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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think there is a MORAL OBLIGATION to share recipes if asked?

298 replies

AddToBasket · 11/10/2014 22:11

Look, it's just a pickle recipe. Your daughter gave me a jar, it tasted delicious and I asked for the recipe when I'd finished the jar because we'd all fought over the last spoonful.

You live 200 miles away and you have refused to give out the recipe.

It's an outrage.

OP posts:

Clarinet9 · 13/10/2014 13:26

Talking of sharing recipes there was a poster on here ages ago called Suzywong who has an amazing Brownie recipe. She lives in Australia.

I used to be rubbish at Brownies, so one day I made hers (recipe is on here) wrote about it on here (of course!!) and suddenly up she pops posting from Oz (in the middle of the night?) about her brownies.

weird coincidence

MrsPnut · 13/10/2014 13:36

I am always happy to share my recipes but I am quite haphazard and tend to fling things in and keep tasting.

For the person who wanted cookies like the supermarket ones HFW recipe is what you need

canny1234 · 13/10/2014 13:52

vezzie · 13/10/2014 13:56

limitedperiod - I know, you are right - I have always been sure that that is exactly how they make Pringles and that is why I won't eat them.

When the work-fare crisp-chewers beg for overtime, at 10p an hour, just before Christmas, they get them to wrap paper napkins around bundles of cutlery in pubs and salivate on the join to make them stick down.

Don't ask me about Hula Hoops. Seriously - don't ask me.

vezzie · 13/10/2014 13:57

I mean I know you all want to think that they are chewed crisps moulded around small boys' fingers. That is what we all want to believe.

Snowinsummer · 13/10/2014 14:05

My mil refuses to share her recipes. What could have been a lovely bonding experience between us has just left me with a sour taste. I've learnt not to ask anymore. Incidentally her daughter (my sil) has them all.

CiderwithBuda · 13/10/2014 14:19

My nana was a great cook. She made fab cakes and baked every week. We used to go to hers on Sunday afternoons and stay for tea and there was always lots of various cakes. And she always made a few apple tarts. It was my dad's favourite apple tart but sadly we don't have the recipe - my mum asked her lots of times but she was very much 'pinch of this and a cup of that'. I really wish we had asked her to write it down. So sharing recipes is important to keep them going.

SquattingNeville · 13/10/2014 14:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bluebump · 13/10/2014 14:54

My ex-MIL bakes the best scones. When she made some for my birthday my step dad (a chef) asked how she made them as they were lovely, she told him some of the recipe and then said "and a secret ingredient", he asked what it was and she just said "a secret!" and wouldn't tell him. His face was a picture.

aNoteToFollowSo · 13/10/2014 15:04

Oh I'm torn. See, I agree, I agree that not sharing recipes is petty and ungenerous and generally wanky. And so I share them.

BUT

I make a cheesecake that is universally drooled over and much praised. I am always asked to bring it to friends' events. It's my thing. When people ask for the recipe I say 'sure' and then never send it to them. I know it's awful but ….I love everybody waiting for my cheesecake and getting excited when I bring it. If I give it to them then they'll make it and they wont appreciate mine ….

Go on, make me the object of your scorn. I definitely deserve it (but I'm going down hugging my cheesecake recipe to my chest)

motherinferior · 13/10/2014 15:11

I am glad to see so many people in agreement on this thread.

I pass on my (Indian) mother's recipes to anyone who asks. And quite a few who don't. I like the thought of other people's lives being gladdened by Lovely Food.

ThirdPoliceman · 13/10/2014 15:12

I am with aNote.
I have a secret recipe, with a secret ingredient and my NDN wants it badly. She ain't never no way getting it.....
(See how I utilised appalling grammar to emphasise my point?)
I would and have given this recipe to others but not her. We are having a cake war. I take no prisoners and give no quarter.

HappyNap · 13/10/2014 15:12

It is ridiculous.

We all share our recipes, except one SiL who always says I can't remember, or if pressed I added a bit of this and a bit of that. I feel like saying, get over yourself, it wasn't THAT nice

nemno · 13/10/2014 15:12

I know 2 people who are good cooks but won't share recipes. They are also the 2 most dislikable people imaginable. One is nice as pie to your face so when asked won't refuse; she just deliberately writes it down wrong. The other is at least consistently horrible.

Sharing recipes is such a lovely generous action.

EvansOvalPiesYumYum · 13/10/2014 15:24

I got that you were joking, Nomama. Thought it was funny!

I gave my sister a couscous salad recipe years ago (not strictly mine, it is from a cookbook) but no-one I knew had ever had it, and most people really like it, have shared it a lot. However, my sister now passes it off as her own. As in "Ooh, my friends have begged me to take 'MY' couscous salad along to such-and-such a gathering" She was meant to give me a choc-chip cookie recipe, and never did.

My Mum used to make a fabulous bread pudding, the best ever. It was dark brown and sticky, and I know she used brown sugar and marmalade, but now she's old and hasn't made it for years, she can't remember how, and it was never written down. Have tried Googling, but nothing remotely resembles it.

dreamerdoer · 13/10/2014 15:25

"If I give it to them then they'll make it and they wont appreciate mine …."

I just, don't see how that follows at all. I have the recipe for my friends 'signature' lemon drizzle cake. I've even made it for an occasion they weren't present at. I still gleefully look forwards to it when they make it.

Why would you appreciate delicious food less because you have the recipe ?

limitedperiodonly · 13/10/2014 16:03

I don't know why people worry. As other PPs have said, you might make it nicely, but you can never make it the same.

Someone mentioned bread pudding. My mum made the most fantastic one which I can't replicate.

It was lots of torn up cheap, sliced white bread, dried currants and sultanas, mixed spice and water mashed up and baked then finished with lots of granulated white sugar.

I think a big part of the secret was an oval enamel tin that was deep in the middle but rose up like the hull of a ship so the middle part was moist and the outer parts were crispy. I preferred it cold and sliced. The moist bits rather than the crispy bits.

That tin must be about 70 years old now and I've no idea where it is.

I miss her rabbit stew made with an Oxo cube. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. Those were the days when Oxo was just beef (allegedly). She didn't understand why anyone would want to use the new-fangled chicken or vegetable varieties but would sometimes buy them for me if they were reduced because the packets were a bit bashed.

I really miss her bubble and squeak. If I could taste it again it would transport me. It is my Proustian madeleine moment.

whois · 13/10/2014 16:10

I have an amazing dip recepie. It's like crack, a huge batch gets hoovered up in a matter of seconds at a party or gathering.

Everyone looks forward to me making a batch. Which is nice.

BUT, I happily point people in the direction of the recipe when asked. Share the love, pass on the recepie.

coffeeinbed · 13/10/2014 16:15

This thread reminds me of my mother's recipe notebook.
It's all "Lilly's chocolate cake", "Mary's Breakfast Rolls" and so on.
It's lovely.

I did once ask someone else for her cake recipe - it was something Italian, little rolls of baked dough rolled in caramel and assembled in a cake tin.
She said something to the effect of "No way".
I still remember that cake. Cow.

limitedperiodonly · 13/10/2014 16:15

I left out the vital ingredient of lots of brown sugar from my mother's bread pudding recipe. You need that. But you'll never have that tin. So it will never be the same.

Fuck knows where that tin is. She probably used it to catch a leak under the sink or bury a small pet.

MrsSchadenfreude · 13/10/2014 16:40

I have a Hungarian cheesecake recipe that has been passed down in my family. I can make it in my sleep, but could not give anyone a recipe. One of my friends loved it so much that she insisted on watching me and writing it all down. She is very exacting in her recipes, and started shrieking when I sprinkled in the flour as she had no idea how much I was using.

I'm happy to pass on recipes too, but my experience is that they never turn out identical for other people. My friend makes the best beef rendang ever, gave me the recipe, and mine just never tastes the same as hers. It's good, but not as good as hers!

Original poster

AddToBasket · 13/10/2014 18:07

Ora - that's it! (I think ). It's really very tasty. Thank you!

OP posts:

sunbathe · 13/10/2014 18:15

dreamer - can you post your chocolate cake recipe, please? Love to have it, my lot would really enjoy a good chocolate cake.

CalamitouslyWrong · 13/10/2014 19:22

My MIL often asks me for recipes (which I happily share) but her attempts never taste the same as when I make them. So now she just gets me to make them for her. They don't taste the same when not made in my kitchen though.

I think people will still look forward to your signature dish, even if they have the recipe, because things always taste better when you didn't have to make all thee effort of cooking them yourself.

Some of us have no family recipes to hand down. My mother cannot cook for shit, and my grandmothers' cooking is a memory I've tried my best to repress. No one wants the recipe for warm tinned ham and dry, floury boiled potatoes with boiled to death green veg. Or watery mince with dry mash that makes your mouth stick together. I learned to cook from watching ready steady cook as a teenager (and other tv, and book, and the Internet and trial and error). So I see recipe sharing as an important social thing. If no one shared recipes and cooking tips, I'd be stuck microwaving ready meals or something.

Plomino · 13/10/2014 19:50

In my family , love of food or cooking skipped my mums generation . So whilst my nan was famous for her pies , pastry , Christmas cakes , any cakes in fact , my mum saw cooking as a chore . So she was adequate but unenthusiastic , which meant there are no family recipes to hand down .

Now I love cooking . I'm crap at any kind of craft , can't draw to save my life , it's all a closed book to me . But cooking , that really gets whatever little creativity I have , going . So I've been compiling a cookery book for the DS's since they were small , from the simple stuff like toad in the hole and the wedding soup recipe that I've adapted , from the cheese straws to the crispy duck type stuff and everything in between so that maybe when they leave home , they'll at least have a source of easy to follow meals , that might remind them where to drop their washing off .

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