I'm Rhett McLaughlin. My last meal would be a wedge salad, French onion soup, fried
chicken, baked beans, and pearl onion casserole and
red velvet cake for dessert. Every human has exactly
two things in common, we're all slowly dying
and we all got to eat. Rhett, welcome to last meals,
how do you want to die? Oh quickly, painlessly. But do you have any big fantasies Can you help me?
In mind? Like what, right now? I don't think California
is a right to die state. You have to go to Oregon
for that, that's real. But you don't have a heroe's fantasy, like pushing Larry David out
of a speeding train's path to save his life or something? Well first of all, I'm a tall man, so I'm probably not going to live, I'll probably make it to
the average life expectancy. Between being right-handed,
because left-handed people don't live as long and being tall, but being generally healthy and health conscious, I'm thinking 84. Does that bum you out though? The whole dying early thing? I mean, I try not to think about it, Josh. What I've discussed with my wife, and anytime I bring this up
with Jessie, she gets upset. I'm like, "Listen, it's just
like, if I get to a place where I just, I'm not enjoying life, let's make it a big exit." Like parachute that doesn't
open kind of situation. I kind of love that.
Like an extreme sports. It's like try and take
the Evel Knievel stunt that he never did, and
jump the Grand Canyon. You might be able to do it. If you land, you're a hero. If you die, you already
didn't want to be there. That's a beautiful answer to me. Yeah, you have to take into account, I don't think you'd do the
jumping out of the plane thing because you might just go
in somebody's living room, and kill someone else. Well okay, tell me about
your last meal strategy because this seems like
a lot of nostalgic foods. I know you had the beans in there, but this seems like very
Southern down-home cooking. Yeah, I actually didn't
think of it as a whole. I thought of the
individual stages of a meal and what I would wanna
eat if it's literally like the only thing I'm thinking
about is what I want. And then I take a step back and yes, it is the Southern style meal. There's kind of a memory or
a set of memories tied to it. And some of it is just like,
I'd just liked to eat this. As you'll see with every stage of the meal there is a vehicle for
cheese, even the dessert. The cheese and onions are
in literally everything, in this case. We went through like
15 onions when cooking. We're just like, "Damn,
Rhett really likes onions." I like cheese and onions, yeah. All right. Well, tell me
about the wedge salad then, because that is a hugely bold choice. This is one of the last things
you're ever going to eat before it's lights out for good. And you're starting with the greens. It is, I think, the perfect
vehicle for blue cheese, and so I just want to get
started off with a bang. We got a Saint Agur blue cheese dressing made with little bit of creme fraiche. Tomatoes, black pepper, some big old thick cut bacon. We fried some shallots
on there with chives. And I like the fact that
it is the only salad, that I know of, that is eaten like a cake. I Think there's something
beautiful about that. And again, this is destiny. This is an intention. The fact that the meal begins
and ends with a bookend of me having to knife and fork something, I think it says something about
the legacy I want to leave. I think so. I don't know what it is, but... I mean, speaking of which, what is the legacy you want to leave? Is it with the media that you've
put out well over a decade or is it with your family? Is it with the people that
you touched along the way? He hasn't touched any Mythical employees? Just trust that. This is sort of the conundrum of somebody who has a lot of evidence of
their existence out there. There's nothing I can do about
that at this point, right? Because I mean, the real answer is yes. I am more concerned about
my impact as a father, and as a husband. But if we're just talking pure numbers, the way more people experience me is however they experience
me on the internet. So I kind of think I've
already just made that, I've made my choice without
even consciously making it. Just look at what we do on a daily basis. Does this scream leaving a legacy? No, but like you said, you can't control what people consume, so there's a chance that the
only impact you've had on someone's life is yourself
urinating as a chocolate fountain into Link's mouth. Does that freak you out? That there's one person
out there that just goes, "Ah, chocolate piss guy dead." That chocolate stream going into my mouth brought joy to somebody, right? It brought joy to a lot of people. I'm coming to grips with the fact that it's okay that
somebody's day was made better because I received chocolate
from my best friend's, I want to just say penis, but he wasn't, It wasn't his, It was a fountain that
was sort of phallic. Yeah, yeah. It was a, the penis was a metaphor. The chocolate was also a metaphor for the joy that it brought to people, and that's a legacy, and that's okay. Right. And so I think I'm okay with it, but I really don't want
that to be the thing my kids remember me for. They will. All right, Rhett. Let's move on to the French onion soup. Caramelized onions, bone marrow broth. Pretty simple with the bread on top. You get a bunch of
shredded Gruyere on there. This is another diner classic. How did this end up on the list? Well, I'm not French. Oh, no, you're not
Thanks for asking. Yeah. You're Irish, but you
thought you were Scottish. I listened to the podcast. I don't remember the
first time I had this, but a lot of the things that I tried, I believe I have a very
similar palette to my mom who also really likes cheese. I just remember it's one of
those things that very early on, the first time I ever
tried French onion soup, I made a mental note, "Get
that at every opportunity." And so almost without fail,
if it's on the menu, I get it. You're honoring your past
self right before death. You're like, "I'm taking", that's why, if people ask me about, "Aren't you going to regret a tattoo?" It's like, no. I don't care if it's permanent. I think that my past self is equally as important
to my present self. And that's kind of what
you're doing with this. You made a promise to yourself. You're going to eat French
onion soup at any point. So when I'm like, "Hey, Rhett. You're going
to die, what do you want?" You go, "Well, one more
opportunity for French onion soup, and that's all I need." Are you saying that like a tattoo, this might be a mistake, but it doesn't matter because
I'm going to die soon?. Oh, nothing matters because
we're all going to die. I can get down with that. Dig in, man. Yeah, that's a lot of cheese. Oh, baby. Okay. You've done a good thing here. I just heard a little
hell yeah inside my head when he took that bite. Oh man. You know, usually when you're
enjoying French onion soup, you're not being watched. Nah, tons of people. It is the kind of thing that you wait for other people
at the table to start talking or become engaged in something else because there's not really
any artful way to do it. But listen, I'm going to die
on the way home from this. Is that how this works? Do you think that this,
Did you cut my brake lines? Is that how this, It wasn't me. No, no, no. I'm like the managerial type now. I asked Mindy to cut the brake lines. Thank you, Mindy. Thank you. You did good work. If I do die on the way
home, will you air this? I Feel like we would have to. Well, I'm saying right now, air it. Yeah. I was gonna say I imagine your family is
in your estate, right? So they're going to be profiting off of the views that we'll get if you do die on the way home. We were thinking about that, though. Are we clickbaiting people into
thinking that Rhett's dead? Because yeah, of course
I'd want to do that. That's another metaphor for all this. It's like your digital legacy. That's the genius of the
whole idea, I thought. It was like, every time you
post one of these videos, everyone assumes that person is dead. All right, let's move
on to these beans, Rhett You're the bean man, of
course, very important to you. So I took this incredibly seriously. I had actually never made
baked beans before this and we didn't even look up a recipe. We just went intuition on this. You've never made baked beans? I Don't know what to tell you. Bush's does a good job. Not a sponsor. They were in the past.
Ah, got it. They were nice to work with. But no, I never made them. So what we did, we actually started with
a base of Iberico ham because we were like, "Let's make this the most lavish plate of baked beans possible." We hit it with a ton of
black lager in there. Reduced that down to get some
funk and complexity in there. A lot of very deeply caramelized onions. Then your classic molasses, tomato paste, a little bit of cider vinegar, a whole lot of Navy beans in there. And then get a stick of butter, and a little bit of pork lard. And you put it in a bean-boat. Yeah, we got a nice little
fancy bean-boat for you. It's like a chalice for the boatman when you get to the river Styx. I feel like beans are
often an afterthought, a little bit disrespected
thrown on the side of a plate. This is the proper presentation. This is what I've been waiting for. You can take the bean-chalice home, man. That's for you. Every guest on the show
gets a bean-chalice. But this is my last day on earth, so put it in my coffin. Oh man. Yeah, they hit. The beans hit. Oh wow. And they're like, there's a smokiness. Yeah. It's just straight
smoked paprika in there. Part of the spices we
toasted up in some pork lard. I like that consistency, too. They want to hold together. There's a cohesiveness to it. Oh, wow. They're still not mashed. They're still whole. I'm really proud of the
freaking beans that we made. I've actually developed,
had a redeveloping of my appreciation for
beans because again, there's this weird thing that happens when you say something on the internet, and then you get feedback for it. If you asked my mom, "How
does Rhett feel about beans?" She'd be like, "He likes them." But she wouldn't be like, "He's got a reputation
for really loving beans." That happened because at some point I said that I like beans, which was true, but I
like a lot of things. And then I really stopped
and started thinking about my relationship to beans. I'm like, "Is this an act? Is this a real thing?" Where did brand end and self begin? Right? It's weird. You've got this projection of
yourself that lives out there and you can over identify
with it sometimes. But I actually completely
and rightfully over-identify with the part of the
projected me that loves beans because I actually do love them this much. It's this self validation circle. You know what's so funny, though? Continuing with the
media meta critic here, When you said, "I dunno if I really", my mind immediately went to, we can title this video Rhett
doesn't actually like beans. That's where I was going with it. We're in the metaverse right now. I could redo that for
you if you want me to. No, I think it's great. Well, and then when we talked about sex on Sex Timberwhich, I thought you meant you and I. I was like, "Did I block out", You know, when we talked
about sex last night when I called you late at night. Yeah, you were very curious. You had a broken heart
I was whispering, I was whispering and breathing. I'm sorry, I didn't
tell you that it was me. That's okay.
And so now, when we talked about sex on the podcast and I made it clear how I felt about, let's just say, being the giver, and the bean analogy
really came full circle. I missed that one, but I think I get where
you're going with that. Yeah. Have you heard of the clitoris? I have heard of the clitoris. I've never seen one. It's
like a mythical creature. But, no. I have heard of it. Hey, speaking of clitori, that's the plural of clitoris, by the way. People think it's clitorises. You were famously Christian
for a very long time. Yes, I was. Female pleasure not a big part of that. This is my segue. Wait for the segue. Wait for the segue. I'm excited about this. I bet you really believed in the idea of eternal
life for a long time. Yes, Josh. I believed that you needed to personally accept Jesus as your savior. And if you did not, you would suffer an eternity in Hell. I heard that too, when I was about 10 years old. And I was a Jew, living in a
very big evangelical community. You weren't very
receptive to that message. No, I was, is the crazy thing because they told me I
could have eternal life in just a garden of happiness. And I asked my grandma like, "Ey, yo, do Jews believe in heaven?" She was like, "eh". And I was like, "Well, I'm going to make Pascal's
wager and just be a Christian." So for like two weeks, I fully tricked myself into
believing that, "Yeah, dude. Jesus absolutely rocks. Don't know what he did, but I
would love to live eternally." But I'm wondering if you in
your evolution of your faith now take less solace in the fact that you're not so sure that
you will have eternal life. It's funny because a lot of people, I think one of the things that, one of the reasons that religion, and Christianity in particular, any religion that holds to an afterlife of either eternal paradise
or eternal punishment, usually they go hand-in-hand,
is so successful, is because you're being
propelled away from something that sounds absolutely horrible towards something that sounds as good as it possibly could be, right? And like you said, it's just like, ah, why take any chances on this? I think one of the reasons
that it hasn't been a compelling thing for me, as I stopped believing, and no longer calling myself a Christian, was that it was losing faith in the foundational belief itself, and kind of seeing, oh, this whole concept of Heaven and Hell, and the way that we think
about it in modern day is not even really a biblical concept. It's not even, there's a lot of
influences that came in to create the modern concept of what this is. And it's just like, and this is what I ask
Christians sometimes, I'm like, "Okay, you asked
me if I'm afraid of Hell? Well, I ask, are you afraid of the Hell that's represented in the Muslim faith? Because according to a
fundamentalist Muslim, you wouldn't be going to their heaven." Well, I just added one more
Hell that I don't believe in, and one more Heaven
that I don't believe in. And so I don't live in fear of that. But I like the idea
that this isn't the end, but I also find myself not really caring because it feels like something I can't, there's no tangible nature to it, right? And all you have is beans. I got these beans in front of me, does something happen after all of this? I don't know. It didn't feel like anything
was happening before it. I'm not going to care if
nothing happens at the end? I don't know. We'll find
out when we get there. All right. So let's move
on to this fried chicken. We went simple, classic, Southern. We just buttermilk, brine,
a bunch of hot sauce, a little bit of Tony Chachere's in there. Fried it up. This seems like an obvious
connection to your Southerners. Fied chicken, a
quintessential Southern meal. I don't think that there's
a better bite of food that can be put together. I mean, I think that, and I've had a lot of really good food, and there's a lot of things that I love, but nothing's ever exceeded fried chicken. I'm a white meat man. You're a white meat man? Yeah. Oh man. I didn't think
anybody was a white meat man. White meat, if done correctly, First of all, it's a great test. If somebody can capture
and keep the moisture in a way that is much
easier to do with dark meat, but it's the biggest
unadulterated piece of chicken that you can get in your mouth. And I'm a big man. I like volume. You're a big mouth man. A giver in the bedroom,
big mouth, white meat man. I respect that. It's almost like the
crust has like cornflakes or something. No, that was straight, what you do is, you take
some of the buttermilk and you actually add it to the dredge and you stir that around
so it gets extra crispy. So you're kind of like creating, I'm just going to get a leg here. Yeah. Jump into that leg. How often do you think about death? Are you one of those people
that it keeps you up at night? And then occasionally you'd start crying? I do cry occasionally. Not about death. What do you cry about? Mostly it's the inability to
deal with my own emotions, and it comes out in places
like car commercials. You're crying over the new Mazda RX8? Yeah.
Zoom, zoom The thing I think about is, I'm beginning to think more and more about the amount of time I might have left. And I think I approach it
from an unhealthy place most of the time because I'm still, as much therapy as I've been through, I still have this performance
mindset where I'm just like, oh man, I just think
about those years I have, and then I'm like doing
this quick math in my head. It's just like, "Okay, from a
mental and physical capacity, I'm probably past my prime
of like creative potential, but yet I've got, I think I have resources available to me that might be able to
position me to do this." And I'm like, "What can I get
done in these fruitful years, and is that until I'm in my mid 60s? When do I become a", I start thinking about
that life that's left, not the death that's at the end of it. So that's the kind of thing
that keeps me up at night. But it sounds like the creative potential is what's really keeping you up. If you were not able to create, would the meaning of life
just kind of be gone? I mean, I'm sure I could
find meaning in other places. And start woodworking. Start doing scrimshaw. There's this concept
of this two mountains. You've got the first mountain, which is almost everybody in life. Young people who are trying
to accomplish something, you're on this mountain. And then some people
fall off that mountain, some people get to the top of whatever they consider success to be. And then they realize, "Oh,
I'm on the wrong mountain." And the second mountain is
like the second half of life. It's like, "I'm going to start
thinking about other people, I'm not just going to think
about what I'm doing." So I think that's one of the things that, I'm letting go of feeling
like I had all these things that I want to accomplish for myself, and what can I do to kind
of invest in other people? Am I your second mountain? Yeah. Hell yeah. I was gonna share that with
you at the end of this meal, during dessert. I had to spoil it. We literally shot an episode doing a Great Depression,
Thanksgiving meal, and there was a very similar
dish called creamed onions. And so Rhett's eating straight up depression-era food right here. But I mean, I get it. It's cream, it's butter, it's onions. It's so comforting. But tell me about it. Being just given a full
dish of something like this, Nice. This does feel like the kind of thing that precedes your death. How does that make you feel? I feel like I'm being
fattened up for something. We're not going to harvest your organs, or turn foie gras de Rhett, although I think we could
probably get some money on it. The combination of butter and cream, and then putting crackers on top. This configuration of food is something I'm always going
to receive into my mouth. My grandmother, she would make a casserole like this, but she would also just have a bowl of just straight up pearl onions at the table for a lot of meals. And again, I was a weird kid, and I liked every food that
they put in front of me, with a few exceptions, and I would just start eating
those pearl with a spoon, and everybody would be
like, "Well, look at Rhett, he loves them pearl onions." And I was like, "Okay, I guess I'm the pearl onion guy." And so this is one of
those unexpected tastes that I fell in love with. And every once in a while, if Jesse really wants to make me happy, there's some stuff that she does, It sounds like you're
making her happy, man. That I won't speak about
Shout out to Jesse, the real winner of this episode. But you know what she gives me in exchange for those services? Yeah? What's that, Rhett? Pearl onions. Feel like you could be getting more. I feel like you're shortchanging
yourself there, friend. Do you wanna constantly be busy? Are you like an idle hands
are the devil's playground type of person, and that you
should be as busy as possible until the day you die, or are you the type of person that thinks that you should
languish on those memories? I'm so forward-looking
that I don't spend a lot, you know, it's funny, even when I look at
pictures of good memories, I get this uncomfortable, You got a little cream in your beard. That happens, That happens. Thank you. I'll pay you back later. No, you don't have, well,
we'll figure it out. There's something about the past, maybe because it's already
happened and it's unchangeable that depresses me. So I don't like to spend a
lot of time thinking about it. Even the good memories
depress you in a way. Yeah. Is it just because you can't relive them? Because I feel that a lot. I think I'm just obsessed with what memory or what, I'm about to manifest
or create in the future. Is it because you think it
can be objectively better than that one in the past? Always. My answer to what's your best work, it's the next thing. That's how I operate.
That's what I believe. But so yeah. I have a difficult time
just resting and relaxing beause when I rest and relax, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm getting the rest
and relaxation that I need in order to create the thing
that I need to create." Yeah. All right, Rhett, we're on to dessert. You requested a red velvet
cake with cream cheese icing. We went very traditional on this. When I say we, I mean Trevor did. We used the alkalized processed cocoa, and then we add the vinegar to that so it turns naturally red. So it's a little bit of
the light cocoa flavor going on there. A little bit of cinnamon. Classic cream cheese
icing all the way through. And then Trevor did
the decorating as well. I don't even understand
why I like red velvet cake. I mean, what would the cake be without the red food coloring? The red food dye was added later after it was already popular. The red color came from
a reaction in the acid from either vinegar or buttermilk with cocoa that was
processed with alkaline. And so that's how the red
velvet cake initially started. But now people are just
adding red velvet to, we tried to go as classic as possible. So it does have chocolate in it. It's just cocoa in it. But it's like a faint cocoa flavor. Please dig in. You want me to sit and eat it like a baby? No, no, no. There's no slices. You're going to eat this whole thing. Also. This is our lightning round. I grabbed the wrong showcard. All right, Rhett. This
is the lightening round. We're just going to ask
you a bunch of questions about death. Eat the cake at your leisure. Don't even mind. That is so moist, Trevor. Trevor, you're very moist. Good job, buddy. Good Lord, Trevor. All right. After eating this meal, would you be ready to die afterwards? Did this satisfy the last
meal requirements for you? I think it would be fitting. I think it would create
the potential viral video. So yes, I'd be willing to make
the sacrifice for the team. Always be internet-taining. ABI, baby. That's what we're doing. What food are you serving
at your funeral and wake? I imagine you want to
be a full spread there. Probably a whole hog. Because it's just like
it says North Carolina, it says me and it's also another dead body for everybody to focus on. I feel that. It's like you're so used
to having Link by your side that you need a dead pig carcass to be with you at your funeral. That's beautiful. Who's your dream
Eulogizer at your funeral? I feel like, assuming
that because I'm taller and have a slightly
higher resting heart rate and higher blood pressure, I'll probably die before Link. Just statistically, it makes sense. I would just love to see him struggle with delivering my eulogy. He's going to be so broken up. It's going to be live
streamed on Mythical Society. I feel like the expectation is definitely that we speak at each other's funeral. Don't tell Link I said this, but he's going to be all on his own. And when you leave Neil out to the, when you leave Neil to Neil, you get some really interesting results. What's your biggest regret in life? Number one. One thing you could change, go back. You got to choose one. Don't be one of those like, "I have no regrets
because all my mistakes" No. One regret, what would you change? I would have studied. Not that I think it would
make things turn out better, but I would study something that I actually was interested in. Not something that I perceived people around me thought was important. You would've changed your major. That's your biggest Regret? It's so pivotal to the fact
that I'm doing something that's so opposed to the
super technical background that I got. And I enjoy learning so much now, but I can do it with a book on tape. Or I guess, they don't call
it book on tape anymore, but your audio book. Yeah, there it is. Or a podcast or something like that. But just like to be in an
intentional learning environment, actually learning something
that I'm interested in. That's a good regret because now I'm regretting that. And I'm like, "Damn, that
would've been really cool to throw myself into something." So I think you have something there. Oh, okay. You want to
go to college together? Kinda. Glendale community. Hey, Glendale community
is really highly rated. Then it could work. Finally, are you happy right now? How do you define happiness? Are you happy? I'm definitely happy, but I always have this slight emptiness that propels me forward. Like a battery that's charged differently on two different ends. And there's a fear that
if it all balances out, and I achieve perfect equanimity
that life will be boring. I think that's the plot of
the Jason Statham movie, where they have to revive him
every three minutes I think. All I'll say is be careful
on your drive home, man. Rhett, thank you so much for trusting me with your last meal. Thank you so much for being on the show. Everyone, I believe
deserves some last words, so please tell the people. I was actually only 6,
6 and three quarters. Yeah, but it doesn't matter
because it doesn't matter, because you play basketball
with your shoes on, right? That's right. Yeah, with shoes on. Yeah. Rhett, thank you so much
for coming on the show. Thank you for trusting
me with your last meal. Yeah, man. Thank you. All of this was incredible. Of course. And thank you so much for
stopping by the Mythical Kitchen. Comment below what your
last meal would be, and hit me up on Twitter @MythicalChef, and tag who you wanna
see on the show next. See you all next time. Can I just eat this whole icing rose? Yeah, no, that's a death rose, though. That's for sure. And major
collision on the 134. Oh. Hey, you. Cook up your own feast while wearing the Mythical Kitchen apron. available now at mythical.com.
I love the combo of Rhett and Josh. Such great chemistry.
This is such a great video, hope they keep doing it periodically
it reminds me of Hot Ones...in a good way. Less antics and more a chance to see Josh connect with people.
"we're all gonna die some day" made my brain sub "come watch tv" with "come eat beans, salad, fried chicken, onion soup, and cake" in that Rick and Morty clip.
Loved the episode, especially how it wasn't really about cooking, but about food and its connections to different aspects of our life.
What an excellent start to a promising new feature on Mythical Kitchen. They get heavy, deep, and real, and yet still maintain the great food and the humor. I'm already hooked!
Can't wait for Link!
Also, ‘I was really 6’ 6-3/4”’ really took me out. The shame.