Last Meals of the Famous

Before Napoleon Bonaparte uttered his last words (“France, l’armée, tête d’armée, Joséphine”) and perished on the windswept island of Saint Helena at the age of 51, he reportedly treated himself to a feast. The exiled French leader scarfed down liver and bacon chops, sauteed kidneys in sherry, shirred eggs with cream, and garlic toast with roast tomatoes.

Those wishing to revisit his last meal might have a hard time recreating it—Trader Joe’s doesn’t stock kidneys, last I checked—but they can enjoy the next best thing. The food-advertising director Gus Filgate is creating a series of short films that reproduce the last meals of noteworthy individuals.

The one for Napoleon seems to hint at the visceral, brutal nature of 19th-century French rule: Lard snaps in an iron skillet; kidneys drip with milk; a tomato’s head is severed and its guts spew out.

 

The other meals (at least so far) seem to similarly mirror their eaters’ personalities. Jimi Hendrix’s tuna sandwich is simple and funky:

 

Julius Caesar’s clams seem packed with ceremony and grandeur. (It’s even better that the B.C.-era grub is paired with some sort of East Asian brass-band music).

 

For those who are especially obsessed with food-porn special effects, Filgate also details how he created the props that make the victuals look the way they do. (For example, check out this “lamb cage.”)

[H/T: The Atlantic]