Prep time: 1–72 hours
After a hard day of working with a bunch of lunatics, there is nothing I like more than getting home and making homemade satire. This recipe is my absolute favourite.
I got this recipe from my partner, K. She said it’s ideal for me because I’m a cheap, sleazy, heathen sitting around getting higher and higher. Or did she say it’s from a book called ‘Cheap and Easy Vegan Satire’?
***SPOILER ALERT***
“THIS RECIPE IS DELICIOUS! OMG!”
This cheap and easy recipe is certainly fruit for thought if you want a meal that doesn’t cost a pretty penne. Don’t curry, I promise not to sprinkle this story with corny food puns. I want you leaving this joint thinking “I can’t believe it’s not butter,” not, “I can’t believe they’re not better.”
Satire is very much like me; a chequered past, easily misunderstood and causes people to get punched in the face. But unlike satire, I curry* around a lot of emotional cabbage. So, making homemade satire is a therapeutic release for me. Like that time I successfully completed my speech therapy sessions. That was easier done than said.
Click here to go straight to the recipe.
Some people like to drink wine while they prepare satire. Me too! Drinking red wine helps me keep abreast of current affairs. Let’s be honest, no one likes getting stuck in a conversation with someone who’s a few fries short of a happy meal. I could talk all night, about my passion for wines’ rights. #MeToo #MeLoveYouTooRedWine #MeLoveYouLongWine #RedRedWine #RatInMiKitchen
My favourite wine has to be East Asia’s Mushroo-Merlot . It is fermented from the region’s lesser-known shit-taáke mushroom. The taste is similar to the piste-taáke mushrooms that grow on the foothills of the French Alps.
Mushroo-Merlot has a dark, tightly focused taste, with dark undertones as authentic as a Glasgow public toilet on a Saturday night. It is these classic and decadent qualities that make Mushroo-Merlot my absolute favourite wine.
Earlier today, my butter half K, reliably informed me that the vineyard that produces the Mushroo-Merlot grape had been bought out by the conglomerate M&M. Where have I heard that name before?
K then asked me how much I normally spend on a bottle of Mushroo-Merlot. I said, about 40 minutes.
K then told me she’d read somewhere on Trip Advisor that Mushroo-Merlot has hallucinogenic properties. Sometimes I think K, is as nutty as a fruit cake.
Hints & Tips For Preparing Good Satire
Good quality satire
- In an attempt to impress my so-called friends I like to pretend I always have fresh stocks of good-quality, free-range, locally produced satire in my store cupboard. To be honest, they’re not really my friends, they’re just placebros.
Prep time? Hang on a minute!
- A common question I get asked is, “Lee! What system do I use to measure time when preparing my satire?” My answer is this: there are no hard and fast rules that apply when preparing satire. The word on the street is that Medium’s minutes remain slower than Microsoft minutes. For more information see here.
Save the leftovers from the night before!
- According to K, it’s not safe to re-use leftover jokes from the night before. However, I like the planning involved in doing so. But, every single time, K comes along and foils my plans.
- My favourite leftovers are deja-food. Hang on’ a minute! Haven’t I already mentioned this?
Ingredients
1) Humour
My ex-wife and I used to share a sense of humour. We had to, she didn’t have one. But since the divorce, I’ve gone against the grain and started producing my own homemade humour.
2) Puns
Now, I know adding puns to satire pieces is quite a contentious issue. Some would argue, just as contentious as making wine from hallucinogenic mushrooms. But, I say to the naysayers, “I want to live in a world where birth control and LSD can live in peace! And, we all get a trip without the kids.”
3) Irony
I like my irony like I like my song lyrics. Don’t you think?
I know a few kleptomaniac satirists out there. They simply take things. Literally. They take things like hyphens, without understanding the irony of their actions; whether we be, hyphenated or non-hyphenated satire, deep inside we are all satire.
4) Exaggeration
Exaggeration is a vital ingredient in the preparation of satire. There is an irony, that in preparing satire, you should always use exaggeration, in moderation.
You may have noticed, I’m quite comfortable using exaggeration. I come from a long line of ancient exaggeraters. Actually, it’s just me and my dad.
5) Ridicule
I like my ridicule like I like my coffee. Dark, enticing and justified.
Is it safe to ridicule youngsters for protesting against global warming? Not in the current climate. The veritable minefield that is political correctness, is somewhat of a complicated maize to navigate. Only the other day, K got disciplined at work for ridiculing Greek names. How preposterousalopalous is that?
6) Exposure
Exposure is another vital ingredient of satire. The key to using exposure in satire, is to expose others, not yourself. Take the following joke for example:
Elevators are a lot like urinals.
Everyone’s looking down, nobody’s making eye contact, and my weiner is exposed.
As you can see from the above example, using this type of exposure can be too revealing.
The following joke is a much better example of how to use exposure effectively:
Research based evidence informs us that horses exposed to marijuana are less stable and unsafe to ride.
So get off your high horse.
As you can see, the above joke is effectively exposing the flawed research behind the use of marijuana in horse-racing.
For my partner, talking about exposure is too distressing for her. Talking about it reminds her of that time she fell asleep in the sun with her breast exposed. It’s forever burned in her mammary.
7) Criticism
Criticism is very much like hallucinogenics. If you use too many, then the ‘How to Give Critical Feedback Course,’ will always be shit.
I like my criticism like I like my exit interviews; constructive.
Method
Add the humour to the satire and leave to thicken until it has become a laughing-stock. Stir in the irony, ridicule and exposure. Remember to only expose the follies of others. Then leave somewhere dark, preferably your mind, for 1–72 hours. To finish off, sprinkle with exaggeration, criticism and a big dollop of puns.
Serve cold.
*No further curry puns were harmed in the making of this story.
“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food”
W.C. FIELDS
Originally published in Medium publication The Bad Influence, 9th December 2019.
Lee Serpa Azevado 