When I was young, I had thought that writing a cookbook would be most prestigious. Julia Child comes to mind - all those volumes of recipes and beautiful pictures. But in the U.S. and U.K. recipes cannot get copyrights.The pictures can. However, the ingredients list, the underlying process for making the dish, or the resulting dish itself, are all considered facts. So recipes quickly circle about and get used by others. That’s not so great in the competitive world of high-end recipes.
Here’ the interesting story from the Guardian:
"An altogether more complex dish has prompted this debate on the online food forum, eGullet, this week. The recipe, in brief: prawns are pureed using an enzyme called transglutiminase, extruded into a noodle, cooked, and served with smoked yoghurt, paprika and nori. Not the sort of meal that two chefs separated by 10,355 miles are likely to invent at the same time "
Now that sounds like an invention. The dish showed up in two restaurants at the same time, with one copying the other. A storm erupted.
"But can you copyright a recipe? Could Heston Blumenthal register his roast spiced cod with castelluccio lentils? Or St John's Fergus Henderson his roast bone marrow with parsley salad? No, says Alex Papakyriacou, of intellectual property law firm Briffa. "Case law suggests that reproducing a written recipe in the preparation of a dish is not copyright infringement. The same goes for recipes that have been communicated aurally or by a chef deciphering the ingredients and method involved in the preparation of a recipe by sampling a dish prepared to it.”
Susur Lee is considered a top chef. I remember finding out that he makes ingredients in his home kitchen and brings them to the restaurant He was considered secretive. Seems like a wise thing to do in the circumstances of easy plagiarism.
I may have shown you this manipulation of the Pearl Morrisette Menu. We marvel over what ingredients are in the dishes and shudder to think of the work involved making each dish.
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