My Last Supper by Jay Rayner - Book Review

This Thursday is World Book Day and Gibraltar Cultural Services has organised several initiatives in place of in person events including book reviews by local avid readers. The World Book Day offering forms part of GCS’s Youth Arts Jamboree. Book reviews will be published in the Chronicle daily until this Friday.

by Tammy Randall

If you could choose, what would your last meal on earth be? It’s a difficult question, but one I am sure many of us have contemplated. This is the question that food critic, Jay Rayner, has been asked more than any other. This book is his response. In 280 pages, Rayner guides us through his gastronomic life in search of the ultimate feast. From Paris to San Francisco, we travel the globe as he revisits the places and meals which have left their mark.

This is not a memoir, however. Rayner’s tales of triple-cooked chips and the perfect Mont Blanc are interspersed with detailed and informative analysis of ingredients and recipes – it really is a culinary education.

Not everything Rayner serves up is to my liking – I could have done without the snails and jazz music if I’m honest, as well as his 16-page discussion on sparkling water. And yet, his style of writing is so engaging, I can just about forgive these meanderings. He delivers his story with the juiciest of anecdotes and a full fat serving of humour and wit.

With each course, Rayner reveals a deeper and more personal side to this story. This is no longer about crafting the perfect 8-course meal, it’s about bringing together the kind of food which has meaning, which can elicit an emotional reaction as we are transported back to what was, until that point, a lost moment in time.

This really is a book for everyone which goes far beyond food. It is about people, passion, mortality, and love. Dig in and enjoy.

Tammy was appointed UNECE youth delegate in October 2020.
Locally, she works alongside the Commissioner for Sustainable Development and Future Generations as project lead of the Futures Forward Academy.
She is currently in the midst of her legal studies and intends to return to London later this year to complete her LPC and start her training contract in early 2022.