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

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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.

Exactly Calamitously - won't somebody think of the poor recipe orphans?

whois would it be rude to ask you it share your dip recipe?

MB likes dips. Loves a crisp, "snacky bits" and all that jazz. Not always too keen on my cooking, so I might get some brownie points..

Refusing to share recipes is just horrible and goes against everything that food and the breaking of bread should stand for.

I develop recipes for my site and often share them. I don't even care if people reblog or C+P them without credits. It's only food and very little is truly original when it comes to cooking.

:)

+1

I don't care if people pass on my recipes or pass them off as their own. as LikAnnie points out, they were never truly original. Also, life is too short to care if someone claimed the pasta salad recipe you gave them was 'theirs'.

STBex-MIL used to give me recipes when I asked for them but would deliberately omit either a vital ingredient or a vital step
smoothieooo ....... my mother did exactly the same to me, when I left home as a young wife. Not one recipe ever worked.
Why would you do that to your daughter/DIL.
Weird women.

SiL who always says I can't remember, or if pressed I added a bit of this and a bit of that
HappyNap.... I am always convinced that this attitude means the dish probably came from M&S

I give away whenever asked, and actually put together recipe books for DD's when they left home, also for a couple of their friends whose mothers were not overly helpful.

a family recipe can be sacred and special personally for all sorts of reason.dont ever feel the need to share.they should understand.or will get over/should.id make sure they know why though.that its a specual in the family recipe and your not just being all secretive.

I feel rather sad that I have no secret family recipes :(

whois would it be rude to ask you it share your dip recipe?

Nah, it's a sharer.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/21/steak-sandwich-recipe-yotam-ottolenghi

It's the chili and coriander jam. Never, ever make it in the single quantity. Always double the ingredients. A double batch needs to bubble for about 35/40 mins with the lid off to reduce to the right consistency.

Thanks whois. MB loves a bit of Yotam (and chilli), so that's now bookmarked.

In exchange, here's one of my favourites, Delia's carbonara, the only recipe I keep in my head (though I use creme fraiche). Comfort-tastic from the lady who taught me how to cook.

More recipes please!!

My fail safe is this recipe for lemon curd. It is SO easy and SO much better than shop bought. I jar it up and give it to DM and DMIL.

www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Lemon-Curd-1000079419

My cousin-in-law refused to let me have her mother's recipe for almond cake, making it out to be some kind of family heirloom. So I asked her mother for the recipe who happily let me have it - apparently it was from Woman's Own magazine.

Haha to twatty cousin.

My 'please give me that recipe' recipe is chocolate peppermint pie. It is my mum's recipe, she used to make it when we were kids. It's amazingly simple and tastes like an after dinner mint. It's divine, divine, divine.

Mum is a bit 'a bit of this and that' with her ingredients...

1 packet biscuits (plain or choc)

3 - 4 oz butter
half cup whipped cream
5 oz dark choc
8 oz cream cheese
half cup castor sugar
peppermint essence

• 2 oz butter and tbsp water for topping

Make flan case by crushing bics and add 3-4 oz melted butter.line tin -refrigerate

Beat cream cheese and sugar together. Beat until smooth...add essence to taste. Pour into base...chill.

Melt choc, add butter, remove from heat, stir in water, pour over top of pie. Tilt tin until fully covered.

PS thanks to those who have generously posted recipes. More please!

We have a great family recipe passed down by my grandmother. After she died my younger cousin (in primary school at the time) contributed it to a class recipe book with a short note about how she'd taught it to his father and then to him - I think she'd have much preferred that over us guarding it as some kind of great secret!

The only time I've ever had anyone refuse to share a 'secret family recipe' it was for rocky road, of all things I moved to the other end of the country a year later anyway, so it's not like it would have made a blind bit of difference to the person who made it! I really don't understand the preciousness over recipes - like others I have 'my' chocolate cake that I'm known for among friends, but I'll happily tell everyone it's a Sarah Brown recipe (I think) and write it down for them if they like. I'm still the one that everyone credits for it though, partly because I'm the one they learnt it from, and partly because no-one ever bothers to make it themselves so I'm still the only person who provides it

MissBlennerhasset that sounds amazing! Speaking of chocolate mint things I made these recently and they were divine... you could probably do a much cheaper non-vegan version using butter instead of coconut oil, but I can't make any promises for how it would turn out

I wouldn't share a secret recipe. But I wouldn't tell them I wouldn't share either.. I'd give them the wrong recipe!

Limited and vezzie I so agree re pre-chewed potato products!

I've never met anyone who refused to give a recipe. It does sound a bit mean-spirited, unless you make your living writing recipe books and it's a case of "buy a copy of the book"

I don't have any secret family recipes as it's probably a minor miracle neither of my grandmothers poisoned their offspring with their culinary misadventures (Daffodil bulb stew anyone? Prune, chicken and baked bean soup?) My dad couldn't cook anything without setting off smoke alarms, and my mother is no great shakes in the kitchen either.

Somehow though I became a chef. Possibly in self defense.

So I have a lot of recipes now, and many of them I have tweaked or developed myself and put a lot of effort into them. I will still usually give them away quite happily though - usually I am just flattered that people like what I've cooked enough to want to make it again themselves. In fact I have only point blank refused to share once.

I went to a bbq/pot luck with friends of DH's. Loved one of the desserts. Praised it and asked who made it. Then asked her for the recipe. She responded with a simper and an apology that it was a secret family recipe and she couldn't tell me.

Fair enough. There's no rule which says you have to give away your special recipe if you don't want to. Didn't think much more about it. But when she asked me for one of my cookie recipes a couple of years later I really quite enjoyed being a cow and telling her that it was a secret family recipe and I couldn't possibly share...

For anyone who likes a good curry, here's the Big 8.

If that's not moreish enough, this must be the next best thing to a crack habit, tartiflette. MB made it once to accompany a beef stew. It's difficult to express in words just how good it was.

Mmmm you've made me want curry for breakfast now!

tartiflette is indigestion in its purest form, but it is delicious. though i prefer it made with celeriac instead of potatoes, which i know is utterly inauthentic

Is it good with celeriac? Might try that next time it's made, as weather is starting to turn.

It's one of those dishes that should probably only be eaten about once a year, to give arteries time to defur. Like cassoulet (aka concrete, but I love it).