Coke has their secret recipe, though it’s not quite as secret as people think. KFC has their 11 herbs and spices.
But you ain’t Colonel Sanders. (I’d give a shout out on the off chance Harlan dropped by, but he died several years before I got my first internet connection.) So there’s not much chance you’ve got some secret recipe that’s going to make you rich.
Oh sure, you might, but it’s kind of like planning to win the lottery: You better have a plan B.
So why do so many people have “secret recipes” that they won’t share with friends and family? Does Aunt Betty’s peach cobbler taste better because you don’t know how to make it? Does Cousin Frank think people are going around talking about how good his chili is when he’s not around?
Instead of explaining this over and over to people, I’m just going to say this one more time. Anyone who agrees, feel free to point to this page.
- If you share your secret recipe, your version will still taste just as good.
- If you leave out one or two ingredients so mine isn’t quite the same, I won’t be grateful. I’ll be pissed.
- Yes, I like your cooking, but I visit for the company. If the only reason to visit you is for the food, you’re not a friend: You’re a restaurant. I’ll be sure to leave a tip.
- If I make your recipe and people pay me compliments, I’ll tell them I got it from you.
- If you make me figure it out on my own you get no credit.
- If your recipe really is that great, you could be remembered as the person with the best cookies in the church bake sale. Or if you share it, you could be the person who invented chocolate chip cookies.
Let’s share, people. It’s the right thing to do.
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Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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68 Comments
YES! I’m not quite awake enough right now to figure out where to put it on my blog, but I will the next time I have a coherent moment!
The reason I keep some secrets: So people will come back! The secret isn’t the ingredient, it’s the desire for more opportunities to cook for people I care about.
I totally agree! Unless of courses your entering a contest – then I understand the reason for having to keep mum!
I love rule number 2!
I’m all about sharing a recipe if someone asks. Then again I’ve never created an April original to be secretive about. I’m so giving (or absent minded?) I’d probably end up spilling the beans before I even thought twice about it.
Isn’t it interesting that it’s the anonymous comment that’s in favor of secrets?
But thanks for the reminder, I need to go update that with another rule: If the only reason to visit you is for the food, you’re not a friend: You’re a restaurant. I’ll be sure to leave a tip.
I’ve got 2 secret recipes. One is secret for legal reasons: I know it isn’t original, but I don’t know the provenance. I don’t want to fail to cite it properly.
The other is an old family recipe that was handed down to me, and only me, by my grandmother. She specifically wanted it secret and wouldn’t even let anyone else in the kitchen while cooking it. I honor her memory by not sharing it – but I also don’t post tantalizing pictures of it online.
I’m totally a secret non-keeper when it comes to recipes. I blab my recipes all over. If someone likes something I make, I practically force the recipe on them – I’m just like that. I love it when people love something enough to make it themselves, and they have me to thank for it!
Awesome. Done and done.
A-friggin'-MEN!
It's annoying when folks won't share a good recipe. I'm always willing to share mine – one of the most flattering things that ever happened was when somebody turned around & served one of my dishes to me when I visited for dinner…
Fearless, everyone has to make their own choices, but if I had a favorite family recipe that I thought was that good, I’d want as many people as possible to eat it.
Stephanie, I’m the same way. I try to stop when I see their eyes glaze over.
Bob, it’s now officially a movement.
Darth, that is awesome. But around here the only time people have people over for dinner it’s a cookout.
My Grandma used to do that: leave ingrediants out of the recipes she gave me, because then at the family dinners where I was making ‘her’ dish – she could swoop in and rescue it, very publicly. She was crazy like a fox, and hated sharing the limelight. She’s gone now but I like to bug her (down in the hot place
) by sharing with everyone.
Alyson, that’s … that’s just wrong, on so many levels. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall at your family’s Thanksgiving when Grandma was still around.
I glanced through this yesterday but thought it doesn’t apply, ’cause I have no secret recipes.
HOWEVER!!!! Last night I started to make my amazing cookies and realized the recipe was indeed SECRET because I made it up!!!! And I’m not telling!!!
OK, I’ll tell anybody who’ll ask for it and then remember to call it Meadowlark’s cookies. So maybe it’s not SECRET after all.
I especially like #4. Funny and oh, so true!!
I will defintely be adding this to my blog.
I am adding this to my blog, too.
Cos people that bring things to potlucks then go all secret squirrel about the recipe are not nice people at all. ‘Specially when they laugh in your face like you’ve committed some grievous faux pas by even asking.
I, on the other hand, usually have at least one print out of my recipes to share with people. Otherwise, I will just tell them, type it out real fast or email/distribute it at my leisure.
I love sharing recipes (have gotten some really outstanding ones from all around the world, too.)
Tom and lorrwill, welcome to the movement.
I agree, it’s really annoying browsing a food blog who don’t even want to put the recipe.
Totally agree! We posted it here: http://ladiesrecipes.wikidot.com
I couldn’t agree more. Secrecy with recipes is all about ego, not about sharing–which is what cooking is all about. Great post.
Two real life experiences that show you should share. A friend of mine made a Hummingbird Cake, and when I asked for the recipe, she said that she only wanted me to enjoy it when I was with her. I remember her making it twice. My friend died in a terrible accident. Her daughter contacted me asking if I had any of her mom’s recipes…unfortunately I didn’t. She was very upset that she would never be able to share those cooking memories with her children, because she had none of the recipes. Another friend always shared her recipes. She had a kitchen fire. She called all her friends and relatives and asked for her recipes…she was able to retrieve many of them. I am hapy to share.
I’m so sorry for your friend’s daughter. That’s rough.
In a way, this reminds me of people who won’t let anyone take their picture. They want to control how we think of them. But my memory of you is mine. If you don’t want to be remembered, all you have to do is guard your image jealously. Then when you’re gone you’re well and truly gone.
Wow I love this blog! It reminds me of my blog! Great minds and cooks think alike. http://www.breakfeefromcookbookbondage.blogspot.com
I love this guy Drew though. . My friends know that I will share my recipes with you but you will have to come cook with me to learn. My "secret ingredients" are secret becuse I am not always sure how much of it I use. I am a toos this in and add that kind of person, I measure alot of things with my palm or by sight. So really no secret recipes for me. . you just have to work to get them
Alice, I've still got a few things that are like that. I taste and adjust as I go, but I've never actually measured it. And I never think about it until I'm halfway done.
I've just discovered your blog and am really enjoying reading it.
I do agree with all the points people have made regarding "No Secret Recipes" but do want to contribute one more:
Ever do a recipe exactly the same as someone else, yet it tastes different? Ounce for ounce, measure for measure identical – but there is just something you cannot define in the taste testing.
I've done this with my mom, made pasta salads and sandwiches side by side with her – we were like conjoined twins in the kitchen – and yet I could tell the difference between hers and mine (and preferred hers every time lol).
Something undefined happens during preparation/cooking/etc., of a recipe that makes it your own.
So, in my opinion, secret recipes are moot because if you make it and then I do – it will be similar but never the same.
Topaz, I made two pans of gravy side-by-side when I catered an event a little while ago. Me, both pans, side-by-side … and they weren't the same. I don't expect things to be exactly the same every time.
hi Drew!
I usally mix sugar with normal yogurt to make a small treat. the problem, its nice but there is no flavor! Sorry for my english im from Canadian. Could i use juice powders or soda?
Anon, I'd go with fresh fruit before using a manufactured powder.
This is fantastic! I've lived by this rule since I was a kid. Although, back then it was me making my mom share all her recipes. I think I was too cute for her to say no!
Food is meant to be shared and, in that spirit, I share recipes!
It's so nice to see someone else with this opinion! My German Oma guarded her recipes jealously; she'd tell my mum (good ol' Aussie, descended from convincts and all) bits of it, then probably cackle away silently when it didn't come out right. Awful lady. Fortunately, my Opa was a lovely man, and he'd tell my mum what she was missing! It's only because of this that my sister and I have any traditional recipes to show our half-German heritage.
My most-requested recipe is Chocolate Chip Macaroons, and I got it off the side of the packet! I have told this to every single person who ever complimented me, yet they still ask me to make it! I even wrote the recipe down for a few of its most adamant admirers, but they still get me to make them. Funny how it works, isn't it?
Wyv, I just stood in front of five people and made something for them, showing them every step and every ingredient, and they still acted like it was a mystery.
One of them did ask some good questions though, so I suspect she'll be making it soon.
And what about we new cooks, you know those of us who can boil water without burning it.
I agree with Haniff about posting food blogs with not recipe or like to a recipe. Every time I learn how to make something I tell any and everyone how to make it.
However, once I was blessed ot be given a friend's family recipe that I could not share ever. That did not stop me from finding and giving out a copy recipe online.
Elftea, I've found that most "secret family recipes" really aren't that different from how everyone makes it. If you've seen Kung Fu Panda, it's like the Secret Recipe Soup.
I absolutely agree with no secret recipes, though the last one I shared was used by that person to make money in their coffee shop – no credit or money for me
Those people just tend to ruin things for everyone, don't they?
I also HATE it when people leave out a technique, step, or ingredient that is what makes the recipe work. Took me watching my ex-sis-in-law make her "famous" pasta salad to realize she adds sugar to meld the ingredients together, and vinegar to take away the sweetness – neither of which are in the recipe!
Now that is not cool. They should at least name it after you or something.
The least they could have done was told me why they wanted the recipe. I just felt completely hijacked. I don't at all mind sharing recipes and family recipes with friends who enjoy them, but monetary gain out of them is another story..lol
BTW, Thank you for sharing your recipes with us!
I’m so glad you all are doing this…. I don’t have enough ego to have secrets anyway…
Thank you very much……….. Michael’s Kitchen
Michael, I tried to leave a comment on the chili cook-off post but some script kept hanging. So I’ll tell you here, that was one of the funniest things I’ve ever read about food. And Frank’s problem was using beer to try to kill the heat. Everyone knows you use milk for that. (Everyone does know that, don’t they?)
Drew,
I’m Looking for a old fashion Bread Pudding that’s stands up high after it’s cooled down, my Mother In Law made the best.But she is not with us anymore and the reciept went with her.
thanks
Lori
Lori, I think my mother-in-law has a recipe. I’ll check with her. If she does, I’ll make it here.
Usually, I agree with this sentiment. Unfortunately, my family has had problems with identity theft and people going to ridiculous means to portray themselves as “the REAL Doe family,” so the true “family” recipes– as in, they weren’t found in cookbooks, but were spawned by family members over fifty years ago– are given only to people I actually know. It’s sad, because I WANT to share. I won’t feel safe doing so until my mother tells me the legal stuff is over. So, even though I support the ideal… I can’t put the badge on my recipe blog. It would be hypocritical. Sorry.
If there is existing name recognition, then I can totally understand trying to protect that value. It’s the people who are using a recipe straight out of Better Homes that won’t tell anyone what’s in it who drive me crazy.
I love family recipes and have collected them over the years. I just recently printed every one that I had from both sides of the family and gave family cookbooks to everyone. I wanted all of the nieces, nephews, and cousins to be able to make Paps Goulash and any other recipe and to share the memories.
My MIL was a secret-keeper. She was the type who didn’t need to measure, and she would never, never give you all the ingredients to her recipes. So her lambchop marinade and her pestinyo recipe went to the cemetary with her. Fat lot of good they are doing us there.
I love sharing good food; and if you want the recipe, I consider that a compliment to me.
Womble, that last line is exactly how I feel about it.
Wow Drew! This is the first thing I read when I visited you from Nourished Kitchen. I couldn’t agree more, and made it my post for Tuesday. I come from a long line of grood (some great) home cooks who generously hand wrote & shared their recipes. I treasure each one, and consider it a privilege AND a responsibility to share. I am heartbroken over the daughter who can’t share her mother’s recipe! That should NEVER happen!
Chris, if there were some way to ask them, I’d like to know what women are thinking when they take their recipes to the grave. What’s the point?
My problem – I add vanilla to almost every baked good if it’s not in the recipe, whether it’s a fruit bread or chocolate-based. I always pour- from the bottle, no idea how much. I always forget to write it on the recipe, but it’s always in there. I should just give everyone a vanilla heads-up. My grandmother does the same thing with garlic.
We forget, b/c it just belongs there.
Erin, for lots of old recipes it’s salt and pepper that aren’t listed. If you see the phrase “adjust seasoning”, that’s what they’re talking about.
Interesting discussion, but I’ll take the other side of the debate:
There is psychology involved in our enjoyment of anything, including food.
You don’t just dump food on a plate, you arrange it nicely.
People DO enjoy stuff more when they feel they’re sampling an elusive, special, elite dish.
The “secret” to many secret recipes is that there is no real secret!
But knowing that ruins all the fun.
You don’t run around demanding to know how a magician does his tricks, do you?
Enjoy the dishes you enjoy and if someone doesn’t want to share their “secret” then just go with it, right?
Maybe that’s easy for me to say because no one asks for my recipes! lol
Jenn, that’s an interesting point. I think it’s definitely true in a restaurant. Have you seen Kung Fu Panda
? “The secret is there is no secret.”
When I’m eating at a friend’s house, though, it should be about the friendship and social aspect. Sure, great food helps, but I’d hate to think that’s the only reason people come to visit.
Drew, I love how you’ve articulated this and I couldn’t agree more. I think that when people get all private with their recipes (and I seem to be living in the middle of a NEST them!) they’re missing the point of good food. If I make something that looks perfect and tastes even better and NOBODY EATS IT, I’ve failed! The whole point is love….feeding people we love, eating with people we love. Even in a restaurant, someone, somewhere LOVES feeding people and that’s why there’s a restaurant.
I’ve JUST moved to self-hosting my blog so I’m still on a steep learning curve. When I can figure it out, I’ll put your button on my page.
Thanks for your newsletters; I get a LOT of weekly newsletters in my email box and yours is one of the few that I actually read. They’re always interesting and useful.
Barb
Hi Drew,
I operated a bakery for some years and it brought back so many memories. I’ve always thought it a pretty useless exercise to fuss about keeping recipes secret . Unless you are a baking aficionado or run a food business, chances are that the recipe will sit in a drawer unused for years anyway. I like your writing style and will be bookmarking your blog. Looking forward to reading more.
Robert
I have the “secret” recipe for the Sundance Tree room rolls…it took three years to get it just right. If you want it, I’ll give it to you…out of spite! No, it was a fun adventure!!!
Well of course I want it! You tell me you’ve got a secret and think I’m not going to want it?
Stumbled on your blog and thoroughly enjoyed this post (as well as the rest of your blog). I recently posted about a Dear Abby article on secret recipes. What the heck, I’ll join the movement
Your welcome to leave a comment on my post (http://cookingwithkick.blogspot.com/2011/03/secret-recipes.html) for others who might like to join too!
On the other, other, hand: Let’s be fair to cooks of yore. Our grandmothers and mothers, too, rarely had the time to write down recipes. Taking care of a home and family was an all day process. Many, many, grandmothers couldn’t write and rarely measured ingredients. They just cooked their food. And, that was their specialty in their corner of the world. It defined them at the church suppers and socials. No one spoke for hours on the porch about how white her wash was or how clean her floors. (Oh, it was mentioned, but then, as anyone would, they moved on) And, while she might well have a family of 14 children, most people didn’t want THAT recipe, either! It’s only food that people wax eloquent on and will remember, dream of, and desire. She was, at that time, known for her ________. Today, a woman has so many career options that many not only don’t cook, they WON’T cook. At our church suppers, we always include a recipe card for people who might want to make it themselves.
However, I stand tall next to you for the cook who purposely leaves out an ingredient or tries to pass off a boxed mix as her/his own.
Now, a true story: My husband’s great-aunt lived off the land and her husband brought home the protein (get my drift, vegans?) And, she made the most gorgeous tall cakes. Uncle John was always bragging about them and how she made them from scratch — and, they were beautiful, light, moist, everything a fantastic cake should be. Uncle John never went into the kitchen. In those days, men had to be brought a glass of water or just dropped a hand in the well bucket. After his funeral, we all returned to their home for the wake. I asked Auntie what was her secret to all these magnificent home made cakes that I couldn’t replicate. We went into the kitchen. She opened her cabinet doors. On the top shelf sat at least a dozen Duncan Hines cake mixes and as many Dream Whip boxes! She said why should she work her butt off because HE needed to think she made everything from scratch? They were her ‘secret’ ingredients and no one was going to know! Well, now, you do.
Sharlene, that’s such a great story.
I can understand the frustration about secret recipes, but I also understand the impetus to keep things under wrap. I’m iffy about sharing recipes I work on with my family, because it seems that if you make a dish for one of our family gatherings more than twice, you are the unquestioned bearer of that for the foreseeable future and it is yours. There’s no longer any thought as to where it came from.
So I’m really not too concerned with my family using, say, the biscuit recipe I worked on that very closely resembles my grandmother’s. I’m concerned about my cousin making it a couple of times and then staking her claim to making “her biscuits” for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc. I like to think of it as the Creative Commons: using it is all well and good, but please attribute it. I put a nice bit of time and flour into that dish and I rather it not be brushed aside. And that seems to eventually disappear in my family.
(Site related question: is there any way to turn off the newsletter subscription box? There is absolutely no way for me to get rid of it since the bottom third or so is never visible on my screen, though I suspect that may just be my version of FireFox being grumpy.)
Katie, part of me would welcome that. Personally I hate being stuck with a specific dish that I’m expected to make every time. The first couple of times people ask for it you’re flattered. By about the fifth time you hear, “And you’ll be bringing your biscuits of course, won’t you?” you start thinking, “Geeze, is that the only reason they’re inviting me?”
Besides, what if I want to try a variation? Or even a whole new dish? Actually the variation would be the bigger problem as everyone says, “Gosh, the old way was so good, why would you change it?”
The chance to make a new dish/variation is completely understood. However, I know that for my family gatherings (about the only get-togethers I go to, because I really don’t like being around people in those sorts of settings), there’s no real point in me making anything other than baked goods such as biscuits or rolls. I know that the baked goods, at least, will be eaten.
Should I bring something that I think is good–a pumpkin cream cheese spread; a roasted vegetable dish with such things as carrot, sweet potato, pumpkin, and parsnips; or a variation on spinach dip loaded with the chard from our garden, without labeling it as such–it sits there basically untouched. Perhaps five of the twenty or more people will generally sample it, while the potatoes covered in Velveeta and green bean casserole disappear almost immediately. I really have no incentive to bring anything else, because I’ll just take most of it home. Last Thanksgiving, I ate almost all of the aforementioned vegetables myself after a ridiculous amount of time went by with their being ignored, because it was basically the only thing there not covered in some sort of fake cheese or loaded with margarine. Blech.
And my iffiness about sharing recipes I’ve developed with my family continues to be that the recipe will soon become someone else’s to claim. Because I put a lot of time, effort, flour, butter, and lard into that biscuit recipe; I’d be justifiably irritated if I shared the recipe with someone and it becomes, “Jill, bring your biscuits”, rather than, “Jill, are you or Katie going to make those biscuits this time?”
But, yes, I do understand where you’re coming from.
Ooh … I hope you don’t mind my saying, I don’t think I’d enjoy a potluck with your family. :-/ Fake cheese and (I’m guessing) several cans of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup. Yumm.
If you own a restaurant and the recipe is a manu item that brings people in the door and you are famous for it would be foolish to give it out because of financial concerns…But if you are a home chef and come up with a great one the reward is the personal fame you receive for inventing it and the respect you get from your peers.
The way I view it cooking is science and just like every other science benefits are only gained when people share their work freely. Why keep reinventing the wheel? Why labor alone time and time again just to end up rediscovering something lost? It’s not about petty ego, but making about advancing the general state of human knowledge.
If you’re making money off of it, well… I can see the appeal of keeping it secret, but keep a copy around so it never ends up being lost to the future. Most people are likely going to still giving you money just out of laziness or a lack of technique to begin with and marketing will often fix the rest (what if the store brand cola uses the same exact recipe as Coke, would you even know?). As mentioned the Toll House recipe is famous for good reason, is its availability what’s really keeping you from visiting the original? If you’re well-known already that just gives you a greater chance to sell cookbooks and you miss out on nothing.
We don’t need another Fermat’s Last Theorem out there and that’s all we’re getting when people keep recipes secret.
Hard to believe any recipe is “secret” in this day and age…..somewhere on the internet it it out there. And why not share an old family recipe….a bit controlling I think.
Well, I’m venturing a guess here, but I suspect most of us who blog or talk of food – don’t mind sharing. With that said, I do understand the corporate secrets of Coke and KFC – it doesn’t break my heart because I probably wouldn’t want to make their secret recipe for Chips Ahoy anyway.
As for Grannies, friends and acquaintances who keep secrets, some have a fundamental reason for doing it. We don’t always understand it, but when you think about it, it’s not so hard to digest.
In my research in Heirloom cooking, I’ve come across tons of these recipes. The common theme amongst most all of them is the women who hold the secrets. We’re not talking corporate executives, women with tons of hobbies or unlimited amounts of freedom to engage, create or (in their minds) add value. We’re talking of women who were, for the most part, stay at home wives and mothers. They had very little to contribute to the family other than their cooking, cleaning, mothering and other domestic skills. I once asked my Grandmother why she didn’t like sharing her secrets and she said, “Because my cooking is what I’m known for. It’s all I have.” With that, she broke down in tears and you could have hit me with a 2 x 4. She was right, we all loved Grandma – but Grandma and great cook were always in the same sentence. She lived to be 102 years old and never felt she could contribute much more than amazing breads and pies.. how sad.
For a rather funny story, my Father gave to me a Church Cookbook from a small town in Minnesota after his sister passed away. Knowing how I collect these little treasures, he snagged this book and passed it along. As I browsed through the recipes, I noticed that many of the recipes had measures that were obviously incorrect, some lacked temperatures to bake, simmer or boil. Some lacked other details that would make or break the recipe. I called my Dad and said, “What a weird cookbook! Half of the recipes are incomplete!” My Dad said, “Make a note of who submitted those recipes and then come to your own conclusions.” I did that and sure enough, there were a half dozen or so ladies who were consistently connected to these particular recipes. I had to laugh, because apparently.. these women were horribly competitive at the local fairs and bake offs. It was serious business when you won a Blue Ribbon for your Rhubarb Pie!!
I think it’s kind of cute..
That’s so sad. I can’t decide, though, if it’s sad that cooking was the only thing a woman could be known for, or that women thought that was true.