The plan was simple: he would embark on a journey through his life in food in pursuit of the meal to end all meals. It’s a quest that takes him from necking oysters on the Louisiana shoreline to forking away the finest French pastries in Tokyo, and from his earliest memories of snails in garlic butter, through multiple pig-based banquets, to the unforgettable final meal itself.
This question has long troubled Jay Rayner. As a man more obsessed with his lunch than is strictly necessary, the idea of a showpiece last supper is a tantalizing prospect. But wouldn’t knowledge of your imminent demise ruin your appetite? So, Jay decided to cheat death.
Jay Rayner’s Last Supper is both a hugely entertaining account of a life built around mealtimes and a fascinating global exploration of our relationship with what we eat. It is the story of one hungry man, in eight courses.

The son of a watchmaker, Joan Miró was born in Barcelona in 1893. He moved to Paris in the early 1920s and soon joined the Surrealist movement. He also befriended a host of avant-garde writers, such as Max Jacob, Tristan Tzara, Antonin Artaud, André Breton and Paul Eluard.
The Oldsmobile 88 (marketed from 1989 on as the Eighty Eight) is a full-size car that was sold and produced by Oldsmobile from 1949 until 1999. From 1950 to 1974 the 88 was the division’s top-selling line, particularly the entry-level models such as the 88 and Dynamic 88. The 88 series was also an image leader for Oldsmobile, particularly in the early years (1949–51) when it was one of the best performing automobiles thanks to its relatively small size, light weight and advanced overhead-valve high-compression V8 engine. This engine, originally designed for the larger C-bodied and more luxurious 98 series, also replaced the straight-8 on the smaller B-bodied
A large number of variations in nomenclature were seen over this long model run — Futuramic, Super, Golden Rocket, Dynamic, Jetstar, Delta, Delmont, Starfire, Holiday, L/S, LSS, Celebrity, and Royale were used at various times with the 88 badge, and Fiesta appeared on some station wagons in the 1950s and 1960s. The name was more commonly shown as numbers in the earlier years (“Delta 88”, for example) and was changed to spell out “Eighty Eight” starting in 1989.
“Life begins at 55, the age at which I published my first book,” he wrote in “From Eros to Gaia,” one of the collections of his writings that appeared while he was a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study — an august position for someone who finished school without a Ph.D. The lack of a doctorate was a badge of honor, he said. With his slew of honorary degrees and a fellowship in the Royal Society, people called him Dr. Dyson anyway.
In this edition of Backchat we take a deep dive into Nature’s coverage of coronavirus. As cases climb, what are some of the challenges involved in reporting on the virus?