You have only a few days left to live. You are dying of cancer. What will you eat for your last meal? What wine will you drink? These are important questions, especially if you are a food-lover and a Frenchman, and most especially if you are Francois Mitterrand (1916-1996), former President of
France.
Mitterrand’s last meal was legendary. The Independent recently placed it among the top ten banquets in human history. Knowing that he was near death, the president travelled to Egypt in order to commune with the Pharaohs and contemplate his legacy. An enigmatic man, he set upon an enigmatic end. Under the shadow of the ancient tombs, he sent a message back to France with instructions for a dinner party to be held upon his return. He could not build himself a pyramid of stone, but he could accomplish a French equivalent: he could immortalize himself through food and wine.
The decadent menu included foie gras and oysters, but the pièce de résistance was a thumb-sized songbird called the Ortolan Bunting. Once, the Ortolan was a famous delicacy of European royalty. Its flavour is so profound that it is said to taste like the “soul of France”. But the Ortolon is now an endangered species. Eating them is illegal. Not only that, it is cooked with exquisite cruelty. It is taken alive and drowned in armangac.
When it is served, the diner covers his head with a large white napkin and eats the entire bird in one bite under this tent. You bite into the bones, the organs, the tiny head. The napkin on your head helps to trap the aroma, but tradition has it that it’s true role is to hide the crime of eating an Ortolan from God.
Michael Paterniti reported in This American Life about his own attempt to recreate Mitterrand’s last meal. He describes eating an Ortolan as “terrifying” and an “existential crisis”. To eat it is to put death inside you. A guest at Mitterand’s feast said that the president ate his Ortolon silently while staring into a dark corner of the room, a look of ecstasy on his face. It was the last food he touched. He died eight days later.
What did Mitterrand drink with his meal? The answer surprised me: normal, commonly available wines. A decent but middle-of-the-road Bordeaux called Château Poujeaux. A solid white Sauternes called Doisy Daëne. The one exceptional wine was a hundred year old bottle from Château Lestage Simon. But even this is odd. Château Lestage Simon is by no means fabulous. A wine that old would be faded and ghostly. Mitterand was enigmatic even in his wine list. Is there an explanation?
Perhaps. Mitterrand was not much of a drinker. He liked simple wines. I think he drank Château Poujeaux because he liked it, not because he needed to impress anyone with an extravagant label. But on a deeper level, he understood the secret of French wines. They are meant to be just one part of the meal. They should not distract from the food. Especially when you are eating the soul of France.
Matthew Sullivan is a lawyer with the Department of Justice in Toronto. He writes a weekly blog entry here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca