Operatic Recipe: Tenor à l'orange

Thanks to opera-l for this one!!

Recipe: Tenor à l'orange

INGREDIENTS:

At least 2 good-sized tenors
20 gallons of High-C Orange drink
Olive Oil
Garlic
6 boxes of Portamento (a tagliatelli-like noodle)

PREPARATION: If you announce you're going to serve
tenor, you'll attract a
big crowd, so prepare at least two! It used to be
difficult to catch more
than one tenor at a time, because they are by nature
nocturnal animals who
avoid others of their species. Lately, however, they
have changed their
habits, and they can usually be found in groups of
three.

They are easiest to capture in the summer, when they
can be found
frequenting outdoor stadiums. Less well-known examples
can be captured by
using vocal students or fans as bait. (Females are
usually best, but there
are cases where males work better).

Once the tenor has been caught, carefully rinse off
all sweat from the last
aria. Remove the stomach, which is full of
ill-digested phrases and
swallowed consonants and would make the casserole lid
impossible to shut
anyway. Pull the recording contract out of his
clenched fist (you may have
to cut the hand off). In rare cases, the recording
contract may be tattooed
on his chest. If the tenor is German, remove the
throat, which is so tied up
in knots as to be indigestible.

The major danger in cooking tenor is that the head,
which is empty, will
collapse. Stuff it with a mixture of parsley and paper
money. American
dollars work best, but Euros and English Pounds are
acceptable too.

Marinate overnight in olive oil and garlic. (Only in
the case of the
American or Northern European variety; with the
Mediterranean variety, this
step can be skipped.)

In a big casserole put a layer of portamento, a kind
of thin spaghetti, with
little balls referred to as "nodes" on either end. Lay
the tenor on top of
portamenti. Be careful - there is a new variety of
tenor, often French,
which turns sour in contact with portamento. Cover
with High C Orange drink,
and bake at highest heat in the oven.

When the High-C boils, it fills up the lung capacity
of the tenor, who then
lets out a strangled cry which sounds somewhat like
"All'armi!" This means
the tenor is done to perfection, and can be served.

Buon appetito.