From The Washington Post:
To taste a Cronut — an actual, legit Cronut — you must be willing to brave the sea of humanity that amasses each morning outside Dominique Ansel Bakery in Manhattan.
You can also go to a Dunkin’ Donuts in pretty much any city and order something that’s kind of like Ansel’s iconic pastry, cut from croissant dough and then deep fried. Or, in Sacramento, you could have a Doissant. In San Francisco, you can scarf down a Cruffin, which is not a doughnut at all, but hey, close enough.
. . . .
But the hottest food trend of the past five years may be copycatting.
Call it food plagiarism.
And the examples go way beyond the Cronut.
Kimchi quesadillas and short-rib tacos were the brilliant pairings that launched Los Angeles’s Roy Choi and the Kogi food trucks — and then set off an echo-boom of Korean-taco knockoffs. New York’s Doughnut Plant claims to have cooked up square jelly doughnuts nearly a decade ago; but now you can have one at Washington’s Astro Doughnuts. Do you drool over the over-the-top cakes with ganache drippings that Australian home baker Katherine Sabbath posts for her nearly 300,000 Instagram followers? Buzz Bakery can sell you an “homage,” and so can plenty of other shops from New York to California.
. . . .
“Once upon a time, a chef produced something, and it slowly made its way around, by people eating there, by word-of-mouth, by traditional media,” says David Sax, author of “The Tastemakers,” which traces the evolution of food crazes. This is how it worked in the days of the Caesar salad and the baked Alaska.
But if cooking has always revolved around adapting and perfecting existing dishes, why does this feel different?
One word: speed. “It’s happening so quickly, it’s impossible to control,” says Sax.
Point a pastry-cream-covered finger at Instagram.
Link to the rest at The Washington Post
The standard one-word answer to the question, “Can you copyright recipes?”, is “No.”
However, as with so many things legal, the complete answer is more complicated. If you would like additional info on recipes and copyright, PG found Are Recipes Protected by Copyright Law? He quickly scanned the post and it looked informative.
Friendly Reminder: A blog post is not legal advice. You obtain legal advice by hiring a lawyer.
Click to Tweet/Email/Share This Post