For many years we suspected, but only yesterday did it come to light: herbs and spices do not make meals better – they only complicate recipes so that average people don’t realize that fancy restaurant food isn’t actually worth $90 a head. This incorrect belief has allowed the world chef-elite to charge exorbitant amounts for small portions of average food, spiced with tiny amounts of expensive and difficult to find ingredients, that make the dishes impossible to replicate at home. The 3000-year-old scam came to light in a press conference given by TV chef Gordon Ramsay.

“It’s a fucking scam you shits. We’ve ripped you the fuck off for so fucking long. We really fucked you fuckers good. Fuck.”

A big cheese in the food industry and owner of a large franchise of restaurants, Jamie Oliver, has confessed to being deeply involved in the fraud.

“There’s no way my ‘15 minute meals’ could ever take 15 minutes. It’s just to make people think they’re shit at cooking. Those dishes take 45 minutes and I know that when I plan them. But it makes you think that the $27 pasta at ‘Jaime’s Italian’ is worth it so I guess it worked for me.”

Heston Blumenthal was similarly caught by the scandal when several of his colleagues revealed their belief that none of Blumenthal’s food had ever been edible. “I mean, – for fuck sake! You can’t just throw liquid nitrogen in a bowl with some plastic and expect to eat whatever comes out!”