PrintCindy McCain Allegedly Lifting Recipes from Food Network
Cindy McCain; Giada De Laurentiis
In what it's calling "Farfallegate," the Huffington Post breaks a huge story sure to derail Senator John McCain's bid for the presidency. Cindy McCain has allegedly been lifting recipes from the Food Network site, including those of Giada De Laurentiis:
On a section of McCain's site called "Cindy's Recipes," you can find seven recipes attributed to Cindy McCain, each with the heading "McCain Family Recipe." Ms. Handel quickly realized that some of the "McCain Family Recipes," were in fact, word-for-word copies of recipes on the Food Network site.
At least three of the "McCain Family Recipes" appear to be lifted directly from the Food Network, while at least one is a Rachael Ray recipe with minor changes.
The recipes have apparently been pulled, but you can see them, at least for now, in Google Cache: Farfalle Pasta with Turkey Sausage, Peas, and Mushrooms, Rosemary Chicken Breasts and Warm Spinach Salad with Bacon, Passion Fruit Mousse, Mixed Fruit Tart, Crab Scampi and Whole Wheat Spaghetti, Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Slaw. The Huffington Post item has side-by-side screengrabs for comparison as well.
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16 Comments:
This is incredibly stupid! All those recipes are insanely simple and not all that "innovative", so of course Giada wasn't the originator of them. She probably pilfered them from some long forgotten church cookbook or modified a recipe from some other source.
Does the Huffington Post really think that Giada is the creator of warm spinach paired with bacon? Or pasta with sausage?
Must have been a slow news day...or they have an agenda. Hmmmm...
Carosone at 11:36AM on 04/15/08
"Farfallegate"? What sauced-and-cheesy noodlehead came up with that? Makes me wanna impale said "journalist" with a garlic breadstick ...
[Note: I'm not a McCain supporter anyway.]
LunaPierCook at 11:50AM on 04/15/08
Figures....she's a Republican.
RichardCrystal at 11:58AM on 04/15/08
Thanks Richard! I thought it = you said it. (Although I'm sure it has nothing to do with this particular tactic...It was a funny thought.)
For crying out loud. Is she so uninspired that she can't come up with dishes of her own? When I make a BC or GDL or MC recipe, I always state the source. I make up enough recipes of my own to not to have to stoop so low as to steal someone else's.
chiff0nade at 12:01PM on 04/15/08
It's called plagarism unless the source is cited. Claiming these as "McCain Family Recipes" when they are not is plagarism. Period.
Brownie at 12:33PM on 04/15/08
While it's probably true that the ingredient list and preparation itself may not be wholly original to Giada, the wording to describe it is. Copyright law states that a list of ingredients cannot be copyrighted, but the language used in describing preparation can (and is, automatically).
Most of the language was copied+pasted wholesale without attribution--that's the problem.
Blake Royer at 12:39PM on 04/15/08
Clearly it should be the "Copy Pasta Scandal"
cjingram at 1:16PM on 04/15/08
@cjingram, beware of egging us on ... this thread might go down the drain, which could be rather grating to the big cheese.
LunaPierCook at 1:52PM on 04/15/08
People, this situation can be easily diffused by blaming an intern: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
That being said, does anyone actually have a "family recipe" any more? Aside from tuna casserole.
jayfallon at 3:00PM on 04/15/08
Doesn't it seem that everything going wrong with either McCain's, Obama's, or Clinton's campaigns have been blamed on their interns?
Talk about whipping boys/girls!
Carosone at 3:12PM on 04/15/08
Oh yeah, I always let an intern take care of my family recipes so I can take credit for it.
This batch of campaigns just keep getting more and more ridiculous.
LunaPierCook at 3:38PM on 04/15/08
this is SO funny to me because just last night i was browsing through cole slaw recipes on foodnetwork.com and the site kept suggesting that i look at the Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Slaw!
Then i was skimming this post and those words jumped out at me again!
HA!
plagiarism stinks. i always credit the recipes on my blog (barredowl.wordpress.com - including the cole slaw i ended up creating based on the ingredients in my fridge) and so does every other respected food blogger out there.
For shame Cindy...
barredowl at 3:53PM on 04/15/08
my Ohio in-laws swear that a swiped cookie recipe did in Kerry's 2004 bid. Ohio was ready to vote democrat until Theresa Heinz Kerry submitted a made up recipe which didn't work to a cookie competition, then followed it up with one stolen from the internet, every housewife in the state moved to the right. Conversely, Laura Bush's recipe worked fine.
alktraz at 5:27PM on 04/15/08
has anyone notified the tv networks concerning this outrage, this is almost as bad as dodging sniper fire.
olddad at 6:34PM on 04/15/08
In case you need another reason not to steal a recipe, you can be sued.
Check out this article http://mainstreet.com/can-copying-recipe-cindy-mccain-get-you-sued on the copyrights of recipes. Pretty interesting what qualifies as copyrightable.
Lulubee at 2:36PM on 04/17/08
For once, I would like a first lady to say, "You know what? I don't sit around and bake. And growing up, I ate McDonald's. Find your own recipes."
ReneeRobinson at 7:18PM on 06/20/08