Cindy McCain Stealing Cookie Recipe?
It seems like Cindy McCain is up to it again. It looks like she's been caught with her hand in the cookie jar trying to pass off other folks' recipes as her own. In this case, the nattering nabobs of negativity are saying she's guilty of lifting a recipe for Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies from Hershey's. Here's Cindy McCain's recipe (part of a prospective first lady cookie showdown; here's Michelle Obama's Shortbread Cookies recipe).
I'm going to give Ms. McCain the benefit of the doubt here. Her recipe is remarkably similar to the Hershey's recipe, but here are some talking points Cindy could use to get ahead of this spin:
- "Baking is an exact practice": You must follow ingredient amounts closely or risk your product failing. Because of that, there is little room for deviation in an Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookie recipe and little surprise that one would be so similar to another
- "I was merely acting on information given to me": It's pefectly plausible that McCain was given the recipe by a "good friend" who just so happened to get it from Hershey's. I mean, come on, how many families have incorporated and passed down the back-of-the-bag Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe into their repertoires? (Although I do love what So Good blog says, "It turns out that like many Republicans, one of Cindy’s “good friends” is not an actual person, but a corporation." Heh
And while I'm at it, I'd like to take Family Circle magazine to task for dragging the candidates' wives into this. I was hoping for a cleaner campaign this year, but it looks like the media just can't let the pols go toe to toe on the real issues without dragging cookie recipes into the mud.
And while I'm at it, what would have happened had Hillary Clinton won the nomination? Would the stereotypical gender roles be turned on their head with Bill being asked to pony up his best cookie? I'd hope so.
| HERSHEY'S | McCAIN'S |
|---|---|
Ingredients:
Directions: 2. Beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. 3. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips; mix well. Drop by heaping teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. 4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 dozen cookies. | Ingredients 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine, softened 3/4 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 cups rolled oats 1-2/3 cups butterscotch chips Directions 1. Heat oven to 375 degree F. 2. In a large bowl beat the butter or margarine, granulated sugar and brown sugar together. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating well. 3. In a medium-size bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture; stir until blended. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. 4. Bake at 375 degree F for 10 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. |
Asked for comment on all this, noted baked-goods pundit Cookie Monster said, "Me no care where recipe come from. Me only care how cookie tastes! Om nom nom nom."
Related
Cindy McCain Allegedly Lifting Recipes from Food Network's Giada de Laurentiis
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12 Comments:
The mag asked for the cookie submissions before Hillary dropped out, so Bill did provide a recipe for his favorite cookie, courtesy of "longtime Clinton family cook," Oscar Flores. (Flores is now reportedly serving in Iraq but in what capacity...who knows? As a cook, serving in Iraq could mean he's acting as a personal chef for someone and "serving" food.)
Some people say Flores' recipe is remarkably similar to a Betty Crocker recipe but it seems like maybe the spouse's submissions are the favorite cookie of the candidate and not necessarily an original recipe that they whipped up.
Family Circle has apparently been asking readers to rock the cookie vote for the past six or seven presidential elections and the readers have correctly picked the winning candidate via picking that candidate's favorite cookie every time. Rumor has it that Cindy McCain's submission is winning by a landslide at this time. I say there are still a lot of cookies left to be eaten before November.
At the risk of angering the copyright police, here is Bill's submission:
Bill Clinton’s Oatmeal Cookies
2 1/2 cups quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
Heat oven to 350º. Spread oats and walnuts in un-greased 151/2 x 101/2 x 1-inch baking pan. Bake 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until toasted and light brown; cool. In small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda and salt. Beat together brown sugar, butter or margarine, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in oat mixture and then flour mixture. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto un-greased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on pans for 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.
holdthemayo at 7:18AM on 06/17/08
Most of my family's favorite recipes aren't my creations, especially baked goods. I couldn't give credit to anyone else or a cookbook author or company because I don't remember where I found most of them. If the recipe came from a friend who got it from another source -- the source wasn't credited.
IndyGal at 7:44AM on 06/17/08
Postscript to my previous post: I found Family Circle cookie votes dating back to the 1992 election, so I can only verify that this has been going on for five elections, rather than the "six or seven" I mentioned above.
holdthemayo at 8:16AM on 06/17/08
This reminds me of the pasta episode on Saved by The Bell: "The sauce you can have, but the sauce? She's-a-mine"...then they found out that Screech's grandma took it from Betty Crocker because she was such a bad cook.
fritesandfries at 9:11AM on 06/17/08
@holdthemayo: Thanks. I have egg on my face. I only skimmed the Family Circle contest and didn't see Bill's. It was late, and I may have "misremembered" and possibly "mistyped." Actually, I just wanted to get outraged about something. But I do still think it's a crazy gender stereotype. Why does the prospective first lady have to be in the kitchen making cookies? Which, I guess, is what got Billary in trouble in the 1992 version of Cookiegate.
Adam Kuban at 9:36AM on 06/17/08
@Adam, you can see from my own comments that "misremembering" happens easily, so no problem here. :)
I seem to remember that maybe the whole cookie contest/vote sprung from Hillary's infamous comments in the "60 Minutes" interview in '92, where she said something to the effect that she's "not some little woman at home baking cookies for her man," thus spawning Cookiegate as you referred to it. I'm not really sure, though the first cookie vote I found was from '92.
Previous generations of my family have a lot of good folksy sayings about "getting one's dander up" when they're outraged and believe me, I can get primed for a good debate at times without having a cause to debate. Hey, I won't fault a guy for being outraged about gender stereotypes!
Here's a hanky...wipe that egg off your face. :)
holdthemayo at 9:48AM on 06/17/08
@holdthemayo: [Takes hankie] Thx!
Adam Kuban at 11:23AM on 06/17/08
I remember baking the cookie recipe on the back of the Guittard chocolate chips and raving about it, only to see it was the same as the Tollhouse recipe. Then, the same recipes were also on the back of my bag of flour and my bag of sugar. It reminds me of that episode of Friends were Monica bakes for days trying to recreate Phoebe's grandmother's amazing cookie recipe (her grandmother, "Ni-Slee Too-looos" with a thick french accent, or "Nestle Tollhouse" if you read the recipe card correctly).
And I have a lot of recipes whose origin I've totally forgotten.
OneWallKitchen at 11:46AM on 06/17/08
Of course she lifted it from somewhere else, she's a Republican. But after all, how many variations are there on the same cookie? OneWall- I thought of the same episode of "Friends" but you beat me to it.
RichardCrystal at 12:41PM on 06/17/08
A list of ingredients isn't copywritten material. Only directions which may be considered unique to the author, that is, those directions not considered a "typical" procedure.
Although not preferable, using the same list of ingredients, but modifying the directions, is not considered stealing. The better thing to do would have been to credit the recipe as adapted. Although, how many ways can you actually make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies? And how many people actually have created their own original chocolate chip cookie recipe?
aharste at 12:42PM on 06/17/08
Cindy McCain's Burger Recipe:
Two all-beef patties
Special Sauce
Lettuce
Onions
Sesame Seed Bun
Give me a break. Why would an heiress worth $100million bake cookies when she probably has pastry chefs at all her estates to do it for her? The woman's probably never baked or cooked anything in her privileged life. THAT is where the basis of her lies about recipes and cooking beging, imo.
Brownie at 9:45AM on 06/18/08
I find it EXTREMELY offensive that on a recipe wed site you idiots find it acceptable to degrade Mrs McCain..a woman who has done way more for underprivleged individuals than nobama and his ghetto wife ever will. What asses liberals are..
lili66 at 12:47PM on 07/19/08