Is it OK to reverse engineer the recipes for restaurant dishes so you can make them at home?
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@evan In my perception of words, yes.
Asking might give you the correct recipe in a very short time, and this is definitely somehow with communication.
Reversing it might take ages, can be done all alone (given an unlimited supply to compare to), and probably will yield several other revelations, perhaps even new recipes, and definitely a very deep connection to the subject.
It's a bit like using HI (human intelligence) vs. using your PI (personal intelligence). :)
@jesterchen So, here's a thought: is there a difference between reverse engineering without asking for the recipe, and reverse engineering after asking for the recipe and being told no?
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@DavidBHimself what if it's not your culture?
@evan It's someone else's culture that they shared with you to experience and of course you're allowed to try to recreate the experience at home.
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@gabboman @evan If you try to start a restaurant with food you don't "understand" I'm fine with it. Your restaurant probably won't last long.
And sorry, let's not bring the "cultural appropriation" thing with food. It's already a very dubious concept in the first place, but every single cuisine is the result of mixing of cultures and other cuisines ingredients.
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@evan It's someone else's culture that they shared with you to experience and of course you're allowed to try to recreate the experience at home.
@DavidBHimself is it possible that sharing to experience and sharing to replicate are two different kinds of sharing? And if so, that some cultures or individuals might offer one but not the other?
And could relative power dynamics come into play? If it's a relationship between French customers and refugee restauranteurs from a former colony, for example? Or between Israeli customers and Palestinian cooks?
What about consent? What if you asked for the recipe, and the restauranteur refused?
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@evan I voted "yes, but" on the grounds that reverse engineering how the dishes are so good may cause you to learn things you did not want to know about their preparation, like (allegedly) just how much butter goes into any number of them. Ignorance can be bliss, or lead to blissful continued consumption of restaurant dishes.
But maybe you wanted to know anyway. Reverse engineer away.
@cks this is a really good point!
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@virtuous_sloth @evan abd yet everyone accepts it as normal for other areas!! It never makes sense to me
@lizzard @virtuous_sloth do you have any family recipes?
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@gabboman @evan If you try to start a restaurant with food you don't "understand" I'm fine with it. Your restaurant probably won't last long.
And sorry, let's not bring the "cultural appropriation" thing with food. It's already a very dubious concept in the first place, but every single cuisine is the result of mixing of cultures and other cuisines ingredients.
@DavidBHimself @gabboman maybe it's a less dubious concept if you're not from an colonialist culture.
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@lizzard @virtuous_sloth do you have any family recipes?
@evan @virtuous_sloth have my great aunt Connies prune cookies! Put in brandy as much as you like https://flic.kr/p/2o5ys1Y
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@DavidBHimself is it possible that sharing to experience and sharing to replicate are two different kinds of sharing? And if so, that some cultures or individuals might offer one but not the other?
And could relative power dynamics come into play? If it's a relationship between French customers and refugee restauranteurs from a former colony, for example? Or between Israeli customers and Palestinian cooks?
What about consent? What if you asked for the recipe, and the restauranteur refused?
@evan Sorry, but North Americans, you really have a weird relationship with food.
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@evan Sorry, but North Americans, you really have a weird relationship with food.
@DavidBHimself we do! I know that as part of a refugee and diaspora community, food is an extremely important part of retaining culture.
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@evan I did yes but because I have no idea what you mean by "reverse engineer". If you are going to the restaurant several times to order said dish and figure it out based on taste, sure go ahead. But if you're doing more complicated things like tracking down previous employees and asking them, well that's another matter. Typically at home you're not trying to replicate restaurant dishes exactly, you're just trying to get close but easier/healthier. Less butter, salt etc than restaurants use. I imagine chefs try to replicate restaurant meals all the time, but then improve them or make them their own.
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@lizzard @lmorchard so, just wondering: why is everyone so hung up on copyright? The question doesn't ask about copyright at all.
@evan I think the reason everyone is so hung up on copyright is that most (all?) ethical systems have no objection to copying. So for most people, the reason copying might be unethical is if it would involve breaking the law.
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Wow, what a poll! Thanks to everyone who responded or replied. I thought about this topic as I was reverse engineering the blueberry pancakes from a cafe in Halifax that I really liked. My answer is yes, but. I'll give my reasoning.
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Wow, what a poll! Thanks to everyone who responded or replied. I thought about this topic as I was reverse engineering the blueberry pancakes from a cafe in Halifax that I really liked. My answer is yes, but. I'll give my reasoning.
First and foremost is cultural appropriation. Food culture is an important part of retaining culture in diaspora communities, and different communities have different standards for sharing that culture outside the community. Especially when dishes are part of a cohesive whole, decontextualizing and commodifying those dishes can feel disrespectful and appropriative.
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First and foremost is cultural appropriation. Food culture is an important part of retaining culture in diaspora communities, and different communities have different standards for sharing that culture outside the community. Especially when dishes are part of a cohesive whole, decontextualizing and commodifying those dishes can feel disrespectful and appropriative.
I mentioned in replies that as a member of the Palestinian diaspora, I make our food for friends and colleagues when they come to my house, but I don't normally give out family recipes. Those are for my kids, niblings, and future generations.
I recognise that this is different than running a restaurant. And that not all diaspora cultures hold onto recipes this way. Palestinian food culture has been particularly plundered in a conscious campaign of erasure, so it's a very sensitive one.
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I mentioned in replies that as a member of the Palestinian diaspora, I make our food for friends and colleagues when they come to my house, but I don't normally give out family recipes. Those are for my kids, niblings, and future generations.
I recognise that this is different than running a restaurant. And that not all diaspora cultures hold onto recipes this way. Palestinian food culture has been particularly plundered in a conscious campaign of erasure, so it's a very sensitive one.
A good story about reverse engineering is the Portland food cart where the creators literally spied on Oaxacan women making tortillas to learn their secrets.
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A good story about reverse engineering is the Portland food cart where the creators literally spied on Oaxacan women making tortillas to learn their secrets.
Again, there's a big difference between making food for yourself at home and selling it to others.
But there are ways to appropriate culture even if you're not selling it. I mentioned in replies the practice of publishing recipes in blog posts, either naming the restaurant or just the dish. Even sharing the recipe with friends and family is performative. Making the food for dinner guests can be, too.
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First and foremost is cultural appropriation. Food culture is an important part of retaining culture in diaspora communities, and different communities have different standards for sharing that culture outside the community. Especially when dishes are part of a cohesive whole, decontextualizing and commodifying those dishes can feel disrespectful and appropriative.
@evan I recognize it's a very *VERY* different path through history, but as a descendant of the “community of people who grew up on the east coast and have personally hand-picked probably hundreds of pounds of wild roadside blueberries”, I think those pancakes are fair game. (-;
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Again, there's a big difference between making food for yourself at home and selling it to others.
But there are ways to appropriate culture even if you're not selling it. I mentioned in replies the practice of publishing recipes in blog posts, either naming the restaurant or just the dish. Even sharing the recipe with friends and family is performative. Making the food for dinner guests can be, too.
There are also relative power dynamics at stake. When your country has invaded and colonised another, extracting resources and labour over centuries, there is a particularly vampiric quality to appropriating culture from the people there, too. The fact that formerly colonised people often migrate to the metropole, and that migrants often set up restaurants with their home cuisine, confounds the issue.
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There are also relative power dynamics at stake. When your country has invaded and colonised another, extracting resources and labour over centuries, there is a particularly vampiric quality to appropriating culture from the people there, too. The fact that formerly colonised people often migrate to the metropole, and that migrants often set up restaurants with their home cuisine, confounds the issue.
Whether it's Indonesian food in Amsterdam, Southeast Asian food in Paris or Central American food in the USA, the pattern of colonial cultures extracting now intangible resources from invaded and colonised peoples continues.
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I like it when people send me thoughtful responsive notes about things I've written. I think it's possible to set up a social network so that most of what you get follows that pattern. It has to do with incentives.
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@lizzard @virtuous_sloth I'll try it!
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@TheRealPomax muahahha, my nefarious purpose to get everyone’s potato recipes is working!!! 😈
This is like sous vide potato technique, Pomax, yum 👀
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@malte maybe?
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@haubles chunk and boil until just off firm, then transfer to a bowl, have them come up to room temperature (do not rinse in cold water, let the residual heat do the cooking), then pan fry on high heat until golden and finish by tossing with mustard.
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@davad it could be! It could even make you feel more bonded to the cuisine.
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@tess up until a few years ago, I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. But, we've had a decade of our institutions, every one of them, being captured by the dumbest, meanest, most regressive creatures, and I just don't see how we as a nation recover from that.
The rot is not merely at the top. Everybody* went along with fascism. Everybody went along with hatred for immigrants, trans folks. Everybody went along with disregard for the scientific consensus on climate.
*-Everybody=institutions
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@evan thanks for the insightful thread. I want to push back on this assumption:
> if you make the dish at home, you are somewhat or even very much less likely to go buy it at the restaurant
This assumption seems to treat going to a restaurant as strictly transactional. But in practice, I don't think people go to a specific restaurant just to buy a specific dish. It's a mix of the food, ambience, not wanting to cook, etc.
