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.

gentlehoney you probably don't mean it to, but it sounds like you don't think they are visiting you primarily for the pleasure of your company!

Stripeybanana, I dont care! You are still not getting the recipe! sticks tongue out

You do realise that in some cultures it is rude to ask?

I'd rather someone told me they don't want to give me a recipe than leave something out so it's not the same.

It's silly and dishonest.

Petulina, no I didn't mean it to sound like that, but when you generally cook different things to "the norm" and have to accommodate various allergies AND are restricted by budget, the last you want is to run out of novel things that everyone can eat.
If somebody "really" wants it I give it to them . (I was being lighthearted. I thought it was a lighthearted thread?)

I once "found" a very distant relative and we were delighted to find that we made the same thing in the same way.

You know the recipe hasn't actually been handed down through the generations for hundreds of years. No one is cooking what their Tudor ancestors used to cook.

Ottillia, I agree. That is horrible if it is on purpose. But maybe they just forget something? I dont think anyone would do it deliberately, would they?

You know, I bet the lemon drizzle cake PTA woman from the infamous thread is a wilful recipe withholder. I bet she tells people she can't possibly pass on her 'secret family recipe'.

I meant deliberately.

But look, every cook knows what makes their recipe special. A pinch of something, the way something's cut, I don't know.
It would be if they managed to forget exactly that bit.

For chewy cookies you also need to replace some of the sugar with soft brown and take out when they still look half baked.

If asked for one of my recipes I might give a slightly revised version. I expect it is available on the internet, google it and see if you can find something that looks similar

Calamitouslywrong, absolutely. everything changes and every recipe is based on another, but it is nice to have the connection even so, I think.
I was chuffed to be given my mother in law's "secret" recipe book, even though there isnt much different to any other.

It's a complement to be asked for a recipe, and kind to share. It makes the world a happier place.

Why do you have to cook something "novel" everytime? Presumbaly you can still cook something even after you've shared the recipe...

All sounds really odd and insecure!

My late aunt absolutely left out an ingredient deliberately when 'passing on' recipes. And these were generally just book recipes, nothing family heirloom-like. She was quite the most horrible person I have ever known. But she hid it, hence agreeing to give recipes.

Stripeybana, i don't think it is particularly odd or insecure to give your guests something they ask for, and you know they like, and that you know they haven't eaten earlier.

Nemno, I am surprised nobody served her her own edited recipe!

She'd have had a field day with her fake commiserations.

The odd and insecure thing is not sharing recipes if asked (whcih presumably isn't that often!) As referenced by most of the posters on this thread...

If asked, and if verbally listing every ingredient doesn't suffice, I give the recipe, as I am sure most people do.
We are entitled to tut inwardly if we want to!

Actually I'd forgotten until today but a few months ago I was clearing out a folder of recipes. Some from magazines etc. but lots from friends. We have lived in four different countries and I have recipes from friends in each country we lived in. Finding them all again was lovely and made me feel very nostalgic. And tearful as I miss so many friends. I posted about it on facebook tagging the friends who are on Facebook and we all ended up having a nice 'chat' from the four corners of the world pretty much. So sometims swapping recipes is about more than the food.

That sounds lovely, Cider.

ha ha ha ha Calamitously, I had exactly the same thought on this thread about Lemon Drizzle Cunt!

(I actually love lemon drizzle cake, in real life, partly because it is so impossible to buy a good one and so just has to be home made. But I am not sure whether the love of l.d.c makes me an atrocious cunt by association?)

It all seems terribly precious and not a little sad when people refuse to share recipes. Spread the happiness, I say! Also, even if there really are family recipes that have been around so long that they have turned into something truly special, the likelihood is that they'll still turn out slightly differently when cooked by different people.

This thread has inspired me to ask my mum for a particular recipe that I haven't taken down already. She doesn't know the recipe, but will write down what she does as she goes along and make a copy for me and my sister nex time she does it. I love my mum :)

gentlehoney you said there are cultures in which it's rude to ask for a recipe.

Genuinely curious, which cultures?

I just now put a chicken in the oven - it's my mother's recipe.
She's coming for dinner and I'm not sure she'll recognise it as hers.
I've been bastardising cooking and changing it over the years.

Let's see what she says.