Copying in the Kitchen

The restaurant critic for the NY Times is one of the most powerful posts in the food world. This week the current critic, Pete Wells, wrote a very interesting post on his “Diner’s Journal” about copying among chefs. Years ago Wells wrote a great story for Food & Wine magazine called “The New Era of the Recipe Burglar,” so this is nothing new for him.

Here’s what he had to say this time:

Not long after I wrote about Katy Peetz’s watermelon radish dessert at Blanca, a blogger pointed out on Twitter that it looked “awfully similar” to a dessert served last year at Dirt Candy, Amanda Cohen’s vegetable restaurant in the East Village.

Ms. Peetz made watermelon radish gelato in September, while Ms. Cohen had a watermelon radish sherbet on the menu from July to December of last year. Radish ice cream isn’t exactly as common as chocolate chip. On the other hand, it is possible to imagine that two chefs, both fond of vegetables and both regular visitors to the twilight zone between sweet and savory, arrived at the idea independently.

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Certain words make journalists and their editors jumpy. Words like first, last and greasiest. All it takes is one reader pointing out something that was earlier, or later, or greasier, and you’re publishing a correction.

One word that makes me jumpy these days is “original.” I have seen a number of dishes that struck me as brand-new, never-before-seen innovations, only to find out later that they bore a striking resemblance to another chef’s work. I agree with Ms. Cohen that this kind of thing happens all the time, and that it’s generally healthy and good for creativity.