| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 11/5/2007 2:54:59 AM | I owned a restaurant and would always give my recipes as they are if asked
people go to restaurants because they want a night out and away from the stove
Besides everyone has their touch and it always alters adish even slightly
its not just the ingredients but how they are handled and cooked that makes a dish as well as there is something special about food that has been cooked with passion
Passion cant be measured or explained in a recipe | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 11/11/2007 12:36:39 AM | | Where did she live? And where do you live? If you live at a high elevation, (even 2000 ft above sea level), moisture content changes in recipes. I lived in Calgary where there are chinooks (warm air winds along with changing barometer readings). It took me a while to figure out that I needed to put less liquid in the recipes for bread etc. If there was a chinook in the middle of batch of bread, they were garanteed doorstoppers, rather than edible food. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 11/11/2007 2:51:24 PM | I agree...you are naughty!  I am not into that kind of recipe altering. I don't get hung up on whether or not the person getting the recipe is someone I dislike or their recipe is better than mine. I don't care about any of that. If someone asks me for a recipe, I give it to them period. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/9/2007 11:54:12 PM | I have/would never do that! Its fun to share and there is not a selfish bone in me. Thats a very rude thing to do. If someone did that to me I would have trouble considering them my friend.  | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/10/2007 1:19:57 AM | I have never done that but have refused to give out recipes to some of my food as I am opening a restaurant in the near future and these are family recipes that have been handed down generations and key factors for my restaurant.
For instant, my tacos filling is a big hit in restaurants I have served them in and my dry rub is also something that I do not give out. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/10/2007 7:41:01 PM | Living in New Orleans there was this little old lady who's mother gave her a recipe for Peanut Butter fudge. Everyone "loved" it -- it was ok.
To be polite.. I asked about the recipe and she jumped to the defensive right away..
Her famly lawyer told her to NEVER give it away. It might be worth money some day.
I guess that's better than bein given a recipe thats "off".
I believe in share and share alike.. I love my yummies and I want other people to be happy.. and if I cant feed you, ya may as well make it yourself! | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/10/2007 8:33:41 PM | I can say that I have never changed a recipe when I give it to someone else. There are certain recipes that I will not give out though especially any of my soup recipes, those are off limits. But general recipes, I will make sure it is correct when I give it to someone.
I will admit though, that in my "book" I keep all of my personal recipes in, I alter the recipes so that if anyone gets the notion to try to sneak a peak at certain recipes the dish won't come out right. I either leave out ingredients all together or alter the amounts of ingredients. I just know what is missing or what needs to be changed to make it come out right.
I know that this may sound really bad to some of you out there. But some of my recipes (like my soups) have taken me a long time to perfect and a lot of blood, sweat, tears got spilled, and a whole lotta love got put into these. So I am very defensive about them. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/11/2007 3:37:42 PM | funny this should come up...I am now trying to get a recipe from a lady that I bought some cookies from, and have heard nothing back, SO I offered to BUY some more of her cookies. I am waiting to see if she responds to my email for the purchase and continues to ignore my request for the 'family' recipe
as a footnote, I think I have figured out her secret ingrdient tho~
Why are people like this? strange indeed! | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/11/2007 3:57:00 PM | OP: No, I can't see why anyone would do anything as stupid as that. That is just a waste of time. Its like giving someone a bogus phone number. Why put your time and effort into something that isnt going to benefit anyone?
"I asked someone how to boil water. They told me to put water in a pan, and put it on the stove. Man, I sit there for an hour looking at it, and it WILL NOT BOIL!!!"
I guess they thought you knew to turn the stove on first..... but you're kidding right? | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/12/2007 12:15:41 AM |
Why are people like this? strange indeed
Well, lets put it this way. If you went to a BBQ competition, and you walked up to the Grand Prize winner, would you get pissed off to find out that they won't give you the recipe?
I do have some recipes that I have tweeked over 20 years and I will not give up "the recipe".
To me, the only people that get mad or threatened about a recipe are the people who cannot come up with it in the first place. These are the people who should realize that some things are just better to be enjoyed at the moment and not try to Xerox it. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/13/2007 4:13:24 PM | Wow, unless you earn a living with the recipe, I truly can't relate. I'm flattered when asked for recipes. It has never occured to me to omit ingredients. That is worse than being honest and simply saying no. What is this world coming to?  | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/13/2007 6:05:10 PM | Passion doesn't make you any better in the kitchen. Passion can help you be more comprehensive in the detail of your dish and in a sauce being silky, yet creamy and smooth. Or plating a dish, quality of the product and such. You can be the most passionate chef in the world but if you do not have the knowledge, training, skills and experience of cuisine then what are you average at best.  | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/14/2007 9:34:49 AM | Aren't those that alter interesting? I've never had that happened, but have heard stories. I've never really asked for many recipes. I do remember once hearing someone say "No." when asked. That was amazing to me. People purposely not sharing - as if anything is all that original or secret anyway.
Now that I bake for a living ~ there are a recipes I've fine-tuned that I will not share willy nilly should someone I don't know ask. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/17/2007 5:46:46 AM | I would never give another person a recipe that I didn't want them to make and it be as good as my recipe. Mainly because its a reflection of my own cooking. I think that was just rude of someone to do you like that.
As a young bride many years ago my grandmother , aunts got together and made me a recipe book from our family favorites. When I tried each of the recipes they never turn out like theirs did. I'd call them up and ask them what I could of done wrong. What I came to understand that these women cook by memory, site and taste. So with any recipe I recieve I cook the same way.  | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/22/2007 1:35:55 AM | | I've never intentionally altered a recipe to be hornery, only to adapt it to whatever the requirement is. But I wrote a book that was published by a big name company and was horrified at some of the changes that were made to recipes after the manuscript was out of my control. It's kind of like when you get interviewed for a newspaper and what you see in print sounds like you were never there!! | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/22/2007 7:47:07 AM | Really? What kinds of changes were horrifying?
What was their reasoning for doing such? Congrats on being a published cookbook maker among us! 
If anything I might pass along a recipe as I got it and not as I truly make it but not out of mischievousness of any kind but rather that I may use more or less of an ingredient based on my own taste preferences and don't even measure those. Usually I have made it (and written it down) the first way already and thought it could be better so I make it different next time until I feel it's perfect. Rarely do I ever rewrite these as its just too much work to dissassemble my recipe card holder, rewrite it and reassemble. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/22/2007 7:04:01 PM | | Don't forget that altitude and temp can vary recipes! Maybe she was using greener bananna's than you did(most use almost garbage ready!!, for the best bread anyways!!) Who knows? It took me years of pinching perogies to get the secret recipe from my mom!!! and don't ask me for it cause I have made them from the moom and back!!! | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 12/24/2007 5:01:18 AM | | (My late mom and) I had recipes in our heads and trying to give out the recipe is hard when we "eyeball" a lot of the ingredients. Mom tried to teach me to make one of her recipes and it never came out right. Maybe because the love she put in it was different. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 1/23/2008 11:24:52 PM | | I have never done this, but I have had this done to me... In fact I have had ppl that won't even share a recipe... Like as if I"m going to open up a restaurant and sell it??? Seriously... | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 2/7/2008 9:52:20 PM | Nope.. I give credit where credit is due.
My mother..well she is a chef...and she never gives out her recipes...well she does..but she always alters it so that it is never as 'good' as hers....too funny. 
wish she would just say... I don't have a recipe.. I just toss it together and leave it be...or tell them it is a family secret recipe. Too many games.
she has one of my poppyseed cake recipes... I got it from a friend...who got it from someone else...my mom refuses to pass it on and share...everyone loves the cake. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 2/7/2008 10:12:14 PM | | I dunno. I think the OP might be a bit on the paranoid side? Maybe the person giving the recipe really used that amount of liquid. Sometimes things are drier, just because of the humidity of the day (depends on weather, seasons, or even conditions in your house at the time). Texture depends a lot on how much mixing you do too. I would treat the batter pretty gently, so as not to develop the gluten, for something like banana bread. Also, bananas are different sizes. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 2/7/2008 11:28:42 PM | I have been tempted ... the Ex asked for a dumpling recipe, he was cooking for the new girlfriend.
I gave him the correct one though. | |
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| Have you ever done this? Fess up!
Posted: 2/8/2008 5:16:48 AM | | To distort/change an original recipe is mean. I agree with a previous poster to read over and over before preparing. I make a killer Key Lime pie and WILL NOT give out the recipe. Why? Because, I sold it to a lady in Florida to use in her restaurant. I made a promise to this lady to never give it out. Other than that, I give out recipes everyday - the tried and true ones. | |
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