Comments on: Our Cookies, Ourselves

By: try these bombs « Crunchy Green Things

try these bombs « Crunchy Green Things — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:45:50 +0000

[…] in Cindy’s post (as Cindy helpfully points out, it looks like the original recipe itself has a bit of lineage: for all this I am a grateful beneficiary and claim no credit). However, as my mixture still turned […]

By: Kristen Chambers

Kristen Chambers — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:29:35 +0000

I am thinking of starting my own baking blog and am really confused about copyright laws when posting recipes. I am all for giving credit where it’s due since almost every recipe that I have tweaked to be my own started as someone else’s. Are there any rules about providing a link to the original author’s website or quoting which recipe book it was from? Also, are there any recipes that aren’t okay to reproduce even when giving credit? I’d appreciate any information you have! Thanks!

By: michelle

michelle — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:42:08 +0000

Great post.
No idea what motivates the sort of plagiarism of a Chef Lindsey, but the desire to wrap food in the mystique of a family recipe makes sense.
It does tell us a lot about how we feel about food. The cookies should taste the same either way, but they don’t. People like a story, and “it came from a website” can feel cold. And cooking and feeding people feels so personal and intimate, it’s easier to forget that others were involved in your dinner.
I think it’s very bold that Nigella cites her sources–she has enough confidence in her own creation to know it won’t lose power if people see where it comes from.

By: IsaChandra

IsaChandra — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:49:46 +0000

Elisa, your brilliant insight has already been covered in this blog post. Try to read before commenting. And if you’re going to tell people to shut up, at least try and be interesting about it.

UV..Agreed on Nigella!

By: urbanvegan

urbanvegan — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:39:24 +0000

This is one thing I like about Nigella Lawson the non-vegan cookbook author. She borrows from –and properly cites her inspiration for each recipe, ranging from other authors to magazines to her grandmother.

I do think that recipes evolve and build upon each other. Every cook has influences just like artists have influences.

Hard thing about creativity is that there is seemingly so much ego involved. But it’s only when you let go of that ego can you truly get creative.

By: Elisa

Elisa — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:37:38 +0000

Shut up everyone!

Copyright law clearly states that a list of ingredients is not copyrightable, therefore a recipe is not either. Only if you copy the directions word for word might it even come close, but still the steps of a formula are not copyrightable either!

Everyone has built on someone elses idea, otherwise nothing would be created.

Shut up, be happy someone told you about the recipe, whether they made it up entirely or not, and eat it!

By: IsaChandra

IsaChandra — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:36:51 +0000

I think some of what I was saying was misinterpreted. I wasn’t really suggesting that everyone constantly and tediously track the roots of their recipes at all! i was wondering two things, 1- when a recipe becomes ones own and 2- why people outright lie about a recipes origins.

By: Bobbi

Bobbi — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:24:52 +0000

I was just thinking about something similar to this last night, because as I made dinner, I made up a lentil/cauliflower dish as I went along, then blogged about it later. Then I worried that maybe it’s really similar to something in Vcon or VWAV and that I’ve used those cookbooks so much that the only way I know how to cook is Isa-&-Terry-Style. Like, I’ve made spinach-chickpea curry so much that maybe “my” dish was just replacing the spinach and chickpeas with cauliflower and lentils. But, I was too lazy to get off my ass and actually check your cookbooks for anything. So if I stole something, it’s because I’m a slacker fan. xo

By: susan g

susan g — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:28:42 +0000

I once worked for a cookbook author. She found that a few of her recipes had been lifted intact from one of the books, and got the other publisher to put a tag in identifying the source. That was in the 60’s — these days she’d sue for big $$ and a piece of the royalties, I suppose. (My only time in the kitchen, I made a cookie recipe that was painted on the wall to cover cracks. In total ignorance I put them in the oven under the broiler. They tasted good but came out as big as saucers!)

By: Lea

Lea — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:19:30 +0000

I find it’s so hard to track where ideas come from. Often I think up an idea for a recipe and when I search the internet for it, I find it’s already been invented