Week 2: Can you plagiarise a recipe?

Dear Foodies;

My sweet husband brought up a good point.  When does a recipe share become a place of plagiarism?  In my opinion that one is tough.  When teaching, if students strung together 3 or more words from an article they had to use proper citation.  But in a recipe, what euphemisms are there for "cup" or "teaspoon"? How do you rewrite 3 cups of sugar?  Perhaps 9/3rds of a cup of sweetener?

So on to the web I went and searched out the meaning of life.  According to an article published in the Washington Post, and I quote, "The ethics guidelines of the International Association of Culinary Professionals focus on giving proper attribution to recipes that are published or taught. The association advises using the words "adapted from," "based on" or "inspired by," depending on how much a recipe has been revised." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010300316.html)  So most cooks assume that if you change 2 or 3 ingredients the recipe is no longer someone else's but your own.  In one of my frequently used cookbooks it says that the commercial reproduction of recipes is prohibited.  Fair enough.  And as we are not making a dime here, sharing should be considered "noncommercial". 

So what's a fledgling cook to do?  Hence forward I will be citing the cookbooks that I use for recipes that are not changed in more than 2 ingredients.  In the aforementioned article one cook repeated an age-old adage: copying is the highest form of flattery.  Should any cook come to find their recipe on this blog, I would hope they take it as a compliment and comment on any changes we've made!

Until Next Time ...