Are all the recipes on Hubpages original?

1. 61

   Mark McCleanposted 11 years ago

   Are all the recipes on Hubpages original?
   
   With so many recipes on Hubpages I'm having a hard time believing they are all original recipes. Is that the case?

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   Donna9376posted 11 years ago

   Mine are because most are from my grandma's cook book and some are my own. She was a baker and wrote her own recipes. She has recently passed away, so i thought it would be nice to put them on here. So mine are all original family recipes.

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      LetitiaFTposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      She was a baker? How amazing. You must indeed have some fabulous recipes in hand! I'm going to check them out this instant...

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3. 91

   GoodLadyposted 11 years ago

   No they aren't. 
   If I use a recipe from some other publication for example, I will write what the publication is.  This is what we should do.
   If it's a hand-me-down- from-Mom recipe, we say this. 
   If we don't know where  the recipe is from, we simply say this is one of our family's favorite ways of making......
   I do also invent recipes, as I did with my latest Nutella sandwich in the Goth hub, but I don't say I invented it.  Perhaps i  should, I'm so proud of it.
   It's always best and more interesting to say where the recipe is from - after all we are providing information!

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      Donna9376posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Excuse me but an original recipe is one that hasn't been published before. I do also make it clear which are my grandma's and which are my own.

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      daughtersonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I  use recipies from an old cook book I have and I give it full credit.  The BBQ ribs is my husband's receipe and technique he developed over the years.

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      GoodLadyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      When I wrote "No they aren't" I was answering the question "Are all recipes on HP original?"  - not referring to what you had written!!! (Donna9376)

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4. 62

   Perspycaciousposted 11 years ago

   They better be, or give credit where credit is due!  And besides, which of us have read "all the recipes" to be able to answer this question?

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5. 74

   LetitiaFTposted 11 years ago

   I never put anything I've found on Internet unless I've made significant changes to it, nor do I put recipes from recent cookbooks. In both cases, people are still earning money off them. It's no fairer to copy their hard work than it is to have our own copied. It's a karmic thing. However I will sometimes use an old cookbook or family recipe, in which case I attribute it to the source. My photos are always original.
   
   I've seen recipes copied verbatim and even using the photos of the (usually) blogger who originally posted them, without reference or backlinking. One person went as far as to claim the filched recipes were her grandmother's (she's no longer on HubPages from what I can see). This is plagiarism pure and simple.

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   1. 61

      Mark McCleanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I was looking at one of your recipes and was blown away by both the recipe and especially the pictures. Beautiful! There are a lot of recipes on Hubpages. It stretches credulity to believe they're all original. That is a lot of trial and error.

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   2. 74

      LetitiaFTposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Mark! I appreciate that.

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   kthix10posted 11 years ago

   At this point almost all the recipes I make and write about are from what ever is in my head.  So I don't know if it was originally in a cookbook, a family recipe, or something I experimented with until i got the ingredients right.   I own cookbooks but I rarely pull them out and when I do it is more to get ideas or to try and find a similar recipes to double check the type of ingredients I am using.

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      LetitiaFTposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You're right. They say A.G. Bell was in the patent office waiting room at the same time as someone else who had also and independently invented the telephone. Bell just happened to go first. Fortunately we're not in a patent office!

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   2. 61

      Mark McCleanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Man, that is good to hear! And that sounds like a lot of work. I suppose once you get into creating recipes it's like anything else. You get good at it. Thanks

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's how I came up with a Thai Soup recipe one afternoon.  Boy, is it delicious!

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7. 75

   BeyondGSposted 11 years ago

   A good way to tell if it is original or not is check the writing style. A trend I see is one hub by a publisher is written one way, the next you see a difference in the style. You want to assume that they will post links and references to any recipes they are using that isn't original, but then again you have to use caution.

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      MrsBkayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Great tip! We teachers use the same trick for checking student work!

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8. 73

   Letitialiciousposted 11 years ago

   Determining when and how to credit recipes we write for the Internet is not always easy. Here are a few guidelines that can help us decide and avoid plagiarizing. read more

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Read it and left a comment.  Thanks for the helpful reminders.

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9. 83

   tonymead60posted 11 years ago

   I don't think that many recipes are original, but perhaps most do like I do and put their own ideas in there too. Many of mine are from family cookbooks, but that means that I'm following in Grandma's footsteps. I do cook all mine and write as I cook, where as there are many here who just copy the ingredients and never cook the recipe. All my photos are original and of the dish I am writing about.

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10. 93

    vespawoolfposted 11 years ago

    I'm sure not everyone writes original recipes. But I would give credit if I used someone else's recipe for a hub. When I publish a recipe, it's from a family or friend or one developed or modified in my kitchen. I provide original photos and lots of detail so the dish can be duplicated by others.

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11. 83

    Attikosposted 11 years ago

    There's really no such thing as an original recipe, not in the sense that no one ever made that dish before. I can't imagine any combination of ingredients, methods and gear that can't have been tried before I did it. After all, there are seven billion people on the planet, they all eat, and so did their ancestors back to Adam. That's a whole lot o' cookin'.
    
    The other sense of an original recipe, though, is one you made up yourself, whether or not you were reinventing the wheel at the time. You can even use other people's recipes as guides when you're working up yours. You just can't copy a recipe that already is out there and claim you did anything more than that. If you do, you're a thief, plagiarist subvariety, and if anyone finds out you have earned the right to be treated as what you are.
    
    The Internet is now crawling with recipes. Most everyone fancies himself both a cook and a writer. The competition to make one's recipes stand out from the thundering herd is now so fierce that quite a few folks trying to get noticed have concluded it's a numbers game. Publish four times as many recipes as the Net denizen posting next to you, and you have four times the chance of making a dollar off it. Since no one can develop and write up all that many original recipes, some stoop to swiping them, changing the names to protect the guilty, and throwing them out by the dozen. You see it on countless sites. Hub is no exception.

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    1. 73

       Letitialiciousposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Yep!

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       Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Great comment.

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    Ericdierkerposted 11 years ago

    I sure hope not. Everything, good I know about cooking came from someone else, like mom's, aunt's, wives. I had to be taught to cook. Shucks, that is half the fun. So original by modification maybe, but I would not claim any recipe to be uniquely mine.

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       Mark McCleanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Great answer !

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    Mama Kim 8posted 11 years ago

    I have shoe boxes full of family recipes I've been trying to sort through and categorize for quite some time... some need translating too. Personally I've been using these along with recipes I was taught as I was growing up. Plus some that my husband's family (Korean) has taught me. Are all of these recipes brand new to the culinary world? no  Do I know the original author, or where my family got the ideas? not unless it was a family member. There are several recipes hubs I've created that are all my own recipe as well. As for others? From the people I follow I haven't noticed any obvious copycats ^_^  I can imagine that there are plenty though.

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14. 91

    Nolimits Nanaposted 11 years ago

    How do you define original? I think its likely pretty much every recipe - whether you believe its original to you or not - has been created in a kitchen by someone else somewhere.
    
    However - if you're a cook who reads a lot of recipes, and then tinkers with ingredients, spices, or amounts, and creates a variation with significant changes - I'd say that's an "original". Key being "significant changes".
    
    If you're using or even adapting a recipe from a published source, you should always credit the source.

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       LetitiaFTposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       well and simply put!

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15. 82

    John Sarkisposted 11 years ago

    What is original?  I wrote a hub a few years ago about Cuban food, being Cuban myself.  In that hub I mentioned the fact that Cuba has such a diverse culture and if you look closely at what Cuban food is, you'll see that it's really just French, Spanish, African, Italian and Creole food all rolled up into one.

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    1. 86

       Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Good point.

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16. 86

    Denise Handlonposted 11 years ago

    Great question-it's spurred quite a few comments and at least one hub.  As I was commenting to LetitiaFT earlier today, initially I was going to say, "of course they are original...they just might not be originally posted by that hubber."   Since then, I read Letitious's hub and have concluded that it isn't as simple as saying "all recipes are initially original"   I've learned quite a lot from her hub about crediting the piece of work and agree that there are many recipes on HP that are not being given the proper credit.  This may be stemming from ignorance, however, that is no excuse.     
    
    It's nice to be able to share a recipe, however, and it's variations, without worry that there are fingers pointing from the Recipe Police, as long as there is credit given to its original source.

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    Bill Yovinoposted 11 years ago

    It all depends on what you mean by "original recipes".  Recipes themselves can not be copyrighted, but that doesn't mean you're free to copy someone else's text or photos.  Who's to say that your grandmother's recipe for chicken soup didn't come from my grandmother or some book they both read?

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    1. 61

       Mark McCleanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Good points!

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18. 93

    vespawoolfposted 11 years ago

    How do you know when a recipe has been plagiarized? When can a recipe be called original? How can you create your own recipes? Find the answers to these questions and more in this article. read more

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19. 61

    MrsBkayposted 11 years ago

    I don't know about every recipe Hub, but I can tell you about mine. I have posted two recipe Hubs. The first recipe's general outline was from a cookbook, which I sited in the Hub (shameless promotion: http://mrsbkay.hubpages.com/hub/Sparkli … erry-Punch). As you can see, I did not even hint that this recipe was originally mine. However, I did give tips and tricks and different modifications I used, which I believe is perfectly fine for a recipe Hub. I also ACTUALLY made the food and took my own photos. As long as you are giving options, modifications, or tips, I think "reusing" or revamping an old recipe is well within an ethical range.

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