It was delivered to his cell, at the death row facility near Huntsville, at around 4pm. But he told prison officers that he was no longer hungry. They were ordered to remove it.
The petulant gesture met with outrage from Texan politicians.
"Enough is enough," state Senator John Whitmire, who chairs its justice committee, wrote to death row officials.
"It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege. It's a privilege which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim."
Within hours of his letter being made public, the policy of allowing a final meal was abandoned.
"Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made," responded Brad Livingston, the director of the Huntsville facility.
"They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit."
The tradition of a final meal stretches back to ancient Greece, China and Rome, according to death-penalty historian K William Hayes.
He told the Associated Press that its roots are believed to lie in the ancient superstition that providing the food will help ward off subsequent haunting by the condemned men or women.
Most US states where the death penalty is practised will continue to allow inmates to choose their last supper. But many already apply conditions. Florida imposes a cost ceiling of US$40 (NZ$51.20), for example.
Other states restrict ingredients to those normally kept in prison kitchens. Beer, wine, and other alcoholic drinks are universally banned, as is fine bone china.
Texas, which is the death penalty capital of the developed world, had until 2003 listed every final meal on its Corrections Department website.
The tradition was abandoned because of complaints that the huge public interest in the dietary preferences of recently dead people was distasteful.
But that didn't stop the publication of a cookbook called Meals To Die For.
Written by an inmate chef, it contained favourite recipes of the soon-to-die. They included Gallows Gravy, Rice Rigor Mortis and Old Sparky's Genuine Convict Chili, a dish which paid homage to the electric chair.
Opponents of the death penalty, who have been energised this week by the highly controversial execution of Troy Davis in Georgia, said they applauded the move by Texas.
They have long argued that serving a final meal adds a misleading appearance of humanity to the business of capital punishment.
"I am totally opposed to capital punishment, but I certainly don't understand the logic of a last meal, and the way it's turned into such a show," said Jim Harrington, who heads the Texas Civil Rights Project.
The tradition had always been "shameful," he added.
- INDEPENDENT
