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The Last Meal 2011 Recap

Posted by: mikelee on Dec 28, 2011 | 15 Comments

As the year draws to a close, we all have a tendency to look back and reflect on what happened in 2011. For Studiofeast, it was a great year filled with events where we had the privilege of bringing people together with food. You can surf this site to see the things that ensued in 2011–through prose, video, and photo–but a less visible reflection of our year comes in the form of the responses to that question on our invite form, “You’re about to die, what’s your last meal?”

Of the 564 new names added to our invite list this year, we’ve compiled the responses into an infographic that was also the basis of our Last Meal dinner on December 18th. It has become an annual tradition to close out the year with a dinner influenced by the year’s responses, and for this year we created a 5 course meal that used the top items from selected invitee segments. This resulted in a dinner rooted in cheese, lobster, chicken, duck, and chocolate, for which a full menu and photos are listed below.

The Last Meal 2011 Infographic
Created by Soomin Baik. Click image below to see a larger version, or download a PDF or JPG.

To draw these ingredients from our 2011 dataset (a.k.a. “The Death Row Class of 2011″), we looked at the available data about our audience and split them into segments: geography, gender, occupation, email domain, season, and time of day that the invite request was submitted. Using Google Refine to scrub and structure the dataset, Mechanical Turk to categorize the dizzying array of answers we received for various categories (e.g., the “Administrative” occupation category derived from far flung answers such as: “Secretary,” “Admin,” “Assitant,” “Exec Asst,” etc.), and Textalyser to analyze the most popular words/ingredients in each segment’s datteaset, we created a top items list for each segment.

What resulted from the analysis was a top 3 items for each segment we looked at. Some results are what you’d expect (e.g., Massachussets includes “Lobster”) and others present amusing/puzzling results (e.g., Pennsylvania: “Scallop, Vermouth, Heart.”). At times, the results remind us that we’re not so different after all, (e.g., Men & Women both list “Cheese” in their top 3) and at others they highlight how rich a tapestry we are as a people (e.g., Businesspeople want “Duck, Cheese, and Soup” while engineers/architects requested “Potato, Korea, and Chocolate”). We are reminded how the seasons subtly influence our cravings, (e.g., Spring includes “Salad,” Winter asks for “Potatoes”) and but also how we could benefit by rethinking conventional wisdom of how time and food are related (e.g., Breakfast time submissions requested “Fresh, Duck, Pho,” which I hope to God becomes a food trend for 2012). We unearthed a few new things since doing this in 2010, that’s for sure, but I’m still happy to report that “cheese” remains the overall #1 request for a last meal. It’s good to know that despite our shortcomings, we as a society still have not lost our goddamned minds.

In the end, our goal with this dataset was to create a conversation piece, one that served as both an inspiration for a menu as well as a natural ice breaker for dinner table conversation. This isn’t hard science and we don’t expect Proctor & Gamble to come calling for the dataset with hopes of launching a Last Meals product line based on this research. But this sort of thing exemplifies one of the things we strive to do with Studiofeast: spurring conversation over a meal, which leads to a great social experience for all.

And having witnessed the vibe at the Last Meal dinner, seeing strangers find common ground in the things they wanted to eat for their last meal, commiserating over the food and wine, and ultimately forming new friendships and enriching old ones, I can assure you that it worked. The food and the concept simply got people at the table talking and great things happened as a result. Hopefully, we can extend that night’s conversation here. I encourage you to share the infographic and let us know what your last meal would be. We look forward to hearing what you have to say and hope we can cook for you sometime soon. It’s been a great 2011 and we have much in store for you in 2012.

But until then, we hope you have a Happy New Year and we look forward to one day making you a last meal worthy meal.

Many thanks to the talented Soomin Baik, who crafted this infographic as well as helping to execute the Last Meal.