or another, that it tells you a lot about
a person, you know, what their last meal might be.
One could argue it's more of an arbitrary choice or
based on superficial things, but I think, as we'll see
(02:33):
in this episode, it can show more than one might think. Agreed.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Yeah, this is kind of an almost folkloric idea at
this point, and nowadays, I think for most people in
the West, it's associated with stories, some true, some fictional,
about convicts on death row.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
But as we will see in this two part.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Episode, we're doing it on purpose. The idea of last
meals is an ancient tradition. The most famous last meal
is the Biblical Last Supper.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Right, Yes, immortalized in the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci.
Obviously a scene directly out of the pages of the
Old Bible, so lots of other slightly less famous versions.
Definitely a bit of an artistic trope, Yeah, because artists
in those days we're always kind of beholden to their benefactors,
who are usually the Roman Catholic Church or some sort
(03:40):
of clergy.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Some operative thereof. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
The last supper of the alternate title is let's all
eat on the same side of the table.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It's more convenient, you know, for portraiture purposes.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I would say, hey, you know, this has nothing to
do with anything, but on that subject, what is you
and your partner's stance on eat on sitting on the
same side of a booth? You know, like you go
to a four top or a booth, do you guys
sit across from each other or do you sit well
next time?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I'm left handed and my partner's right handed, so you
run the risk when sitting next to each other of
elbow bumping. So I tend to want to sit like
on the outside. But yet if it's just the two
of us, we'll we'll sit across from each other side sitting.
You know, if anyone watches Curb, your enthusiasm can be
a bit fraut in and of itself. But yeah, just
(04:34):
saving the elbow bumping by just going ahead and sitting
on the other side. But then it becomes the question
of who gets the chair, and who gets the booth,
and who wants their back facing the door, right, It's
all really relationships are tough, ben I feel like I
feel like the proper choice as a gentleman is to
defer to the other person's preference.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
But we all know back to the intro is the
is the worst of the seats.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Oh yeah, you don't want to be caught on awares.
Someone could bum rushes the restaurant, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And that's how that's how everybody ended up on one
side of the table.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Must be nobody wanted to Nobody wanted to back to
the I mean they're speaking of fraud.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I mean these were fraught times.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Everyone knew that Jesus was about to be murdered, you know,
they they saw the writing on the wall. So that's
actually really funny, man. I never thought that aspect of it.
I thought it was just a convenient artistic device. But
maybe that's how it went down. But however it went down,
this is very much representative of, you know, how important
(05:39):
food is to us as humans, not just for nourishment,
but the idea of enjoying it, of it being something
of a luxury once we got past those caveman days
where where sustenance was all that was required.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And while the idea of the Biblical Last Supper, and
that story may be the most popular example of a
famous last meal in the West, we found a fascinating
paper by Sarah Gerwig Moore and her colleagues at Mercer
University who trace the actual origin the concept of last
(06:17):
meals in the West. You can trace it back to
ancient Greece, and we'll see it in other cultures as well.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Greek authorities in those days would feed a prisoner something
before they were killed, for fear that when they entered
the afterlife, or as Prince calls it, the after world
the underworld. Let's combine the two that if they did
so on an empty stomach, that means that they would
have an angry ghost on their hands. Angry ghosts on
(06:48):
their hands. Dare we say the idea of hungry ghosts.
That's actually kind of a pop cultural trope in and
of itself, the idea of a hungry ghost.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I think there's a couple of restaurants.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I've seen with that name sant Here in Atlanta that
used to be pretty popular that was called hungry ghost.
But yeah, that it could actually return out of vengeance
for having a rumbly tumbly mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, that's what Snickers is talking about. When they say
you're not you when you're hungry, they mean you'll return
for there.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You've been there. Yeah, I've all been there, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I mean if I if I have any nods easy
to do where like you know, with the busy schedules
and busy lives and all the podcasting, you go all
day and you forget to even eat a little snack
and then your partner gets home and you bite their
head off because you're hungry.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yes, okay, that's a real world example. I was.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I was for some reason. It's probably a sleep deprivation.
I was thinking, Yeah, we've all been there. You're interacting
with a ghost and the ghost is agro and you
realize it's hungry.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And you give it a little snack, just a little
little piece of salami just for a treat.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, that's what the Wija board says. So man, I'll
tell you my not to de row.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
But my most formative memory of like candy bar, it's
scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.
That scene in Gremlin's Part one where the gizmo or
whatever has, unbeknownst to the hapless scientists, transmuted or whatever
into the evil Gremlin and he sticks his hand inside
(08:20):
the little doggy carrier with a candy bar, and you know,
cut to screaming face, pained expression because his hand has
presumably been bit off. That's a perfect example of the
movies where it's so much more effective when they don't
show you the violence, right they just show you the
aftermath or they kind of leave it to your mind,
and it's so much scarier that way. But we're not
talking about movie tropes today. We're talking about well, that's
(08:42):
not true, definitely, the last meal movie tropes, last words
is another example of things that kind of get immortalized
in this way.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
But a lot of.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
The things people think they know about last meals, like
all bets are off, you can have whatever you want.
This is a right bestowed upon you given constitutional rights,
not exactly the case.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
It's kind of like when we learned that there is
actually no law requiring you to have home insurance. I
thought last meals were like I thought they were a
matter of of litigation.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Well they are kind of. We'll see. We know can
be can be no, and it can't, but it varies.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
But that practice that we're talking about continued for millennia,
and that story of the Last Supper that we talked
about in the context of his time was very recognizable,
a real cultural you know, milestone, and to put Jesus
in that position almost humanizes Jesus in a very interesting
way because it is something that well even Jesus needed
(09:46):
to eat, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, And I love your pointing this out. In the
context of the time in which it occurred, the Biblical
Last Supper was a normal thing. It's something people would
have been familiar with. And we know that this practice
also echoed throughout Europe as a result, you know, as
Christianity spreads throughout Europe, this became a cultural touchstone for people.
(10:12):
In Germany, authorities often participated in what they call a
hangman's meal, and we were talking about this off air
a while back because I just think it's surreal and
honestly it's a little bit disturbing. But we have a
great quote about it from the takeout dot com.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Lawyers, judges, clergy, local dignitaries, and even the executioner presumably
wearing his hood or would he take it off, you know,
for dinner, would attend what was essentially a feast for
the condemned in Nuremberg. Providing an entire roasted goose to
the person set to be executed was an established part
of this tradition.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
During the hangman's meal, the condemned would participate in a
scripted exchange in which they were told to seek forgiveness
for them their actions. The sharing of a meal between
the condemned and those who had condemned them was symbolic
representing both forgiveness and acceptance. Hey, I refuse, you know
(11:12):
what I mean, Like, I don't want to sit down
and have some goose with the guy who's gonna hang
me in. You know, in a couple of hours, I
respectfully asked for that guy to send this one out,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Maybe, like, you know, let my family come or something.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
But it's a little weird, and in a way it
seems to me to be more for the people doing
the killing right and the one being killed. It's a
way of kind of normalizing the act of ending someone's
life at a functional, governmental kind of level.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Right, Yeah, it's I think it's gosh.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, it's to asswatch the moral hang ups of the
other people, like the functionaries of the state who are
about to murder someone want to be able to sleep
at night, and so this is there a little.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Stop to insert like this semblance of empathy into the
proceedings of what ultimately is the least empathic thing that
could be done to a person. Not to say that
we're not here to litigate whether or not the death
penalty is okay or humane or whatever, but you know,
in general, the act of taking someone's life is frowned upon.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
If we're coming back to the Bible, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
That's a great takeaway quote. In general, the act of
taking someone's life is frowned upon. An Old Brown August
twenty four. I love it. It's true. And it's also true
that this practice, this last meal practice, was not unique
to Germany.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But there is a.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Just over the channel in London, there is a practice
that is a little bit more helpful, perhaps to the
condemned person. I did not know this. I don't think
a lot of us knew this. In London. Around the
same time as the Hangman's Meal, in Germany, prisoners were
(13:08):
allowed to hold a similar party, but they got to
decide who the guests were, and they would stop by
a pub on the day of the execution for a
quote last refreshment in life.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
A bit of a death day party. I mean, yeah,
get your birthday party, why not. Yeah, this is what
I was talking about. Like with the Hangman's meal, where
it seems like, you know, it's just like the folks
that are literally putting you to death. That felt a
little bit egregious and kind of like almost adding insult
to injury that you have to sit and eat a
share a meal, which is a very intimate thing with
these people. This feels a little more right. I like
(13:44):
this last refreshment in life situation.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
It's like a bachelor party, you know what I mean.
It's it's a weird invitation, you know, it's I was
the hot.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Cops showing up doing their tear away pants.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
And yeah, it's like, hey, that's not really the quick
that is perhaps a little bit more on the airing,
on the side of celebrating the life of a condemned person,
letting them, letting them right have one last crazy ride
in a bittersweet jubilee of life. Life lived the Puritans
(14:18):
in early Massachusetts a little later on they would hold
feast for the condemned, and it was an homage to
the Last Supper of Jesus Christ. So this was around.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Likely foregoing the pub aspect of it, right, you know,
I mean, no shade on the Puritans, but I kind
of doubt it was like as much of a rabble rousing,
you know, U soiree as the old last refreshment in
life situation.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Right, Yeah, I don't think they had you know, I
don't think they had Jaegermeister shots and a DJ maybe
a little soft cider, you know, something like sure for refreshments.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Because the cider had turned exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
But you know, all of that's, to your point, been
an absolute parallel of Jesus's Last Supper. And a lot
of this, I mean really does come from a place
of religiousness. It feels like that even when it does
turn more towards the secular.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah. Yeah, and this is where you get to the
rise of the modern last meal. Let's be honest, if
you live in the United States, and I would say
if you live in most western countries, you probably associate
last meals with the idea of death row. Not death
(15:34):
row records, the actual death row where inmates who have
been convicted wrongfully or not of crimes like murder or
treason are going to be executed by the state. And
there are so many, like, there are so many cultural
touchstones about this, in so many films, in so many songs.
(15:55):
What's that one song, Mercy Seat.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I believe that's nick Cave and the Bad Sea, Nick
Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
And I believe that's even a biblical reference right there,
the the idea of the mercy seat being a physical location.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
That housed the arc of the Covenant, right.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, it's the it's the list, actual actual chair, like
I see. Yeah, And in the nick Cave song, it is, uh,
the mercy seat is euphemism for, I believe, for the
electric chair. They they don't mention, they don't mention food specifically,
(16:32):
unless I'm misremembering a verse and that probably.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Say those sinister dinner deals. That's right, the meal trolleys of.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Jesus in my soup in the meal trolley's wicked wheels. Yeah, no,
it does and absolutely references. That's pretty pretty cool, Ben,
I did not know that. I'm a big Nick Cave fan.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's a weird one, and we would love to hear
your examples of of when last meals occur in pop fiction.
But this hits on a point that you brought up
earlier in l We have some myths to bust about
last meals in fiction versus last meals in the real world.
(17:12):
And one of the biggest ones that you introduced here
is the idea that anyone preparing for their last meal
has free range to order whatever they want, you know,
like I'll have a tiger filey and the ortelawn with
the side of milk steak and jelly beans.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
That's not the case. No sloppy steaks all around.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Not to mention Ben that not in every state is
the death penalty legal. As of this year twenty twenty four,
as we sit and record this the year of our Lord,
there are twenty one states that still have capital punishment
aka execution in the law books. Those are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Monte, Nebraska, Nevada,
(18:00):
at North Carolina, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming in alphabetical order.
It sounds it's a thing.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
It sounds like such an evil alphabet. But it's also
a lot of spaces of death there it is. Wait,
that's actually a film, too, isn't it. I think it's
like an anthology horror situation. And there are another six
states where the death penalty is legal, but for one
reason or another, no executions are taking place. Maybe the
(18:34):
attorney general temporarily halted them, maybe the governor prohibited them
via executive order.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Those would be.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Arizona, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. So not everybody gets
a last meal, because not every state in the US
currently executes people, and the ones that do execute people,
this is the next myth, not all of them allow
a special room, quest or accommodation for that last meal.
(19:03):
Sometimes you just you just get whatever is in the cafeteria.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
At Etah, get what you get and is it you
don't pitch a fit or you don't get to pick
I always I'm never sure which one.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I think it's you don't pitch a fit. But yeah,
just a little quick mention.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I mean, you know, the death penalty, of course, has
always been a hot button issue for a very very
long time, and we're I'm here to fall on one
side of the debate or another, but there has been
some very interesting evolution. I guess, maybe not in the
way the death penalty is carried out, but just in
like so many cases of people like being exonerated at
the last minute. You know, we've done some episodes on
stuff they don't want you to know with the folks
(19:41):
related to Lava for Good and the Innocence Project, and
you know, we know that because of new developments in
DNA testing and forensic technology, there have been numerous cases
where folks nearly made it to the hangman's noose and
then we're at the last minute some new piece of
evidence came out. So I think that may well be
(20:01):
why some of those states that have temporarily halted it
have done so because it's tricky to navigate, and we
know stays of execution have always been in play. It's
a movie thing as well, and it's very expensive and
very dangerous in a way in terms of liability, I guess,
you know, for the state.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Yeah, And honestly, that is a all things considered, that
is an ideal, an ideal situation because unfortunately, often people
are exonerated posthumously. Someone has been executed and later evidence
proves that they were in a stet.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Probably is more common than what I was describing, the
idea of being saved from the hangman's news that usually
it often happens after the fact. But you can look
into that stuff. That's sort of outside of the scope
of this episode. But as you mentioned, many of the
states that do execute people, there really isn't any special
dispensation or you know, cost five language laying out this
(21:02):
notion of some grandiose last meal.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, and uh a pro tip for pro tip if
you're ever in this situation. Also, we hope that you
are never in this situation. The authorities generally prefer to
call these things special meals instead of last meals.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Oh, there's semantics as a hell of a drug. Yeah,
I love you pointed out something out Ben by the
way that you're the research associated extraordinary for this episode.
And this has been a pet interest of yours and mine,
you know, through you, for for some time. But you
pointed out something that I found ironic and a little
little twisted. There's some situations where, due to the method
(21:43):
of execution, you gotta have an empty stomach. It's like
getting a physical only it's like the opposite of getting
a physical it's a non physical. Speaking of which, have
you heard of the proliferation of the term unlived or unlived?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah? Have we gone too far, guys with political correctness?
I think maybe a little bit.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I saw an article where a reference to Kurt Cobain
ending his own life at a museum that I've been
to actually in Seattle, the Museum of Pop Culture. In
one of the little plaques, it referred to him as
having unalived himself.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
And I don't know, man, it just doesn't sound right
to me. But whatever I.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Believe, and I'm guessing here, but if I were to guess,
which I am, I believe that term came about in
service of social media algorithms, right, because if you use
the S word, then maybe your post or your content
gets buried.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
True.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
That's a really good point Ben you are, like, I
do notice that in text or on screen, you know,
translations or whatever, they'll asterisk out a couple of letters.
We've even done it on our social videos for stuff
they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I think we did an episode and.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
A robot potential robot suicide, and our social media person
recommended that we have you know, like X those letters
out because it does tend that to you can videos
can be demonetized at the very least fall in the ranking.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, and the issue you're talking about the physical museum plaque.
To me, that's going too far, But it may be
it may be a situation again, like special meals instead
of last meals. We use these linguistic tricks to make
ourselves feel a little bit better right, or to feel
(23:39):
less conflicted about these horrible things. All of the states
that here's the other myth. Of the states that do
execute people and do provide a last meal, most have
some pretty significant restrictions of what you can or cannot request.
Another thing of the very last myth in this I
(23:59):
don't know, this kind of blew my mind. Often times,
prisoners who do get a last meal, they don't request
super fancy stuff. They're not, you know, they're not like
I have a giants two from Skyrim, or you know,
I'll have a giraffe neck bone soup.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
So you're saying most inmates on death row aren't similar
to the late Great Hannibal Elector, right, he would have
asked for something fancy. He would have asked for something
real fancy, I think, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Just to be inconvenient. But no sharks.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
But I mean the guy was a you know, he
was the late great doctor Hannah Elector was a bit
of a foodie, you know. And this is not to
say that there aren't highbrow people that make their way up.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
To death Row.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
We're not here to stereotype people that, you know, have
their lives ended by the state. But it does, to
your point, been seem much more common for it to be.
Maybe there might be a volume of food, but it's
usually a volume of like good old American staples, you know,
like the cheeseburger, the hot dog, some hot wings, you know,
(25:09):
a bucket of fries, whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Fried chicken is a huge one. Popka.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, And there's a reason for this, arguably, you could say,
I mean, it's important to remember that by the time
people get to this point, wrongfully convicted or rightfully convicted.
They have been in the prison system for years, for decades,
and so at this point they've been eating the same
(25:36):
stuff day in and day out. So they probably spent
a lot of time yearning for some nostalgic, as you said,
comfort food. So maybe they don't want to try a
new thing. I mean, can you imagine the gosh, the
existential kick in the pants if you say, I want
(25:56):
to try something I've never tried before in my life,
just to just to see, right before the state executes me,
I want to try something wild, Like I want to
try Nato, the fermented beans that basically are taste of diapers.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
That's what I've heard. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm good
with that. More for more for the rest of you.
But you know, it is interesting, you know, we always
say it's sort of a cliche, but like death is
the one thing that everyone knows they will experience, but
no one knows what it's like. And typically, even like
in the case of terminal illness, you're probably not going
to know the exact moment of your snuffing, you know
(26:38):
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
And so this is a very unique situation.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You know, the idea of being executed and facing it
so directly whatever you've done, you know, whatever horrific deeds
led you to this place. We are at our at
our root, all human and and this has to be
a bit of a mind.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yes, yes, I agree.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So can a death row inmate request anything they want
for their final meal?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Sure, request request exactly, Yeah, but I respectfully decline, right, Yeah,
the state.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I am the state, and I respectfully decline your requests.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, requests.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
There are examples though, like I believe Texas you pointed
up in go out of their way to do the
best they can to accommodate any orders. But typically, uh,
like in Virginia, for example, there's kind of like a
rotating death row menu. Tell me more about this. Is
this like is this just the regular like like fun
(27:47):
meal day menu for all the inmates or is this
specifically for death row Because people don't get executed every day.
It takes a long time, and we don't we usually
hear about it when it happens because it's such a
big deal, right or am I am? I maybe over
generalizing there, Yeah, you're.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
One hundred percent correct. Before Virginia abolished capital punishment in
twenty twenty one for everybody outside of the US. Virginia's
a state in the East coast. Here, Virginia prisons had
a twenty eight day rotating menu for all the prisoners,
for all the inmates. Got it, So you might have
(28:22):
hot dogs on the first and then on the second
day you might have chili. And if you were a
prisoner on death row and you were going to be executed,
your last meal could be one of the thing, one
of the meals in that twenty eight day rotation.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
So this special could I have a chili dog? Could
I combine to I would hope that. Well, it seems reasonable, right, It.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Seems like you're not asking for the moon and stars
at that point, you know, so surely they.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Could work with you.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You noted the Texas penal system, how they pride themselves
on doing the best to a any order that actually
comes from the chefs themselves, not just the warden and
the guards, because a lot of those chefs are themselves incarcerated,
so maybe they have a bit more empathy with someone
(29:15):
who's on death row. But they can't get everything right
because budgets are real. A lot of people for instance,
request filet mignon. You got to get as close to
that as possible.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, they might cook up a hamburg steak.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
You know, I'm sorry, I say I love like in
like cowboys stories and like a prison story, they call
it a hamburg instead of a Hamburger. I've always found
that interesting. But yeah, you know, again a close approximation.
This is coming from a place of empathy outside of
the system, really, because to your point, Bend, these are
folks that are inside as well oftentimes, so they might
(29:52):
do a little go a little bit more above and beyond.
I do love this quote though, from this article on Slate.
I'll have twenty four tacos and the f y'aw can
a prisoner request anything for his last meal? By Christopher Beam.
If twenty four tacos were requested, they might cut it
down to four. Yeah, it seems a little insulting. I
don't know, you think they could like do eight. You know,
(30:14):
it's a taco. You just slap it on there. It's fine.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I just ge't.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I've still stuck on this idea too, of ordering something
for the first time. You know, you're like, oh, I've
never tried snake or eel or you know some other
very specific food and you eat it and you hate it.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
This is awful. Mull again, can I I'm sorry, Yucky, I.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Don't think you get redos, which is I think you
do to the point of death row.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Let's talk a little bit about how it works.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So if you've met all these caveats and conditions, if
you're in a state that does this, and you are
on death row, you're usually going to put your final
meal or excuse us, your special meal request in a
couple of days before the execution date, and then that
request goes to the prison chef, often themselves incarcerated, and
(31:08):
they try to figure out the best way to prepare
the meal, and once it's ready, it's brought to your
cell at some point before execution. The most popular request
and nol, you already nailed this, my friend, the most
popular request. Paul will like this as well. A cheeseburger
and fries. Also people like steak, fried chicken, chicken fried steak,
(31:32):
and ice cream.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, all things that sort of fall under the slightly
decadentd category, but really more like comfort food, you know,
stuff that you might eat more of if you weren't
really watching your figure, you know, or like being super
health conscious, because who cares at this point? You know,
A communication representative often announces the menu to reporters, but
(31:59):
prisoners are allowed to request of the choice remains secret.
I believe the Texas Department of Criminal Justice would post
these up until two thousand and four, but then it
was determined to be offensive or there was some kind
of backlash. So Florida, you know, they have those Sunshine laws,
you know, where it's like everything is a public record
(32:21):
more or less, which is what allows so many of
those Florida man did some crazy stuff stories to proliferate.
So you got to wonder if because of that law,
like last meals of Florida death row inmates are unable
to be suppressed.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's a great question. You can still
find the Texas list online courtesyfarchive dot org. The last
request listed is from a guy named Larry Hayes, who
is convicted of double homicide. He asked for the following
two bacon cheeseburgers, French fries, onion rings, catch up coleslaw,
(32:59):
two diet cokes weirdly enough, one quart of milk, one
pint of Rocky Road ice cream, one pint of fried Okra,
salad dressing, tomato and onion.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Just like a bowl of salad dressing that you would
just dip the maybe as a dipper. You know what,
who are we just sad? Also, I want to know
salad dressing is too vag Was he a ranch guy
the two thousand Island a little blue cheese? Because at
that point it get you know, I don't know, I
have questions, but Texas no longer offers last meals at all.
In the last one they served so far occurred in
(33:30):
twenty eleven when a prisoner asked for steak, fried okra,
a triple bacon, cheeseburger, three fajidas, an omelet.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Pizza, half a loaf.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
This guy ruined for everybody half a loaf of bread,
Bluebelt ice cream, peanut butter fudge, and three root beers.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, and notice how we now that's it. We're pulling
the program. This is too much this guy. Yeah, why
stop at half a loaf?
Speaker 1 (33:56):
We also mentioned that tendency to public size last meals
to the press. This is this is speaking directly to
the heart of this episode. Yeah, the universal nature right,
everybody dies, everybody has to eat, just like Checkers said,
I've got to stop referencing that.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
What a lackluster I'm sorry, it's just like you gotta eat.
I love some of this slop.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
You know, You're like, are we the best? No, that's
not gonna work. But people do have to eat. And
someone in the boardroom said, wait, say that again.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I just said, you gotta. It's got a real
ring to it. Hold the phone. We'll have the Mayo,
hold the may slather it with mayo. What does the
matter gonna die? Yeah? Who cares about the calories.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
We're going to have a stay of execution for this episode.
We are making this a two parter and hey, Noel,
look at us.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
We called it in advance this time, the preemptive two parter.
Gotta love it.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Baby's all grown up by baby, I mean.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Meet me and you we're baby. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Big, big thanks to our producer mister Max Williams, and
big thanks to our guest producer Paul wygu Decad.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the quist aj Bahama
Breeze Jacobs the puzz Isn't that a drink? Isn't that
like a like a tasty tiky drink of Bahama Breeze
aj Bahama Breeze, Jacobs the Puzzler, Chris frosciotas.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Eve, Jeff cos Here in Spirit.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Oh dang it, well, we forgot to ask our pal
the Quister about his last meal, probably human flesh. Yeah, classics,
strict classics trick.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's give a special shout out to
our guest super producer Paul Wygo Decands.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
For whom the bell tolls decand Yes, as an alternative.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm Ben Bowling, You're Old Brown. We have a very
strange series for you today, folks. For a while, long
time listeners to both this and our show stuff they
don't want you to know. You may have noticed that
NOL and our good buddy Max Williams and I have
(01:07):
been going through kind of a phase. We go through
phases with fascinations, right.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Sure, Yeah, fascination phases, the.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Fascination phases, which does feel like an album name for
a group you would have at some point.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Like a new wave band.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I guess I'm thinking of Fascination Street by The Cure,
but Fascination Phases maybe would be by the Human League,
perhaps along those lines.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And one of our phases recently is the concept of
a last meal, if you could have one last meal
before you died, if you knew you had one final
nach before you passed.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
From this mortal plane. What would you pick?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
And Noel Spaghetti speak Spaghetti, did not miss your chance
to be there?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's worth it, Uh, Noel.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I I feel like I owe a lot of our
colleagues at Apology on this subject because for what a
month now maybe more, just been trying to work last
meals into conversation.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
You've definitely been getting people thinking about their own mortality
and their food choices, because I think I made the
point when we talked about this on air on one
show or another, that it tells you a lot about
a person, you know, what their last meal might be.
One could argue it's more of an arbitrary choice or
based on superficial things, but I think, as we'll see
(02:33):
in this episode, it can show more than one might think. Agreed.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Yeah, this is kind of an almost folkloric idea at
this point, and nowadays, I think for most people in
the West, it's associated with stories, some true, some fictional,
about convicts on death row.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
But as we will see in this two part.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Episode, we're doing it on purpose. The idea of last
meals is an ancient tradition. The most famous last meal
is the Biblical Last Supper.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Right, Yes, immortalized in the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci.
Obviously a scene directly out of the pages of the
Old Bible, so lots of other slightly less famous versions.
Definitely a bit of an artistic trope, Yeah, because artists
in those days we're always kind of beholden to their benefactors,
who are usually the Roman Catholic Church or some sort
(03:40):
of clergy.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Some operative thereof. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
The last supper of the alternate title is let's all
eat on the same side of the table.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It's more convenient, you know, for portraiture purposes.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I would say, hey, you know, this has nothing to
do with anything, but on that subject, what is you
and your partner's stance on eat on sitting on the
same side of a booth? You know, like you go
to a four top or a booth, do you guys
sit across from each other or do you sit well
next time?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I'm left handed and my partner's right handed, so you
run the risk when sitting next to each other of
elbow bumping. So I tend to want to sit like
on the outside. But yet if it's just the two
of us, we'll we'll sit across from each other side sitting.
You know, if anyone watches Curb, your enthusiasm can be
a bit fraut in and of itself. But yeah, just
(04:34):
saving the elbow bumping by just going ahead and sitting
on the other side. But then it becomes the question
of who gets the chair, and who gets the booth,
and who wants their back facing the door, right, It's
all really relationships are tough, ben I feel like I
feel like the proper choice as a gentleman is to
defer to the other person's preference.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
But we all know back to the intro is the
is the worst of the seats.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Oh yeah, you don't want to be caught on awares.
Someone could bum rushes the restaurant, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And that's how that's how everybody ended up on one
side of the table.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Must be nobody wanted to Nobody wanted to back to
the I mean they're speaking of fraud.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I mean these were fraught times.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Everyone knew that Jesus was about to be murdered, you know,
they they saw the writing on the wall. So that's
actually really funny, man. I never thought that aspect of it.
I thought it was just a convenient artistic device. But
maybe that's how it went down. But however it went down,
this is very much representative of, you know, how important
(05:39):
food is to us as humans, not just for nourishment,
but the idea of enjoying it, of it being something
of a luxury once we got past those caveman days
where where sustenance was all that was required.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And while the idea of the Biblical Last Supper, and
that story may be the most popular example of a
famous last meal in the West, we found a fascinating
paper by Sarah Gerwig Moore and her colleagues at Mercer
University who trace the actual origin the concept of last
(06:17):
meals in the West. You can trace it back to
ancient Greece, and we'll see it in other cultures as well.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Greek authorities in those days would feed a prisoner something
before they were killed, for fear that when they entered
the afterlife, or as Prince calls it, the after world
the underworld. Let's combine the two that if they did
so on an empty stomach, that means that they would
have an angry ghost on their hands. Angry ghosts on
(06:48):
their hands. Dare we say the idea of hungry ghosts.
That's actually kind of a pop cultural trope in and
of itself, the idea of a hungry ghost.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I think there's a couple of restaurants.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I've seen with that name sant Here in Atlanta that
used to be pretty popular that was called hungry ghost.
But yeah, that it could actually return out of vengeance
for having a rumbly tumbly mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, that's what Snickers is talking about. When they say
you're not you when you're hungry, they mean you'll return
for there.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You've been there. Yeah, I've all been there, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I mean if I if I have any nods easy
to do where like you know, with the busy schedules
and busy lives and all the podcasting, you go all
day and you forget to even eat a little snack
and then your partner gets home and you bite their
head off because you're hungry.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yes, okay, that's a real world example. I was.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I was for some reason. It's probably a sleep deprivation.
I was thinking, Yeah, we've all been there. You're interacting
with a ghost and the ghost is agro and you
realize it's hungry.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And you give it a little snack, just a little
little piece of salami just for a treat.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, that's what the Wija board says. So man, I'll
tell you my not to de row.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
But my most formative memory of like candy bar, it's
scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.
That scene in Gremlin's Part one where the gizmo or
whatever has, unbeknownst to the hapless scientists, transmuted or whatever
into the evil Gremlin and he sticks his hand inside
(08:20):
the little doggy carrier with a candy bar, and you know,
cut to screaming face, pained expression because his hand has
presumably been bit off. That's a perfect example of the
movies where it's so much more effective when they don't
show you the violence, right they just show you the
aftermath or they kind of leave it to your mind,
and it's so much scarier that way. But we're not
talking about movie tropes today. We're talking about well, that's
(08:42):
not true, definitely, the last meal movie tropes, last words
is another example of things that kind of get immortalized
in this way.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
But a lot of.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
The things people think they know about last meals, like
all bets are off, you can have whatever you want.
This is a right bestowed upon you given constitutional rights,
not exactly the case.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
It's kind of like when we learned that there is
actually no law requiring you to have home insurance. I
thought last meals were like I thought they were a
matter of of litigation.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Well they are kind of. We'll see. We know can
be can be no, and it can't, but it varies.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
But that practice that we're talking about continued for millennia,
and that story of the Last Supper that we talked
about in the context of his time was very recognizable,
a real cultural you know, milestone, and to put Jesus
in that position almost humanizes Jesus in a very interesting
way because it is something that well even Jesus needed
(09:46):
to eat, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, And I love your pointing this out. In the
context of the time in which it occurred, the Biblical
Last Supper was a normal thing. It's something people would
have been familiar with. And we know that this practice
also echoed throughout Europe as a result, you know, as
Christianity spreads throughout Europe, this became a cultural touchstone for people.
(10:12):
In Germany, authorities often participated in what they call a
hangman's meal, and we were talking about this off air
a while back because I just think it's surreal and
honestly it's a little bit disturbing. But we have a
great quote about it from the takeout dot com.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Lawyers, judges, clergy, local dignitaries, and even the executioner presumably
wearing his hood or would he take it off, you know,
for dinner, would attend what was essentially a feast for
the condemned in Nuremberg. Providing an entire roasted goose to
the person set to be executed was an established part
of this tradition.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
During the hangman's meal, the condemned would participate in a
scripted exchange in which they were told to seek forgiveness
for them their actions. The sharing of a meal between
the condemned and those who had condemned them was symbolic
representing both forgiveness and acceptance. Hey, I refuse, you know
(11:12):
what I mean, Like, I don't want to sit down
and have some goose with the guy who's gonna hang
me in. You know, in a couple of hours, I
respectfully asked for that guy to send this one out,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Maybe, like, you know, let my family come or something.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
But it's a little weird, and in a way it
seems to me to be more for the people doing
the killing right and the one being killed. It's a
way of kind of normalizing the act of ending someone's
life at a functional, governmental kind of level.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Right, Yeah, it's I think it's gosh.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, it's to asswatch the moral hang ups of the
other people, like the functionaries of the state who are
about to murder someone want to be able to sleep
at night, and so this is there a little.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Stop to insert like this semblance of empathy into the
proceedings of what ultimately is the least empathic thing that
could be done to a person. Not to say that
we're not here to litigate whether or not the death
penalty is okay or humane or whatever, but you know,
in general, the act of taking someone's life is frowned upon.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
If we're coming back to the Bible, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
That's a great takeaway quote. In general, the act of
taking someone's life is frowned upon. An Old Brown August
twenty four. I love it. It's true. And it's also true
that this practice, this last meal practice, was not unique
to Germany.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But there is a.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Just over the channel in London, there is a practice
that is a little bit more helpful, perhaps to the
condemned person. I did not know this. I don't think
a lot of us knew this. In London. Around the
same time as the Hangman's Meal, in Germany, prisoners were
(13:08):
allowed to hold a similar party, but they got to
decide who the guests were, and they would stop by
a pub on the day of the execution for a
quote last refreshment in life.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
A bit of a death day party. I mean, yeah,
get your birthday party, why not. Yeah, this is what
I was talking about. Like with the Hangman's meal, where
it seems like, you know, it's just like the folks
that are literally putting you to death. That felt a
little bit egregious and kind of like almost adding insult
to injury that you have to sit and eat a
share a meal, which is a very intimate thing with
these people. This feels a little more right. I like
(13:44):
this last refreshment in life situation.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
It's like a bachelor party, you know what I mean.
It's it's a weird invitation, you know, it's I was
the hot.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Cops showing up doing their tear away pants.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
And yeah, it's like, hey, that's not really the quick
that is perhaps a little bit more on the airing,
on the side of celebrating the life of a condemned person,
letting them, letting them right have one last crazy ride
in a bittersweet jubilee of life. Life lived the Puritans
(14:18):
in early Massachusetts a little later on they would hold
feast for the condemned, and it was an homage to
the Last Supper of Jesus Christ. So this was around.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Likely foregoing the pub aspect of it, right, you know,
I mean, no shade on the Puritans, but I kind
of doubt it was like as much of a rabble rousing,
you know, U soiree as the old last refreshment in
life situation.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Right, Yeah, I don't think they had you know, I
don't think they had Jaegermeister shots and a DJ maybe
a little soft cider, you know, something like sure for refreshments.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Because the cider had turned exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
But you know, all of that's, to your point, been
an absolute parallel of Jesus's Last Supper. And a lot
of this, I mean really does come from a place
of religiousness. It feels like that even when it does
turn more towards the secular.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah. Yeah, and this is where you get to the
rise of the modern last meal. Let's be honest, if
you live in the United States, and I would say
if you live in most western countries, you probably associate
last meals with the idea of death row. Not death
(15:34):
row records, the actual death row where inmates who have
been convicted wrongfully or not of crimes like murder or
treason are going to be executed by the state. And
there are so many, like, there are so many cultural
touchstones about this, in so many films, in so many songs.
(15:55):
What's that one song, Mercy Seat.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I believe that's nick Cave and the Bad Sea, Nick
Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
And I believe that's even a biblical reference right there,
the the idea of the mercy seat being a physical location.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
That housed the arc of the Covenant, right.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, it's the it's the list, actual actual chair, like
I see. Yeah, And in the nick Cave song, it is, uh,
the mercy seat is euphemism for, I believe, for the
electric chair. They they don't mention, they don't mention food specifically,
(16:32):
unless I'm misremembering a verse and that probably.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Say those sinister dinner deals. That's right, the meal trolleys of.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Jesus in my soup in the meal trolley's wicked wheels. Yeah, no,
it does and absolutely references. That's pretty pretty cool, Ben,
I did not know that. I'm a big Nick Cave fan.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's a weird one, and we would love to hear
your examples of of when last meals occur in pop fiction.
But this hits on a point that you brought up
earlier in l We have some myths to bust about
last meals in fiction versus last meals in the real world.
(17:12):
And one of the biggest ones that you introduced here
is the idea that anyone preparing for their last meal
has free range to order whatever they want, you know,
like I'll have a tiger filey and the ortelawn with
the side of milk steak and jelly beans.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
That's not the case. No sloppy steaks all around.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Not to mention Ben that not in every state is
the death penalty legal. As of this year twenty twenty four,
as we sit and record this the year of our Lord,
there are twenty one states that still have capital punishment
aka execution in the law books. Those are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Monte, Nebraska, Nevada,
(18:00):
at North Carolina, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming in alphabetical order.
It sounds it's a thing.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
It sounds like such an evil alphabet. But it's also
a lot of spaces of death there it is. Wait,
that's actually a film, too, isn't it. I think it's
like an anthology horror situation. And there are another six
states where the death penalty is legal, but for one
reason or another, no executions are taking place. Maybe the
(18:34):
attorney general temporarily halted them, maybe the governor prohibited them
via executive order.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Those would be.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Arizona, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. So not everybody gets
a last meal, because not every state in the US
currently executes people, and the ones that do execute people,
this is the next myth, not all of them allow
a special room, quest or accommodation for that last meal.
(19:03):
Sometimes you just you just get whatever is in the cafeteria.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
At Etah, get what you get and is it you
don't pitch a fit or you don't get to pick
I always I'm never sure which one.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I think it's you don't pitch a fit. But yeah,
just a little quick mention.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I mean, you know, the death penalty, of course, has
always been a hot button issue for a very very
long time, and we're I'm here to fall on one
side of the debate or another, but there has been
some very interesting evolution. I guess, maybe not in the
way the death penalty is carried out, but just in
like so many cases of people like being exonerated at
the last minute. You know, we've done some episodes on
stuff they don't want you to know with the folks
(19:41):
related to Lava for Good and the Innocence Project, and
you know, we know that because of new developments in
DNA testing and forensic technology, there have been numerous cases
where folks nearly made it to the hangman's noose and
then we're at the last minute some new piece of
evidence came out. So I think that may well be
(20:01):
why some of those states that have temporarily halted it
have done so because it's tricky to navigate, and we
know stays of execution have always been in play. It's
a movie thing as well, and it's very expensive and
very dangerous in a way in terms of liability, I guess,
you know, for the state.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Yeah, And honestly, that is a all things considered, that
is an ideal, an ideal situation because unfortunately, often people
are exonerated posthumously. Someone has been executed and later evidence
proves that they were in a stet.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Probably is more common than what I was describing, the
idea of being saved from the hangman's news that usually
it often happens after the fact. But you can look
into that stuff. That's sort of outside of the scope
of this episode. But as you mentioned, many of the
states that do execute people, there really isn't any special
dispensation or you know, cost five language laying out this
(21:02):
notion of some grandiose last meal.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, and uh a pro tip for pro tip if
you're ever in this situation. Also, we hope that you
are never in this situation. The authorities generally prefer to
call these things special meals instead of last meals.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Oh, there's semantics as a hell of a drug. Yeah,
I love you pointed out something out Ben by the
way that you're the research associated extraordinary for this episode.
And this has been a pet interest of yours and mine,
you know, through you, for for some time. But you
pointed out something that I found ironic and a little
little twisted. There's some situations where, due to the method
(21:43):
of execution, you gotta have an empty stomach. It's like
getting a physical only it's like the opposite of getting
a physical it's a non physical. Speaking of which, have
you heard of the proliferation of the term unlived or unlived?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah? Have we gone too far, guys with political correctness?
I think maybe a little bit.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I saw an article where a reference to Kurt Cobain
ending his own life at a museum that I've been
to actually in Seattle, the Museum of Pop Culture. In
one of the little plaques, it referred to him as
having unalived himself.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
And I don't know, man, it just doesn't sound right
to me. But whatever I.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Believe, and I'm guessing here, but if I were to guess,
which I am, I believe that term came about in
service of social media algorithms, right, because if you use
the S word, then maybe your post or your content
gets buried.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
True.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
That's a really good point Ben you are, like, I
do notice that in text or on screen, you know,
translations or whatever, they'll asterisk out a couple of letters.
We've even done it on our social videos for stuff
they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I think we did an episode and.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
A robot potential robot suicide, and our social media person
recommended that we have you know, like X those letters
out because it does tend that to you can videos
can be demonetized at the very least fall in the ranking.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, and the issue you're talking about the physical museum plaque.
To me, that's going too far, But it may be
it may be a situation again, like special meals instead
of last meals. We use these linguistic tricks to make
ourselves feel a little bit better right, or to feel
(23:39):
less conflicted about these horrible things. All of the states
that here's the other myth. Of the states that do
execute people and do provide a last meal, most have
some pretty significant restrictions of what you can or cannot request.
Another thing of the very last myth in this I
(23:59):
don't know, this kind of blew my mind. Often times,
prisoners who do get a last meal, they don't request
super fancy stuff. They're not, you know, they're not like
I have a giants two from Skyrim, or you know,
I'll have a giraffe neck bone soup.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
So you're saying most inmates on death row aren't similar
to the late Great Hannibal Elector, right, he would have
asked for something fancy. He would have asked for something
real fancy, I think, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Just to be inconvenient. But no sharks.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
But I mean the guy was a you know, he
was the late great doctor Hannah Elector was a bit
of a foodie, you know. And this is not to
say that there aren't highbrow people that make their way up.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
To death Row.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
We're not here to stereotype people that, you know, have
their lives ended by the state. But it does, to
your point, been seem much more common for it to be.
Maybe there might be a volume of food, but it's
usually a volume of like good old American staples, you know,
like the cheeseburger, the hot dog, some hot wings, you know,
(25:09):
a bucket of fries, whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Fried chicken is a huge one. Popka.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, And there's a reason for this, arguably, you could say,
I mean, it's important to remember that by the time
people get to this point, wrongfully convicted or rightfully convicted.
They have been in the prison system for years, for decades,
and so at this point they've been eating the same
(25:36):
stuff day in and day out. So they probably spent
a lot of time yearning for some nostalgic, as you said,
comfort food. So maybe they don't want to try a
new thing. I mean, can you imagine the gosh, the
existential kick in the pants if you say, I want
(25:56):
to try something I've never tried before in my life,
just to just to see, right before the state executes me,
I want to try something wild, Like I want to
try Nato, the fermented beans that basically are taste of diapers.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
That's what I've heard. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm good
with that. More for more for the rest of you.
But you know, it is interesting, you know, we always
say it's sort of a cliche, but like death is
the one thing that everyone knows they will experience, but
no one knows what it's like. And typically, even like
in the case of terminal illness, you're probably not going
to know the exact moment of your snuffing, you know
(26:38):
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
And so this is a very unique situation.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You know, the idea of being executed and facing it
so directly whatever you've done, you know, whatever horrific deeds
led you to this place. We are at our at
our root, all human and and this has to be
a bit of a mind.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yes, yes, I agree.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So can a death row inmate request anything they want
for their final meal?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Sure, request request exactly, Yeah, but I respectfully decline, right, Yeah,
the state.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I am the state, and I respectfully decline your requests.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, requests.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
There are examples though, like I believe Texas you pointed
up in go out of their way to do the
best they can to accommodate any orders. But typically, uh,
like in Virginia, for example, there's kind of like a
rotating death row menu. Tell me more about this. Is
this like is this just the regular like like fun
(27:47):
meal day menu for all the inmates or is this
specifically for death row Because people don't get executed every day.
It takes a long time, and we don't we usually
hear about it when it happens because it's such a
big deal, right or am I am? I maybe over
generalizing there, Yeah, you're.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
One hundred percent correct. Before Virginia abolished capital punishment in
twenty twenty one for everybody outside of the US. Virginia's
a state in the East coast. Here, Virginia prisons had
a twenty eight day rotating menu for all the prisoners,
for all the inmates. Got it, So you might have
(28:22):
hot dogs on the first and then on the second
day you might have chili. And if you were a
prisoner on death row and you were going to be executed,
your last meal could be one of the thing, one
of the meals in that twenty eight day rotation.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
So this special could I have a chili dog? Could
I combine to I would hope that. Well, it seems reasonable, right, It.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Seems like you're not asking for the moon and stars
at that point, you know, so surely they.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Could work with you.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You noted the Texas penal system, how they pride themselves
on doing the best to a any order that actually
comes from the chefs themselves, not just the warden and
the guards, because a lot of those chefs are themselves incarcerated,
so maybe they have a bit more empathy with someone
(29:15):
who's on death row. But they can't get everything right
because budgets are real. A lot of people for instance,
request filet mignon. You got to get as close to
that as possible.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, they might cook up a hamburg steak.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
You know, I'm sorry, I say I love like in
like cowboys stories and like a prison story, they call
it a hamburg instead of a Hamburger. I've always found
that interesting. But yeah, you know, again a close approximation.
This is coming from a place of empathy outside of
the system, really, because to your point, Bend, these are
folks that are inside as well oftentimes, so they might
(29:52):
do a little go a little bit more above and beyond.
I do love this quote though, from this article on Slate.
I'll have twenty four tacos and the f y'aw can
a prisoner request anything for his last meal? By Christopher Beam.
If twenty four tacos were requested, they might cut it
down to four. Yeah, it seems a little insulting. I
don't know, you think they could like do eight. You know,
(30:14):
it's a taco. You just slap it on there. It's fine.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I just ge't.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I've still stuck on this idea too, of ordering something
for the first time. You know, you're like, oh, I've
never tried snake or eel or you know some other
very specific food and you eat it and you hate it.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
This is awful. Mull again, can I I'm sorry, Yucky, I.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Don't think you get redos, which is I think you
do to the point of death row.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Let's talk a little bit about how it works.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So if you've met all these caveats and conditions, if
you're in a state that does this, and you are
on death row, you're usually going to put your final
meal or excuse us, your special meal request in a
couple of days before the execution date, and then that
request goes to the prison chef, often themselves incarcerated, and
(31:08):
they try to figure out the best way to prepare
the meal, and once it's ready, it's brought to your
cell at some point before execution. The most popular request
and nol, you already nailed this, my friend, the most
popular request. Paul will like this as well. A cheeseburger
and fries. Also people like steak, fried chicken, chicken fried steak,
(31:32):
and ice cream.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, all things that sort of fall under the slightly
decadentd category, but really more like comfort food, you know,
stuff that you might eat more of if you weren't
really watching your figure, you know, or like being super
health conscious, because who cares at this point? You know,
A communication representative often announces the menu to reporters, but
(31:59):
prisoners are allowed to request of the choice remains secret.
I believe the Texas Department of Criminal Justice would post
these up until two thousand and four, but then it
was determined to be offensive or there was some kind
of backlash. So Florida, you know, they have those Sunshine laws,
you know, where it's like everything is a public record
(32:21):
more or less, which is what allows so many of
those Florida man did some crazy stuff stories to proliferate.
So you got to wonder if because of that law,
like last meals of Florida death row inmates are unable
to be suppressed.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's a great question. You can still
find the Texas list online courtesyfarchive dot org. The last
request listed is from a guy named Larry Hayes, who
is convicted of double homicide. He asked for the following
two bacon cheeseburgers, French fries, onion rings, catch up coleslaw,
(32:59):
two diet cokes weirdly enough, one quart of milk, one
pint of Rocky Road ice cream, one pint of fried Okra,
salad dressing, tomato and onion.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Just like a bowl of salad dressing that you would
just dip the maybe as a dipper. You know what,
who are we just sad? Also, I want to know
salad dressing is too vag Was he a ranch guy
the two thousand Island a little blue cheese? Because at
that point it get you know, I don't know, I
have questions, but Texas no longer offers last meals at all.
In the last one they served so far occurred in
(33:30):
twenty eleven when a prisoner asked for steak, fried okra,
a triple bacon, cheeseburger, three fajidas, an omelet.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Pizza, half a loaf.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
This guy ruined for everybody half a loaf of bread,
Bluebelt ice cream, peanut butter fudge, and three root beers.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, and notice how we now that's it. We're pulling
the program. This is too much this guy. Yeah, why
stop at half a loaf?
Speaker 1 (33:56):
We also mentioned that tendency to public size last meals
to the press. This is this is speaking directly to
the heart of this episode. Yeah, the universal nature right,
everybody dies, everybody has to eat, just like Checkers said,
I've got to stop referencing that.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
What a lackluster I'm sorry, it's just like you gotta eat.
I love some of this slop.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
You know, You're like, are we the best? No, that's
not gonna work. But people do have to eat. And
someone in the boardroom said, wait, say that again.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I just said, you gotta. It's got a real
ring to it. Hold the phone. We'll have the Mayo,
hold the may slather it with mayo. What does the
matter gonna die? Yeah? Who cares about the calories.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
We're going to have a stay of execution for this episode.
We are making this a two parter and hey, Noel,
look at us.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
We called it in advance this time, the preemptive two parter.
Gotta love it.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Baby's all grown up by baby, I mean.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Meet me and you we're baby. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Big, big thanks to our producer mister Max Williams, and
big thanks to our guest producer Paul wygu Decad.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the quist aj Bahama
Breeze Jacobs the puzz Isn't that a drink? Isn't that
like a like a tasty tiky drink of Bahama Breeze
aj Bahama Breeze, Jacobs the Puzzler, Chris frosciotas.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Eve, Jeff cos Here in Spirit.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Oh dang it, well, we forgot to ask our pal
the Quister about his last meal, probably human flesh. Yeah, classics,
strict classics trick.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Start Here
A straightforward look at the day's top news in 20 minutes. Powered by ABC News. Hosted by Brad Mielke.
3. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.