Support for WPR comes from the Hampton Inn and Suites in Downtown Lacrosse, near historic

district dining and chops, and the Great River State Bike Trail, with an indoor saltwater

pool, breakfast, and Wi-Fi. Hampton Lacrosse Downtown.com.

It's to the best of our knowledge. I'm Anne Strange Champs.

Today, food to die for.

It might not seem like a great meal time topic, but food and death really do go hand in hand.

They're both an essential part of life, and what would a funeral be without food?

Today, we're talking about the places where food and death come together,

from southern funeral cooking to the new death dinner movement to the traditional prisoners last meal.

So let's go first to Huntsville, Texas, where Brian Price spent more than a decade working as a chef

on death row. His job was to prepare the last meals for inmates facing

execution. Brian took that job seriously, and he wound up writing a memoir called Meals to Die

for. It includes recipes written with a certain amount of gallows humor. The first recipe that I

came up with, I wrote a recipe called Old Sparky's Genuine Convict

Chili. Old Sparkery being the nickname of the electric chair. And I wanted it in 5,000, 10,000,

and 20,000 volts of spiciness. And I was just going to, mild, medium, and hot. And I was just going to

leave it like that and just try to market that, sell it to some food company and be some crazy quirky thing. It would probably sell great. I was going to leave it right there. And then it came to me.

I said, well, there's only one way to paint this whole thing. I said, the last meal is not a

colorful thing that should be displayed in any other way than pitch black, which it is, just

like the crimes and the executions themselves.

So I started coming up with the darkest names possible, and I'd have some little ring to them.

So folks take it as dark humor. I take it just painting everything jet black now.

...