Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals (25 page)

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When King Kamehameha III had a banquet for 10,000 of his subjects in true Hawaiian style in 1847, they cooked for more than 12,000—and ate it all.

271 Hogs

482 Calabashes of Poi

602 Chickens

12 Oxen

Salt Pork

12 Barrels of Lai Lai

Cabbages, Onions

Bananas, Pineapples, Coconuts, Oranges, Limes, Grapes

4,000 Heads of Taro

180 Large Squid

When Cook arrived in Kealakekua Bay, the festival that greeted him went on for almost a month.

Kalua pig can be prepared with either a whole pig (any size) or a smaller piece of pork roast. I enclose both recipes but strongly recommend the whole pig method for a large gathering.

• The night before, dig a pit in the ground away from any building to a depth of about 2 feet.
  
• Find lava rock or large porous rocks about 1-2 lb in weight and any cuts of hardwood (e.g., eucalyptus, oak).
  
• Put a layer of stones on the bottom of the pit and build a fire with the wood and some more rocks (for the pig cavity).
  
• After 4 to 5 hours the fire should be burned to ashes.
  
• Take the pig and rub hard inside and out with salt and pepper, lemons, and garlic.
  
• Using tongs take some of the red-hot rocks and place in the cavity of the pig, then tie the legs together.
  
• Rake the ashes from the fire and store in a heatproof tub.
  
• Cover the surface with banana leaves and lower the pig (preferably in a wire basket) onto the fire pit.
  
• Surround it with heavy-duty aluminum foil, cover with more banana leaves, then heap back the hot rocks and ashes over the pig. Cover completely; don’t leave any holes.
  
• Sprinkle with water and roast for about 5 more hours. Pork should be dropping off the bones by this time.
  
• Serve with Hawaiian poi and sea salt.
  

• Place pork in a roasting tray.
  
• Mix together liquid smoke, rock salt, and water. Pour over the pork. Cover with aluminum foil and cook at 400°F for 3 to 3 ½ hours.
  
• Remove pork from pan and shred.
  
• Serve with poi.
  

Poi is an extremely nutritious side dish made from the steamed and mashed taro plant.

• Peel the taro root, steam, and mash, adding a little water until it has a pudding-like texture. Chill and serve within a day.
  

• Cut fish into cubes about 1 inch square and in a large bowl combine all the ingredients except for the sesame seeds.
  
• Chill for about 6 hours; sprinkle the sesame on top and serve.
  

• Soak rice in water to soften.
  
• Put chicken in a large pot and cover with water and ginger. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until the chicken meat falls off the bones.
  
• Strain the broth, throw out the bones, and put the chicken meat back in the broth.
  
• Add the long rice and simmer until the rice has absorbed about half the liquid in the pot.
  
• Serve garnished with green onions and rock salt.
  

• Put aside ½ cup of the coconut.
  
• Heat milk gently and pour over the remaining coconut in a bowl and let stand for 45 minutes.
  
• Strain through a muslin cloth until all the liquid has gone through. Discard coconut.
  
• In a small pan blend the cornstarch and sugar; stir in the strained milk. Cook on low until it thickens, stirring constantly.
  
• Pour into a greased baking dish, sprinkle with remaining coconut, chill, cut, and serve.
  

JOHN FRANKLIN CANDY

One of the most beloved comics of our times, John Candy played the lovable, big-hearted buffoon in numerous movies in the 1980s and 1990s. Born in Toronto, Canada, on October 31, 1950, he rose to fame (after an average scholastic career that included studying for a journalism degree) as a member of the Toronto branch of the cult series
Second City Television
at the age of 27. He found a passion for acting while attending a local community college, which quickly led him to bit parts on various Canadian TV shows where talent, not looks, was the main requisite for employment.

John was overweight even as a child and received early warnings of future health problems because both his grandfather and his father died of heart attacks at an early age. His father, Sidney, died at the young age of 35, leaving his 5-year-old son to hide his grief with food, and later humor.

Second City Television
became such an instant success that the NBC television network picked it up in 1981. John quickly brought his fantastic mimicry talents to the attention of Hollywood with a host of brilliant impersonations of people such as Orson Welles, Richard Burton, Don Rickles, Jackie Gleason, Luciano Pavarotti, Tom Selleck, Ed Asner, and many others. He also created a group of hilarious characters such as the handsome but inept TV actor Steve Roman, the hapless children’s entertainer Mr. Messenger, smut merchant “Harry, the guy with a snake on his face,” and his most popular, the unscrupulous street-beat TV personality Johnny LaRue. So popular did he become that many of his previously ignored Canadian films such as
The Clown Murders
became hot properties on the video circuit, ensuring the fledgling star a steady income.

His acting career took off in the early 1980s with appearances in movies such as
Splash, Stripes, Going Berserk, National Lampoon’s Vacation
, and
The Blues Brothers.
John delivered a particularly great performance as Del Griffith in the comedy
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
and then popped up in a cameo on Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” video. His face was everywhere, and one of his main attributes was that he always appeared to be a regular guy, seemingly comfortable with his ballooning weight, which actually made him stand out alongside the slim, chiseled Hollywood stars he played alongside. His range of talent was such that he could make people laugh with a lift of an eyebrow. John never cared about being the headliner, often playing bit parts that didn’t really do his talent justice and preferring to work with his close friends such as Rick Moranis.

In the late 1980s his weight gain became a cause of real concern to his friends and his wife, Rosemary, who had a boy named Christopher and a daughter named Jennifer with him. In the early 1990s he was almost unrecognizable from the man of only a decade earlier. At 6 feet 2 inches tall and always over 300 pounds, he was a big man in every way.

Never forgetting his Canadian roots, he used his movie money to become an owner of the Canadian Argonauts football team with Bruce McNall and hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. He never had a bad word to say about anyone and was loved by the public, who
quickly realized that this big shambling bear of a man was in real life pretty much the character they loved on screen. Although he had made his name as a comic, as the 1980s waned he turned to play more serious roles, showing he was more than a one-trick pony. In 1991 he appeared in a romance called
Only the Lonely
, and later that year he excelled as a shady southern lawyer in Oliver Stone’s
JFK.
Although his career often suffered dry spells, John never moped and always bounced back from any setback with the same good humor and grace he showed on screen. Even in the smallest roles he continued to show his genius, performing the voice of a talking horse in
Hot to Trot
, a weird disc jockey in
Little Shop of Horrors
, and a state trooper in the Sesame Street film
Follow That Bird.

There was something so naturally funny about seeing him crammed into a police uniform that he was assigned that role in more than ten movies. He then hit a rocky patch with a string of commercial flops such as
Nothing but Trouble, Once upon a Crime
, and
Rookie of the Year.
When he saw that he was not doing himself justice, he descended into a downward spiral of excessive eating, drinking, and smoking. With his weight heading toward 350 pounds, and becoming increasingly aware of his genetic heritage, John tried to stop smoking and control his size, but this larger-than-life man had a larger-than-life appetite, and he found himself shedding a few pounds only to see them come back with interest.

He gave his greatest performance as a disgraced Olympic star in
Cool Runnings
, which seemed to point to a new path for him. With this upsurge in his career, John headed to Durango, Mexico, to film
Wagons East
, a movie that he had told his family would be his last because he’d spent only 3 weeks with them in the previous year. However, he also told Maureen O’Hara that he dreaded going there because the heat would kill him. Located about 100 miles northwest of Mexico City, with a constant temperature of well over 90°F, this location was not well suited to John. Staying in a room at the Camino Del Perque resort and paying some $3,000 a month, John vowed to get healthier and even brought his own chef with him, but the chef cooked more double cheeseburgers than salads, and nothing really changed. His troubles increased when the crew could not find a horse to carry him, and much of the
movie became a series of body shots with a lighter actor filling in for him.

On March 3, 1994, John shot a series of exhausting action shots in the oppressive heat, with the shoot wrapping up about 10 p.m. John retired to his room and ordered a spaghetti meal, safe in the knowledge that with only two more scenes he could wrap up his final movie and be with his family forever. He ate his meal alone, then told his bodyguard, Gustavo Populus, that he would take a shower and go to bed. The next morning around 8 a.m., Populus called the villa, but there was no reply, and 15 minutes later he let himself in, finding his employer dead in a long black and red nightshirt. There were no signs of drugs, alcohol, or foul play, and the doctor quickly declared it “death from a massive heart attack.” His wife mysteriously objected to any autopsy, and his body remained in the bed until 4 p.m., when they found four men strong enough to carry him to the ambulance.

He was buried on March 9 at St. Martin’s Church in Brentwood, California, interestingly also Nicole Brown Simpson’s church. Good friend Dan Aykroyd delivered the eulogy along with Rick Moranis, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Rhea Perlman, and a host of his peers. He was finally interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, two spaces above Fred MacMurray.

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