Food frenzy, or how Cook's Illustrated shows their ass to the cooks of America
Those of you who frequent cooking blogs know that it is commonplace, and polite, for a blogger to indicate an inspirational source for all recipes save an original. No matter how many ingredients are changed out, or what was done differently from the original recipe, a blogger will credit a source recipe as the inspiration for the new one.
This is considered courtesy.
However, if you go here, and here and here, you'll find that this courtesy, this POLITENESS, this nod of the head in thanks to the original cook, can get you harassed by the PR department of Cook's Illustrated, America's Test Kitchens and Cook's Country, should it happen to be one of their recipes that you're nodding at.
AAAANNNNDDDD....
Not only are you "not allowed" to post a recipe of theirs in your own blog without their explicit permission, you are not allowed to change a single ingredient should you happen to be granted permission. Because their recipes, "tested 100 times", are PERFECT.
PERFECT.
And you're just going to mess them up with your meddling.
O.0
There's a word for that, I think. Several, in fact.
"Hubris" is the one that leaps immediately to mind, actually.
Now, as far as I'm concerned, if one changes out ingredients on anyone's recipes, that's their own damned business. As annoyed as I get with people making careless and stupid and SENSELESS substitutions in perfectly good recipes (as illustrated here), I only get REALLY annoyed with that when they make those silly substitutions and then blame the recipe when they fail.
However, when one makes a recipe, and it is a success, and the blogger wants to ADVERTISE and THANK the source of the recipe, no matter how they have deviated from it, I think that's pretty damned big of them.
And how could ANY businessperson of any reasonable level of savvy possibly make an objection to having their name, completely unsolicited, put out there in front of the public in a positive and enthusiastic way?
So the dilemma is, if one should use a recipe that one has gotten from a source other than their own creative noggin, should one, if one plans to cite the source, write about the recipe as published, down to the last grain of salt, and contact their legal department before they do so? Should one, if one has made changes to that recipe, cite the source at all, even in thanks, for fear of invoking the wrath of said legal department?
Or should we only worry about that when we're dealing with this particular sector of the elite foodie publishing world?
To be sure, I never have posted a recipe derived from Cook's Illustrated or its associates--but you can be extra sure that I will never do so in the future.
Probably because I'll never SEE one, because I'll be sure never to purchase any of their publications.
I don't know when people of this ilk are ever going to grok the idea of what food is--its purpose, its pleasure, its inherent joy.
The purpose of food is to FEED--the stomach, to be sure, but also the soul. It is the manifestation of a generous heart, and the passion to satisfy and please those who would eat. It is hospitality, and friendship--and love.
And when you sell that, without one speck of the desire to give inside you, then you are a whore, giving second-rate pleasure with an eye not on a loved one, but on a paying customer.
They don't have a legal leg to stand on, as has been pointed out in any number of discussions, and they have no doubt shot themselves so completely in the foot by this nonsense that it's possible that their subscription departments will be feeling the pinch. It's possible that their harassment of an admiring blogger will turn people off so completely that America's Test Kitchen will come to be no more....
Goodness knows, they deserve that, and there are plenty of other sources for recipes that one can use freely, and write about, and take pictures of, without the threat of legal action.
But in the meantime--let the blogger beware.
ETA--in a hilarious twist of irony, this blog tells of how Cook's Illustrated printed this woman's recipe in one of their cookbooks. And while they did it with her permission, and credited it to her, they did not PAY her for it, and.....
Wait for it...
They changed an ingredient in her recipe to suit THEM!
I'm cryin' over here.
This is considered courtesy.
However, if you go here, and here and here, you'll find that this courtesy, this POLITENESS, this nod of the head in thanks to the original cook, can get you harassed by the PR department of Cook's Illustrated, America's Test Kitchens and Cook's Country, should it happen to be one of their recipes that you're nodding at.
AAAANNNNDDDD....
Not only are you "not allowed" to post a recipe of theirs in your own blog without their explicit permission, you are not allowed to change a single ingredient should you happen to be granted permission. Because their recipes, "tested 100 times", are PERFECT.
PERFECT.
And you're just going to mess them up with your meddling.
O.0
There's a word for that, I think. Several, in fact.
"Hubris" is the one that leaps immediately to mind, actually.
Now, as far as I'm concerned, if one changes out ingredients on anyone's recipes, that's their own damned business. As annoyed as I get with people making careless and stupid and SENSELESS substitutions in perfectly good recipes (as illustrated here), I only get REALLY annoyed with that when they make those silly substitutions and then blame the recipe when they fail.
However, when one makes a recipe, and it is a success, and the blogger wants to ADVERTISE and THANK the source of the recipe, no matter how they have deviated from it, I think that's pretty damned big of them.
And how could ANY businessperson of any reasonable level of savvy possibly make an objection to having their name, completely unsolicited, put out there in front of the public in a positive and enthusiastic way?
So the dilemma is, if one should use a recipe that one has gotten from a source other than their own creative noggin, should one, if one plans to cite the source, write about the recipe as published, down to the last grain of salt, and contact their legal department before they do so? Should one, if one has made changes to that recipe, cite the source at all, even in thanks, for fear of invoking the wrath of said legal department?
Or should we only worry about that when we're dealing with this particular sector of the elite foodie publishing world?
To be sure, I never have posted a recipe derived from Cook's Illustrated or its associates--but you can be extra sure that I will never do so in the future.
Probably because I'll never SEE one, because I'll be sure never to purchase any of their publications.
I don't know when people of this ilk are ever going to grok the idea of what food is--its purpose, its pleasure, its inherent joy.
The purpose of food is to FEED--the stomach, to be sure, but also the soul. It is the manifestation of a generous heart, and the passion to satisfy and please those who would eat. It is hospitality, and friendship--and love.
And when you sell that, without one speck of the desire to give inside you, then you are a whore, giving second-rate pleasure with an eye not on a loved one, but on a paying customer.
They don't have a legal leg to stand on, as has been pointed out in any number of discussions, and they have no doubt shot themselves so completely in the foot by this nonsense that it's possible that their subscription departments will be feeling the pinch. It's possible that their harassment of an admiring blogger will turn people off so completely that America's Test Kitchen will come to be no more....
Goodness knows, they deserve that, and there are plenty of other sources for recipes that one can use freely, and write about, and take pictures of, without the threat of legal action.
But in the meantime--let the blogger beware.
ETA--in a hilarious twist of irony, this blog tells of how Cook's Illustrated printed this woman's recipe in one of their cookbooks. And while they did it with her permission, and credited it to her, they did not PAY her for it, and.....
Wait for it...
They changed an ingredient in her recipe to suit THEM!
I'm cryin' over here.