Cookbook Wars

Cooking is extremely universal and similar techniques are used world wide. Cooking is not proprietary, we all do it, and  nobody owns it. There is 1000's of ways to make a dish, and some of the steps and ingredients will be identical in those 1000's of ways, but each individual puts their signature on it, even if it is only one small thing, it is still their contribution to it's uniqueness. That is why we are inundated with several 1000 cookbooks. 

Pick up a 100 cookbooks, and you may find several hundred recipes that appear in all them. Does that mean 100 authors stole them from each other? NO! The foundation of any standard recipe will be the same, or the end result won't work. Cookbooks are copyrighted, cooking is not. I do not call the author of each cookbook to get their permission to make their dish every time I use it. I also don't call them and say, hey your recipe for funnel cakes is the same recipe in 5 other books I own, did you steal it? No, because the ingredients and steps are the same for funnel cakes and nobody owns the proprietary rules to making this cake and if they don't follow the basic steps, it won't work. Now you can vary how it is made, and claim it is yours and yours alone, but somebody half way around the world may be making it the same way, just because they happened to think of it, too.

If we start suing each other, over who owns the right to make food, we will starve. I am not about to start paying royalties, just to fry chicken or bake cookies.

Maybe I could say to both women, you both stole these ideas from me, I just don't have them written down in a cookbook right now to prove it. If this lawsuit succeeds, the flood gates will open, and we will never see another cookbook, and all the current cookbook authors will be suing each other over the next 1000 years. And it won't stop with cookbooks either. 

Give it a rest! When you write your next book, believe in yourself, that mine is the best work and it should sell on its merits, if it doesn't, then blame yourself, don't look for a scapegoat!