I’d like to be at Blue Hill Farm, the family farm where I spent a lot of time when I was younger. The farm is so beautiful: there’d be all these aches and pains at the idea of leaving it.
There are two parts to the beauty of the farm – aesthetically it’s an iconic New England landscape; open space, green, like a picture book. And then the psychological beautiful of a place where you grew up, the memories, that’s very powerful. I’d want to eat on the porch, overlooking the farm and pasture.
I’d like the meal to be a brunch. Traditionally, I hate brunch. I think it’s the worst meal – it makes a complete mess of the day. In the restaurant business, it is also the worst meal to serve and cook – people are on vacation … their moods can be tricky to work with. But for my last meal, it makes the most sense for it to be a long brunch.
I’d only want the fundamentals. That’s how I’ve lived my life. I’d start with a good swig of raw milk. We have a lot of different breeds – galloway, jersey, normandy, older variety cows that are dual purpose – they give great milk and at the end they give great meat. I’d like to frame my meal in that same way. We usually slaughter the cows after 6 years, and up to 12 years. I like the flavour of an old dairy cow. So drinking milk, looking out over the pasture at the young mothers and babies then moving on to eating this exceptional meat, that would be meaningful.
I’d like to think I’d have some eggs, for similar symbolic reasons. In order for the milk to truly taste delicious, the grass needs to be in the best possible condition, and the best way to do that is to have chickens following the cows in the pasture. Chickens are like the sanitation lady – they make the whole system healthier, their role is very important for the ecological health of the land and the animals who graze on it, which makes the meat so good and the milk so sweet. So, I’d want eggs.
The way I learned to enjoy eggs was like this: my mom died when I was very young. My father was a poor cook and made terrible eggs, a mix between scramble and omelette, terribly overcooked, cut-it-with-a-knife kind of thing, they were awful. But when you’re that young, you just think of them as eggs, not awful. It wasn’t until my aunt cooked me eggs when I was sick at 10-11 that I discovered how beautiful scrambled eggs could be – cooked over a double boiler, whipped gently, with salt. They were so creamy and delicious: they were a revelation. I can still taste them now when I talk about them. That plateful introduced me to the power of food. And I wouldn’t have felt that way about my aunt’s eggs if I hadn’t had my dad’s for so long, so in a way I have him to thank for that and I’d want to repeat that experience for this last meal.
I’d want wholewheat bread with that. An ancient grain, emmer wheat – that grass mentioned in the Bible. I like the idea of eating something that Ruth was holding in her hand, that’s pretty powerful, linking it back to the beginning. It’s another nice frame or bookend.
To drink, I’d want a beer – if you ever needed a drink this would be the time to have one! A really high-alcohol beer, the kind I deny myself these days. A porter – a stronger, heavier beer. A couple of glasses – right after the milk.
I’m a big fan of pasta – generally speaking, I’ll eat any pasta, but I guess here, I’d want Alain Ducasse’s pasta. I have a great memory of the first time I ate in his restaurant. I was working in Paris in the early 1990s and when my stage was done, I took the TGV down to the South of France and had lunch at the Louis XV in Nice. I wanted to experience his food. I’ll never forget it. On the menu was pasta with tomato sauce – the waiter said there’s nothing better. It was so beautiful. It was already my favourite meal from childhood. A lot of sauce left in the bowl when I was done. If I could have that again, I’d go out happy.
Alain Ducasse is the reason I’m doing what I’m doing. All the time when I’m thinking about my dishes, I connect myself to him, not in an arrogant way, but because he was the first chef to capture peasant traditions in fine dining. Look at that tomato and pasta dish. In the Louis XV, you’re in the lap of the lap of luxury, there’s nothing more over the top and pampered and, what does he offer you, but a simple pasta and tomato sauce. The convention was lobster and caviar, but he brilliantly infused the menu with a feeling of history and place and I have it so much easier now because he did that.
I’d have to ask my wife first if he could be with us, but I think she’d say immediately “of course!” for Alain Ducasse – if it were anyone else I think she would take exception. I would love my daughter to be there too.
The pasta would be followed by the meat. A nine-year old dairy cow, all manner of different cuts – some of the steak, sirloins, some braised meat, some shoulder, some braised oxtail, different textures, and different parts – to celebrate the wholeness of the animal. Just as it is, with a sauce made with the bones.
For dessert, I would have what my wife makes for me for my birthday. Every year, for nine years, she’s made this white chocolate cake that I adore – it’s very eggy and moist, very mild, not cakey, and filled with a kind of goodness. She got the recipe from Bill Yosses, a chef I worked with at Bouley in New York City, who went on to become the pastry chef at the White House.
Dan Barber is the co-owner and executive chef of Blue Hill in Manhattan and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in upstate New York, and the author of The Third Plate (Penguin Press)
