After drinking too much alcohol or taking drugs, many people get cravings – but are not necessarily able to use the stove and oven safely. From the painful experience of such cases, the New Zealand Fire Service has put together a cookbook with “Recipes when you’re drunk or high”.
The basic idea of the online cookbook: getting slick and dopey amateur cooks to prepare their meals with a toaster, hot air fryer, kettle or microwave, all of which have timers.
After all, it happens again and again that people who are not completely clear in their heads leave the stovetop or the oven on and thereby start dangerous fires. According to the fire service, more than 4,100 house fires in New Zealand every year, and thus more than a quarter of all house fires in total, are caused by carelessness when cooking. In about half of these 4,100 cases, alcohol or drugs are involved.
“Stay away from the stove when you’re drunk,” is the appeal of the fire brigade campaign. The serious message is conveyed with a lot of humor in the cookbook, and so the question arises with some recipes as to whether they are meant to be taken seriously, for example the one for “toast sandwich”.
“Put a slice of bread in the toaster. Toast it,” reads the simple instructions. After the toasted slice of bread has been spread with butter, it should then be placed between two untoasted slices of white bread. “Now take the bread-toast-bread in your damp stylus. Good.” Also featured in the cookbook is a fryer chicken nugget sandwich and noodle soup that only requires a kettle.
Jamie Robert Johnston compiled the recipes. “I took inspiration from my early college days with food that fills your stomach when you’re a little tipsy,” the Auckland chef told AFP.
The New Zealand Fire Brigade’s campaign also includes videos circulating on online networks. It shows various apparently drunk people trying out the recipes. There is a lot of laughter. One of the test subjects already had problems buttering a slice of toast.
“These are real people who were out at night,” says Adrian Nacey of the New Zealand Fire Service. They had therefore agreed in advance to take part in the campaign in a test kitchen in Auckland and were paid for it.
