Okay, it's a strange premise but go with it. If Amelia was alive in 1980, say if she came to life and had to do it over again, what choices would she make. Number one, what would her first meal be. Think about that, and think about food. Food is what makes my day go round and I'm assuming if you'd been starving for a while, it would make yours as well. So I offer Amelia a few dozen choices, granted she doesn't have money in her pockets but she won't notice that yet. What she will notice is how desperately hungry she is and how much there is to eat and how hard it is to choose. Not your last meal, but your first, your first that might be your last, so that makes it doubly hard. Do you choose comfort food? Do you opt for a gourmet's delight? Do you go ethnic? Do you pick something that harkens back to childhood or steers clear?
I pose that to you oh noble readers. What would your first meal be if you were allowed a first meal knowing all you know? What fabulous feast would you choose? Would it be the best slice of pizza you'd ever had with all the toppings? Would it be dinner at Babbo? Or in Amelia's case Delmonico's? What is food for you? Is eating something you do to go on living, or is eating one of the greatest pleasures in life?
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Great question! I don't know about Amelia, but Number One, I'd get Mary Chung's (Cambridge restaurant) suan la chow show (spicy pork dumplings in a delicate noodle wrapping, with pickled ginger served on bean sprouts). Followed by a really good steak frites. Water cress and endive salad. And for dessert, lichee sorbet. Oh, and a bottle of Prosecco to toast my return.
ReplyDeleteHmmm....I'm assuming we're talking strictly what we'd personally like, not what would be good for us after x-many day of near starvation on an island (where a person would get sick of fish).
ReplyDeleteI'd go for fresh, steamed lobster from Larson's in in Menemsha, cooked in a pot of seawater, with lemon, an arugla salad, and a baked potato with butter and sour cream. A Pinot Gris would go nicely with that. Dessert would be overkill.
Anything chocolate. Some kind of chocolate pie, with nuts and whipped cream on top.
ReplyDeleteOne thing she probably WOULDN'T order is chicken in any form. As a relatively cheap meat, it was a favorite choice of menu planners for banquets and dinners serving large numbers of people during the Depression. She complained lightheartedly about the chicken that seemed to show up at every dinner and luncheon she attended -- of which there were many whenever she was on the lecture circuit.
ReplyDeleteI vote for prime rib and baked potato.
Oooh, chocolate. forgot about that. Defintely chocolate-and-hazelnut something instead of lichee nuts something.
ReplyDeleteLove chocolate, ice cream is my major vice. For lunch I think a Reuben, there's something perfect about that sandwich. For dinner, steak. And now the chicken mystery of my childhood has been cleared up. My mother served it six nights out of seven; who knew it came in so many unappetizing forms including rubberized.
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