"Jack Tyler" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> The Galloping Gourmand pontificating:
>
>> If all readers of this NG would go out and acquire a few good
>> copyrighted cookbooks, they could avoid the endless trolling and flame
>> wars of Usenet and they would actually learn some of the basics of
>> Mexican cooking without encountering self-important people who enjoy
>> trying to dominate strangers on the internet.
>
> It just makes good sense to attribute recipes from acknowledged authors
> in a newsgroup where one is likely to get flamed ruthlessly for
> "non-authentic" recipes. I have posted a recipe or two from Patricia
> Quintana. Mentioning her name kept people from calling me an idiot (in
> those cases) for posting a stupid recipe. Most respect her as a
> Mexican chef. In my opinion, it's as important to know where a good
> recipe is as it is to be able to cook it.
>
> Jack

Absolutely Jack. From a food writer's, a journalist's or even a cook's
perspective, it is not only good sense, it is always been considered correct
to reference the source of a recipe, if known.

I believe, also like you do, that using knowledgeable persons like Quintana,
Ortiz, Kennedy, Bayless, the Jamisons, dissuades all but the most obnoxious
from using cherry picked "facts" or attempting to use the "Appeal to
Ignorance" approach which Segan refutes with his quote that the "absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence" ; i.e. I lived in or I traveled to
_____ for ____ years and I never saw___. {fill in the blanks}. Another of
my beliefs is to have a somewhat rudimentary knowledge of your source's
authenticity or credentials,( hence my initial discussion with you .

The link below contains some of the elements of copyright, ethics and
plagiarism that I have found to be true. As well I use the "rule of thumb"
that three major components or changes are required to be made to make a
recipe "yours". In my personal book I have say the Heirloom recipe and then
my version. If I have a reasonable belief that a recipe is public domain
and contains nothing unique, exciting or revolutionary , I will not usually
not bother to hunt down a recipe source. There are many authors and/or
publishers that overuse or misrepresent the copyright symbol as a blanket
scare tactic, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010300316.html