‘Science versus Rule-of-Thumb – a Draw!’ from Uncle Joe’s Nonsense for Young and Old Children

1934

Mellor Papers

London: The Ceramic Society by Longmans, Green and Co.

This cartoon from Uncle Joe’s Nonsense (1934) depicts the story of a competition between Mellor and his sister Agnes. The aim was to make the best pudding based on Mrs Beeton’s recipe ‘No 754,629,831,429’. Agnes accidentally (on purpose?) left a bit of dough in the cookbook which caused two pages to be stuck together. Agnes made a good pudding while Mellor made an ‘addled pudding’, concocted from the first half of one pudding recipe and the second half of another. Mellor then suggested that Agnes ‘ought to drink my pudding and I eat hers.’ Mellor’s father was the judge and he declared the contest a draw.