Good evening. Welcome to the SABC3 Intimate 7 o’clock News Banquet. My name’s Craven Lily and I’m your waitron so let me get your juices running by telling you about this evening’s mind-bending specials. As you probably know, at SABC3 Intimate News Banquets we always start with two or three of our main courses, otherwise known as the ‘Mbeki Lick-Regularsâ€. You will be forced to eat these. If they don’t satisfy your glutton lustings, we’ll top up your transformational prejudices with an array of truly thrilling appetizers, starters, antipastas and a sweets trolley to die for.
Our gifted chef, Snookums Siggie-Sinklow, has been on the phone all afternoon, getting advice from his master chefs over at Shell House. He’s whipped up a couple of enchanting main courses. First is an original Snookums creation, a glut du jour he calls ‘Filet MINION a la Renaissance du Wabenzisâ€. Thick juicy slices of freshly slaughtered Marxist principles are first trimmed of excess meaty bits; the resulting fat is then parboiled imbizo style, garnished with finely chopped lentils, sour figments and thinly sliced Essop truffles — these latter unearthed by ex-prison service warthogs. Once it’s spitting hot, the dish is hastily wrapped in parched cabbage leaves, gently folded into a native intellectual context and brought to the boil before being slid down your throat with a simpering leer by our mâitre de teleprompt, Mahendra Ragunath. The dish is served without accompanying vegetables and might well contain wheelnuts.
The second stipulated main course is an old favourite on the SABC3 Intimate News Banquet menu. It’s called ‘Surprise Bisque†and is a gastronomic rhapsody fit to set before a president having one of his rare South African-based meals. Here Snookums has outdone himself. Using no more than the most basic of ingredients he’s created an enthralling chef d’oeuvre. As many raw sheep’s brains as can be obtained are first drenched in essence of devilled tripe before being tenderised by being beaten with rolled-up copies of Ronnie Kasrils’s autobiography, Armed and Dangerous — Part 11. To the resulting pallid slush are added both lightly stir-fried Aziz adenoids, some Erwin shrimp-head stockcubes, 13 tablespoons of Marthinus’s patented fundament lubricating cream and the crumbs from several smoked cutlets enjoyed by the Supreme and Beloved Leader himself.
For vegetarians, Snookums has come up with a special dish in honour of the 17th anniversary of the Department of Health’s first incursions against unwarranted Western medical interventions. This dish will be popular among the many poor people who have abandoned the use of unproven and life-threatening anti-retroviral drugs invented by avaricious international drug companies. The poor people will be advised to pin their hopes on tried and trusted traditional remedies for killer viral diseases that were also invented by avaricious international drug companies. Instead of expensive nostrums SABC3 Intimate News Banquet offers its ‘Health Food of The Dayâ€. This is ‘Manto à la Modeâ€, a palate-provoking bed of mashed beetroot, African potatoes and humiliated bananas, sprinkled with whole garlic cloves and generous handfuls of Matthias Rath HIV-curing vitamins. Free bottles of previously-virginal olive oil help wash it all down. Specially recommended for those suffering from Spotted Dick Syndrome.
A captivating side order is our ‘Dish of the Deepâ€. South African municipal water supplies abound with a veritable bounty of edible wild life. Small frogs, sub-aquatic insect and larval life, colourful fungoids and the latest, the microscopic, quite delicious and vitamin-rich rat-tailed maggots, which these days swarm in their happy trillions out of many kitchen taps. Using his finest gauze sieve, Snookums captures cupfuls of these fascinating creatures, steam-blasts them to get rid of the chlorine taste and then deep fries them in a light batter before dusting them with powdered almonds and serving them on small croquettes of rice cake. The dish is said to bolster the body’s natural immune system.
As a starter after the main courses, there is the delectable CRETIN Style Octopus in Red Wine. Using only lightly mutilated pieces of the common Octopus Vulgaris, this unpretentious culinary triumph shows how the most stomach-churning close-ups of road-accident victims can be simulated in a dish guaranteed to delight those greedy for grim reality in their diets. Sensitive diners are warned that this dish may cause gastric distress.
If you really want to set up your tum-tum for the winter cold, try the SABC3 Intimate News Banquet ‘Turkey Soupâ€, an easily digested, lukewarm, low-calorie broth of scarified half-truth and grilled innuendo designed for those not blessed with questioning personalities. Have a plateful between each course. This will also help counteract the bone-corroding levels of the bank commercials.
When it comes to ending your SABC3 Intimate Banquet there’s nothing like the unadulterated froth of our sweets trolley. Here you can enjoy touching little vignettes about how a Siamese cat successfully mated with a Taiwanese-made cuckoo clock, a three-day-old baby parrot who can recite a filthy limerick about Professor Zuck, a baboon that prefers Windows 98 to XP, and all manner of other delights to send you singing into another good night.
All this for the price of a TV licence, VAT and service charge inclusive. Bon appetit.