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Thursday, June 04, 2009

Secret Recipes

How do you feel about secret recipes? Do you think that family recipes should be held close and only made in secret? Do you think that they should be shared with everyone so that everyone can enjoy them? In A Homemade Life Molly Wizenberg explicitly says that she thinks recipes should be shared. I no longer have a copy of the book so I can't quote her, but she makes quite the case for it. There are a couple of standby recipes that I take to potlucks and I'm happy to share them. In fact, so are a lot of other people of you look on Recipes.com.

What about patterns? At what point does a pattern become so original that I am allowed to make one for myself but not allowed to use it for my profit? What if I just want to make 8 of them for my nephews? Is ANY pattern off limits? Where is the line between originality and basic sewing? I wrote a long post on this over on the sewing blog this morning, please stop by and weigh in. I'd love to hear some other opinions.

6 comments:

  1. I'm reading A Homemade Life right now and really enjoying it.

    I say SHARE!

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  2. I definitely think recipes are for sharing.

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  3. I don't know. Keeping the "secret" as far as a family recipe is what makes it special when it's served. However, at some point it needs to be written down somewhere so it can be shared later.

    My Husband's grandmother made this fabulous cornbread dressing each Thanksgiving. She had made it for us for years and years and when she passed away, we realized that she didn't have it written down anywhere! So I have been trying to re-create it for 2 years with no success. It's very sad.

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  4. I want to read A Homemade Life.

    I'm for sharing recipes. If others didn't share with me, I'd be minus a lot of our family favorites.

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  5. Personally, I don't have any secret recipes. If you ask, I will gladly share. I have a friend who has a secret banana bread recipe that she will not share. It was given to her as a wedding gift by an old woman. I always thought it was a bit odd that she wouldn't share it since I'm sure it could easily be found somewhere if you knew what you were looking for.

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  6. Recipes should be shared!! I'm always looking for new recipes and chances are the cook will throw in a bit of her/his own flair after a few cookings anyway. At least that's what I tell myself. Sadly I don't cook very often anymore.

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