Plagiarism

I haven’t been online in a while but came here to vent about the lack of  ethics of some bloggers. One of my recipes – the Godhumai Pongal one – is my mother’s ORIGINAL creation. This recipe has ALSO appeared on other sites – ironically, also on Sulekha where Amma first published it a few years ago. I do not mind people reprinting recipes they find elsewhere, PROVIDED they have the courtesy to ask the recipe creator first. One blogger was kind enough to acknowledge that she found the recipe on my weblog when publishing it on her own, but another simply tweaked my mother’s recipe ever so slightly to actually submit to a contest, including the “it is supposed to be good for diabetics” comment!!!! Well, I know for a fact that it *IS* good for diabetics because my father is one and the recipe is the result of my mother’s tireless efforts to come up with healthy but tasty dishes for him!!

I am all about sharing the knowledge but, please, can we be considerate of the recipe creator and acknowledge her creativity???? Even though the recipe is my mother’s, I specifically ASKED for her permission before publishing it on my own blog. Naturally, it bothers me when strangers lift recipes off of someone else’s website and pass it off on their own. A few twists here and there (such as 4 whistles as opposed to 3  or 3 measures of water as opposed to 2.5 or dropping the ghee to make the final product ‘healtheir’ — these twists DO NOT MAKE THE RECIPE YOURS).

This person knows who she is and I hope that she will be more considerate of others at least in the future. I am sure she wouldn’t like to see HER original concoctions appear elsewhere with minute twists and turns, and I hope she is as considerate of others in the future.

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