The spookiest meal you’ll never eat
You won’t find the Spooky Men’s Chorale on the Nova Energy Taste the World stage at Womad. Whew! But Virginia Winder discovered the singers do serve up a cracking good yarn.
Foraging, the odd museum heist and having a yak at your disposal, will help you get cooking the Spooky Men’s Chorale way.
The Australian singers, who harmonise with fine voices and great hats, are led by music director Stephen Taberner, originally from Christchurch.
Speaking on behalf of the 15-strong chorale – the spookmeister shares their favourite recipes.
‘‘Poached pterosaur egg on a crumpet with fern garnish. It’s very simple once you’ve got the security guard tied up,’’ he says.
Now, for those not familiar with flying reptiles from the past, pterosaurs existed for most of the Mesozoic period and are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight.
Taberner’s top tip for making the poached morsel: ‘‘Pick a museum you don’t want to go back to.’’
For the travelling musicians, the next dish is their version of fast food – a road-killed pulled stoat burger. ‘‘A thrifty morsel, easily sourced from any good state highway.
‘‘It’s best if you hit the stoat yourself, but only by accident or you’ll risk that slightly haunted aftertaste.’’
However, in New Zealand, the stoat could be replaced by possum (something best not mentioned in Australia, where they are beloved).
The third recipe definitely sounds more palatable, but a little elusive. The Spooky fellas have chosen yak’s milk pancakes. ‘‘You just can’t beat the classics.’’
But you may need to do a little
practice in front of the mirror to get this one right: ‘‘Mix with a slight raise in the left eyebrow.’’ Or use a spoon. Taberner says food is extremely important to the Spooky way of life.
‘‘In fact, I would go so far as to say that food is a pre-condition of having a culture and family. Like using the loo.’’
There are also special rituals the chorale singers enjoy around food: ‘‘Disputing bills; finding tasty morsels in our beards.’’
And they combine music and food in their performance lives. ‘‘We like to chew in 6/8, with our cutlery creating a 4/4 cross-rhythm. Curries occasionally turn us into euphoniums.’’
But Taberner, won’t admit if the singers are good cooks, ‘‘well, one doesn’t like to blow one’s own trumpet’’ but will say they learned everything they know from the Spooky Guide to Microwave Lethargy. Even the beginnings of the black-clad men’s
music allegedly started ‘‘with a harrowing beef vindaloo’’.
So, what can people expect to see when the Spooky ones perform on stage at Womad on March 16 to
18?
‘‘Some blokes, almost singing well,’’ he understates.
Their website is a little more forthcoming about the group, formed in the Blue Mountains of NSW in 2001 by Taberner.
‘‘The Spooky Men soon attracted attention with a judicious combination of Georgian table songs, pindrop beautiful ballads, highly inappropriate covers, and immaculate man anthems like ‘Don’t stand between a man and his tool’, all of which amounted to a manifesto for the new breed of man, happily suspended between thug and wimp,’’ it says.
You get the chance to see the Spooky Men’s Chorale twice at Womad – on the TSB Bowl Stage at
12pm on Saturday and on the Todd Energy Brooklands Stage at 3pm on Sunday.
But they won’t be cooking for festival goers (thankfully), who will find more palatable offerings on the Nova Energy Taste the World stage with a variety of Womad artists, hosted by the effervescent Jax Hamilton.