The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

by Matt Ridley

There is no legal protection for recipes: they cannot be patented, copyrighted or trademarked. But try setting up a new restaurant in Paris and pinching the best recipes from your rivals and you will rapidly find that this is not common land. As Emmanuelle Fauchart discovered by interviewing ten chefs de cuisine who had restaurants near Paris, seven with Michelin stars, the world of haute cuisine operates according to three norms, unwritten and unenforceable by law, but no less real for that. First, no chef may copy another chef’s recipe exactly; second, if a chef tells a recipe to another chef, the second chef may not pass it on without permission; third, chefs must give credit to the original inventor of a technique or idea. In effect, these norms correspond to patents, trade secrecy contracts and copyright.