Death row inmates' last meals: What to know about the history behind our strange fascination of these requests

Meal served at a detention facility (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) PHOENIX - With executions, like that of Clarence Dixon in Arizona on May 11, 2022, there is often interest in the last meal the condemned prisoner would eat before they met their fate.While not all states offer condemned inmates last meals, in some of the states that do offer last meals, corrections officials would reveal a condemned inmate's final meal before their execution, as Georgia did when they executed a triple murderer in 2016.

Arizona also has a list of last meal requests for prisoners executed from 1992 onwards.Here's what you should know about last meals, and how it came to be a matter that attracts public attention.According to a paper written by a faculty member at Mercer University School of Law in Georgia, the last meal is "stretching back across centuries of United States history and before."The paper states while most people believe the ritual of the last meal originated with the last meal of Jesus, the tradition can be traced back to a fear of ghosts in pre-Christian times."In Ancient Greece, you had to feed the person who was going to be executed, so that they could cross the River Styx into the underworld, and not come back as a hungry ghost," a portion of the paper read.Over the course of human history, the tradition of last meal evolved."The Puritans of Massachusetts once held grand feasts for the condemned, believing it emulated the Last Supper of Christ, representing a communal atonement for the community and the prisoner," read a portion of the paper.In the U.S., different states have different regulations regarding executions.In Arizona, state procedures on executions state that an inmate can request a last meal by.