Sea-bass carpaccio in Trastevere, Rome;
Sardines in saor in Venice;
Åkerbärssylt (arctic raspberry jam) in Sweden;
Gallettes with Breton cider in Montparnasse;
Lobster in St. John's, Newfoundland.

From the AskMe thread's first answer: "Hummus".

Hummus? Really? I've had hummus and it was just.... hummus.

It's kind of like saying you need to eat rice. It's just rice.

One thing I'd like to have again before I die would be my grandmother's potato pancakes, but since she died in '81 I don't think it's likely.

*sigh*

You know, I'm finding this list pretty morbid because I'm thinking it's a "last meal" sort of list.

Pork miswa, made by my mom, without the shrimp in it
A kobe beef steak with the creamed spinach recipe from Burton & Doyle's
Filet mignon and cole slaw, served inside Club 33 at Disneyland
A Carl's Jr. Western bacon cheeseburger
The Very Last Meal: That little bird in France that you're supposed to eat whole, bones, beak, feet and all. I forget what the name of it is.

Hot H&H salt bagel w/ chive cream cheese
Wasabi shumai with lots of cold sake at Decibel Bar (if the bar or the shumai are now gone, I insist that my food fantasy also include the use of a time machine)
Steak & Pommes from any good steakhouse in Berlin
A really excellent "normal" greasy foldable pepperoni slice (not an entire wood-fired vera pizza napoletana pie -- I guess that's tasty enough for what it is, but one of those would never make my heart soar) in NYC, which might require further use of the time machine
Pork buns from Super Star in Tsim Sha Tsui

I also found the "here's five unadorned vegetables" response in the thread to be odd and depressing to contemplate. Unless the intention was that the lack of sensual pleasure in the food would make it easier to kick the bucket without regrets? I would go easier to my death if it was in the opposite direction of a big cauliflower.

1. Lead
2. Crow
3. The Rich
4. Your weight in blueberry pancakes
5. Oyakodon

The Very Last Meal: That little bird in France that you're supposed to eat whole, bones, beak, feet and all. I forget what the name of it is.

From Wikipedia:

Gastronomy

For centuries, a rite of passage for French gourmets has been the eating of the Ortolan. These tiny birds—captured alive, force-fed, then drowned in Armagnac—were roasted whole and eaten that way, bones and all, while the diner draped his head with a linen napkin to preserve the precious aromas and, some believe, to hide from God. —The Wine Spectator

Ortolans used to be netted in great numbers, kept alive in an artificially lighted, or darkened room, and fed with oats and millet. In a very short time they became enormously fat and were then killed for the table. If, as is supposed, the ortolan be the miliaria of Varro, the practice of artificially fattening birds of this species is very ancient.

In French the word ortolan is used so as to be almost synonymous with the English bunting; thus, the ortolan-de-neige is the Snow Bunting (Plectrophanes nivalis), the ortolan-de-riz is the rice-bird or Bobolink of North America (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), so justly celebrated for its delicious flavour. But the name is also applied to other birds much more distantly related, for the ortolan of some of the Antilles, where French is spoken, is a little ground dove of the genus Chamaepelia.

In Europe the beccafico (fig-eater) shared with the ortolan the highest honours of the dish, and this may be a convenient place to point out that the former is a name of equally elastic signification. The true beccafico is said to be what is known in England as the Garden Warbler (the Motacilla salicaria of Linnaeus, the Sylvia borin of modern writers); but in Italy any soft-billed small bird that could be snared or netted in its autumnal emigration passed under the name in the markets and cook-shops.

The beccafico, however, is not as a rule artificially fattened, and on this account was preferred by some sensitive tastes to the ortolan.

One way French diners ate ortolans was to cover their heads and face with a large napkin for the gourmand's aesthetic desire to absorb the maximum odour with the flavor. This famous use of the towel was launched by a priest, a friend of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

François Mitterrand's last meal was said to consist of ortolan.

I think I would finally break down and eat all the meat-based korean food I miss so much, kalbi, dukk gukk and a stack of pajun the way mom made it...

I had mandu and kimchi yesterday. Mandu is delicious.

The cream of tomato soup from Cafe Select in Edmonton. It's made with beef stock, vodka, and real heavy cream. Mmmmmmmmm....

My own osso bucco (beef) with mushroom risotto. Yeah, it's immodest, but man that dish rocks.

The coconut/chicken/cashew curry and gado-gado salad from the Bam Boo in Toronto. That would require a time machine. Bastard rent-raising landlords. The nerve.

My gran's bread pudding, made with sherry and currants and homemade custard. Also time-machine-requiring, and she couldn't give me an exact recipe so I'll never get to eat it again.

My great-grandmother's homemade liqueur. I tasted some from the very last bottle several years ago, and it was like angels crying on your tongue. Another family recipe lost. (okay, not solid food, but food for the soul, no?)

I feel like saying something very naughty about what I'd like to eat last, but I'll be polite and stick with:

5 servings of unagi
4 fresh, right off the backyard vine tomatoes
3 slices of perfect prime rib
2 hunks of the pesto/spiced sausage lasagna my friend Karen makes -- simply the single best piece of food I've ever put in my mouth
1 freshly picked, perfectly ripened blackberry

whale burgers

horse meat

An In N' Out Burger

An abalone that I've harvested myself, free-diving off the coast of California.

A wild boar that I've hunted myself -- really hunted, not one of those game reserve pseudo-hunts. (This is a somewhat ambitious goal because I have never fired a weapon in my life and I live in a jurisdiction that is not firearm-friendly.)

A peanutbutter-and-jelly sammich.





(having been hiked to the top of a tallish mountain)

Tailing on danf's post, the French have also used oscines and clamatores in various reciepes. Oscines commanded the higher market prices, being generally brightly colored small song birds, sold in cages and often temporarily displayed in large cages for their cheerful songs, before being killed and baked into decorative pies and quiche. You can see an example of this in the Danish Oscar winning film, Babbett's Feast, where song birds are ordered en crate from Paris, as an ingredient for a dish at a fine dinner in a remote sea shore village. The birds arrive in a crate, and beoome a decoratively arranged song bird pie in the meal.

Clamatores were any of several species of small wild bird, often captured in nets, and sold fresh killed and cleaned at market, for roasting or baking, often artfully stuffed with chantrelles and truffels, or fine sausages and puddings.

As for what I'll eat again, before I die:

Arthur Bryant's barbeque
Oyster and roast beef po boys at Johnny's
Sweetbreads (veal pancreas) at The Abbey Restaurant
Cleopatra at the new Cyrano's in St. Louis (bit of a gamble, as I've not been there, and this is a "recreation" of the "old" Cyrano's on Clayton, but they claim it's the same outrageous bowl of ice cream, chocolate and strawberries...
Lobster and fried clams at Woodman's Eat in the Rough, Essex, MA