<p>I have a question, kind of trivial, but it’s come up lately. What do you all think of… recipe sharing?! Recently, I’ve been present on several occasions where a delicious entree, side dish or dessert is served and everyone goes nuts, saying how delicious the item is. In many cases when this happens, the hostess will immediately say “I’d be happy to give you the recipe!” I am certainly in that category. But I’ve heard a few people say they can’t or don’t give out their recipes. What do you guys think about this? In general is it rude to ask for a recipe? Or rude to refuse to give one? </p>
<p>A group of my friends have had this discussion before and some people say that they are respecting the wishes of other family members by not sharing certain “secret family recipes.” I can <em>kind</em> of understand that, since it’s out of consideration to someone else. But what if that’s not the case? </p>
<p>I can’t imagine refusing someone a recipe – of course, I also have a hard time imagining that anyone would ask for one of mine! </p>
<p>Wouldn’t someone normally be serving food to people he or she likes? It seems so mean and rude to refuse to share. Besides, everyone adds their own special touch, so it wouldn’t necessarily be the same anyway.</p>
<p>I had butternut squash for Thanksgiving, a few years ago, at a relative’s home. I thought that it was very good. It was served in a beautiful serving dish. I asked for the recipe. The hostess told me after the guests left that she bought it ready made at the grocery store. Perhaps this is why some recipes are not shared, LOL!</p>
<p>Yes, but it is very important that the borrower of the recipe give proper attriubution! Here are some general guidelines: It is not acceptable to present the dish as your own creation. You may not “conveniently forget” where you learned how to make that wonderful dish, nor may you hide the recipe card away and whip up the dish from memory and then claim it as your own. You may take credit for any significant modifications that you have provided, while still crediting the proper original source. Minor changes and substitutions (ie, substituting artificial sweetener for sugar, cool whip instead of whipped cream) does not make it YOUR recipe! And most importantly, if you pass on a borrowed recipe, the original source must still be credited. Proper MLA format should always be used.</p>
<p>how many recipes are truely “made up” by the person preparing it, if you cooked it, you made it,who really cares?</p>
<p>my sister-in-law makes great fish, I don’t care if she made it up or stole it or found it in a book, or it was a happy accident…I compliment HER for preparing it with loving hands, no matter where the “idea” came from</p>
<p>share your recipes people…why the heck not?</p>
<p>and if they don’t tell you, my guess is it partly came from a box, it as catered and they want to not disclose that fact, or it was an error that turned out okay, or it was oh shoot, peope are coming for dinner, what do they have a safeway?</p>
<p>mathmom, Haha, I have to admit that I’ve heard this one before and have been skeptical!</p>
<p>northeastmom, LOL, that’s very possible - or maybe the whole dinner was catered, not that there’s anything wrong with that ! If I’m entertaining I will often supplement with some dessert items from a great local bakery, but won’t claim them as my own! </p>
<p>NJres, Good one. ROFL!</p>
<p>I actually just thought of another possible reason. With so many people watching their health and their calories, maybe they don’t want you to know that their recipe is really 100% artery clogging and no good for you , ie tons of butter, full fat sour cream, etc! </p>
<p>I’m not surprised in the least that most people here would be of the sharing mindset, considering that most CCers very much like to share information with others(or they wouldn’t be here).</p>
<p>I absolutely LOVE to cook for my friends. One of my dishes (I modified from an excellent cookbook) always gets a ton of complements, even from people who don’t like the ingredients. I do share the recipe (in its modified form), although it’s somewhat long and a lot of it depends on the quality of ingredients. </p>
<p>I do share, but some of the recipes are definitely technique-driven or depend upon the quality of the ingredients, and I wonder what happens in someone else’s kitchen. Some of my recipes are fairly vague (esp. when I modify!), with things like, “Rice mixture should be soupy but not wet.” The ideal situation is to have someone watch the dish being made.</p>
<p>Haha, on this topic, I made kind of a recipe-asking blunder at a dinner party last year. We all started eating my host mom’s stew/soup and it was delicious. My friend was thinking of coming over (it was casual, people kept showing up), and my friend loves mondongo–translated as tripe I think. I said, mmm this is delicious, does it have tripe in it? (I thought that I could see little pieces, but I wasn’t sure.)</p>
<p>I could tell that I had said something wrong from the slightly awkward moment that followed, but my host mom recovered quickly and said that yes, it had a little bit of tripe, and also some other things, which she listed casually. I was still confused as to why my question was awkward. When I asked her later she explained that some of the women at the dinner would eat the tripe and enjoy the stew if they didn’t know it was there, but if asked they would say that they didn’t like it. Sure enough, some of the women left bits of tripe in their bowls at the end, although they might have noticed if I hadn’t said anything. </p>
<p>I felt bad , but at the same time…we used to pull that kind of trick on my step-brother when he was little (asking for plain pizza instead of cheese pizza because he didn’t like cheese…but he liked pizza). It seems silly to have that kind of trouble with adults.</p>
<p>“mathmom, Haha, I have to admit that I’ve heard this one before and have been skeptical!”</p>
<p>Well I’d tell you what I thought I did. It would go something like this: Well I started with the vegetarian lasagna recipe in the Sunset cookbook. But I put some sausage in - maybe a pound or so? Or: Well I started with Martha Stewart’s recipe for roast chicken, but since I often don’t have shallots I usually use onions. And oh sometimes I cook it 50 degrees hotter if I’m in a hurry. Oh, and I think her recipe calls for less wine - I’m not sure how much I put in because I just pour it in until there’s at least a quarter of an inch on the bottom of the roasting pan… I’m not sure I haven’t looked at it in a while. And oh yeah, I never put the parseley in because I don’t grow it in my herb garden.</p>
</p>
, but at the same time…we used to pull that kind of trick on my step-brother when he was little (asking for plain pizza instead of cheese pizza because he didn’t like cheese…but he liked pizza). It seems silly to have that kind of trouble with adults.</p>