What would you eat for your last meal?

If I mentioned pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup, lemon tart or maybe a dark chocolate and almond torte would I have your attention?

And what if I threw in roast beef with a red wine glaze; linguine with garlic prawns and chili, or a roast pumpkin, spinach and ricotta pie?

A big mac? Fish and chips? The mashed potatoes your mum made you as a kid? A phenomenal pavlova?

We all have our favorites, but can you imagine not being able to eat the foods you love? In an article published in the New York Times, Anna Stoessinger – a self-confessed ravenous, ungraceful eater – told of a shock diagnosis that left her unable to eat the things she loved.

Doctors told Anna she would need to have a total gastrectomy – part of her oesophagus and all of her stomach removed. She would come to rely on her small intestine to digest her small and frequent meals that would have to be consumed slowly.

Anna and her husband decided capture the food that meant something to them before the operation. So for 10 days they travelled the US determined to eat as much as possible. She and her husband ate peanut butter and jelly doughnuts, ginger ice cream and sashimi. They ate “candy in the car like kids” and savoured the seared scallops her mother made “like no one else”. And for her final meal, Anna and her husband dined at New York’s Le Bernardin, the the “best place in the city for a final meal with a stomach, the best place in the city, arguably, for any meal.”

“And what a magnificent meal it was”, she writes.

If I had to chose a final meal, I too would tap into the comforts of home cooking. I’d ask my mum to make me a bowl of pasta with fresh tomato sauce and basil. Maybe some crusty sourdough bread on the side. Simple. Delicious. Comforting.

What would your last meal be?