The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan by Wendy McClure
Review by Chris C. (chrisnsally)
How do you write a book with no plot, no characterization, no climatic event and no conflict resolution? One book style fitting this description would be a cookbook, a second book category that fits this description is joke books. Wendy McClure has combined these two genres to great success in The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan. (T.A.M.P.P.) This is a book of photos and snappy one-line jokes, like I Can Haz Cheezburger, that are so popular with the publishing houses these days. While I may imply that this style of photo themed joke book has a limited appeal I did find Ms. McClure’s book hilarious.
T.A.M.P.P. begins the comedy with the dedication and any book with a funny dedication grabs my attention and makes me want to read more. Wendy dedicates the book to her mom, “who never makes these recipes, and to Chris, “who might, if I dared him.” How does she get jokes from a cookbook? The photos featured here are from a set of Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974. The title of the book is derived from a recipe for Fluffy Mackerel Pudding and Ms. McClure creates characterization out of the many adjectives and the creative use of quotation marks on the recipe cards.
One character who appears repeatedly in these jokes is Marcy from the recipe for Marcy’s “Enchiladas” from page 9. Wendy describes this card with, “We don’t know who Marcy is, only that she thinks that ‘enchilada’ is wacky Mexican talk for ‘shit on a shingle.’” Later, for the photo accompanying the recipe for New Pizza Sauce, McClure explains “Uh-oh. Marcy needs to be stopped.” I’m not certain what the Weight Watcher’s editors intended with their use of quotation marks on the recipe cards but the punctuation marks join Marcy in the jokes too. One card was a recipe for Fish “Tacos” and McClure writes, “Mexican food is easy to make! All you need are toast and quotation marks! Just ask Marcy!” Ms. McClure seems to be combating the quotation marks with a liberal use of exclamation points.
Recipe cards may seem like dull content for a joke book but the photos which illustrate these cards seem tailor made as Ms. McClure’s cannon fodder. First, the prepared dishes look like they were cooked by High School Home Economics students or anyone without any concept of how prepared food should appear. Some of the dishes don’t even appear to be cooked like this illustration for Onion Sauce which looks like tomato sauce on a raw fish to me.
Wendy frequently comments on the props in the photos and she’s right to do so because the props rarely add to the quality or the content of these diet food illustrations. The photos appear to have been arranged and processed by first year Art School students. For example, in the photo for Crab Newburg the focal point is a drinking glass and some campy (crappy) beach souvenir which should be in the background of the photo.
The nature and talent of Wendy McClure’s sense of humor can be seen in her chapter titles too. Themes like; chapt. 2: Sauces, Light Meals, Lunches, Loathing and, chapt. 4: Main Dish Malevolence provide a hint to the witty one liners and inside jokes that accompany this old set of Weight Watchers recipe cards. This book is a very fun, very quick and delightful read, Sally and I both laughed out loud as we experienced the silliness of these meal plans from the 1970s.
