Book Review: 21 French Medieval Cookery Recipes

21 French Medieval Cookery Recipes + 10 Unknown Facts 

About Medieval France: Tasty Medieval French Food

Bad Side:  Poorly edited. Little or no original work (almost all the recipes are modified versions of ones I have online for free).

Good Side:  At least she didn't break any copyright laws.

Conclusion:  Even at $0.99 this isn't worth the money.

Notes:  From reading it I would guess that Bethany Wilson is about 12 years old.  The "Unknown Facts" make my brain hurt.

Recipes from the Tudor Kitchen - The Author Responds

[This is an update to my earlier posts about this book]

This morning I received an update from the publisher which included a somewhat gracious "mea culpa" from Mr. Breverton.

In it he stated that the error was on his part and not the publishers. Because of personal issues and a rush to meet a publishing deadline, the attributions for the recipes were inadvertently left out of the file that he sent out, that there was no intention of plagiarism, and that the book will be corrected to indicate where the recipes all came from.

All of that is fine for the issue of plagiarism, and I'm glad to hear that he is correcting the omissions. However it still does not address the issue of copyright infringement. I have asked whether he will be seeking permission from the authors of the recipes for their use, or if he will be completely rewriting the recipes to make them his own work.

Copyright and Transcriptions

Late yesterday I received criticism about placing a copyright notice on the texts I've transcribed from medieval cooking manuscripts and public-domain print editions of medieval documents. I take criticism very seriously, even if I dislike the way it's given. I've always felt that in order to learn I must keep my eyes and ears open.

While I've put much thought and effort into both protecting my own intellectual property as well as ensuring I don't violate the copyrights of others,  it would appear that I failed to completely understand the details of copyright law with respect to this very specialized context.

Copyright is meant to protect creative, original work. Unlike my interpretations of medieval recipes, the very nature of transcriptions means that they have very little content that is actually original – even though there can be huge amounts of work involved (reading Middle English handwriting can be a true bite in the butt).

When I was putting the transcriptions up online, I was focused on the amount of effort I had made to produce them rather than on the amount of original content. That means that, while I was legally within my rights to make use of the public-domain text, the copyright I added to them was essentially unenforceable.

It's worth noting at this point that at no time have I tried to enforce it either. I never asked for royalties or denied permission for use ... not that anyone asked. It would appear that few people, if any, are interested in copying such a work and passing it off as their own. Even if they had, I would have likely just shrugged. After all, how could I prove that they didn't just do their own transcription from the same source.

Which I guess is precisely the point. If I can't enforce the copyright and can't prove infringement then what's the purpose of the notice?

With all of this in mind, I have removed the copyright notices from the works that I have transcribed. I have left the texts up online and will continue to offer more transcriptions in the future for the simple reason that that's part of the whole purpose of MedievalCookery.com – to make the cuisine of medieval Europe more accessible.

Recipes from the Tudor Kitchen - Scavenger Hunt!

[This is an update to my earlier posts about this book]

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for being so supportive during this mess. It makes things so much easier to deal with. THANK YOU ALL!

I've taken the time to go through the recipes in the book and list the title, source, first few ingredients, and when possible where the recipe was copied from. I've compiled this into a spreadsheet that can be downloaded from the website. I've only managed to get through the first 136 recipes so far and will be adding to it as time allows.  [Update: the file now contains all 283 recipes]

So far what I've found is that the recipes were culled from a wide range of websites. The greatest number so far are from my own, but that's probably due to the fact that I can spot my own recipes much easier than someone else's. Here are the numbers:

19 - http://medievalcookery.com/
6 - http://www.godecookery.com/
4 - http://greneboke.com/
3 - http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl
2 - http://www.florilegium.org/
1 - http://www.hrp.org.uk/

If you happen to identify where any of the remaining recipes came from, let me know and I'll update the spreadsheet. Note that a preview version of the book is available online at Google books. Not all the content is there, but enough of the recipes are to be useful.

Recipes from the Tudor Kitchen - Update 2

[This is an update to my earlier posts about this book]

Amazon.com was reasonably quick in responding and removing the book (both print and ebook) from their website. For those who also have recipes online which may have been copied, I will be posting a list of the recipes that Breverton included. At this point it seems to be a bit of a moot point as the book is no longer available through the largest of distributor, but I am quite curious as to exactly how much of the content was non-original.

More interestingly, I received an email this morning from the publisher, Amberley Publishing. It was politely worded and essentially said the following:

1. They have worked with Mr. Breverton for a long time and think it would be very unlikely for him to have copied the material without permission.

2. They are waiting to hear from Mr. Breverton as to where the material came from, or at least let them know it was an accident. 

3. Because of the contracts they use, it's the author's responsibility to clear permissions for all content. 

4. They think Mr. Breverton should discuss the matter directly with me and leave them out of it.

5. They will get back to me shortly.

This is about what I expected, though it would have been nice if they pulled the title from their own catalog as well.

More as things go.

(Stolen!) Recipes from the Tudor Kitchen - an Update

[This is an update to my earlier post about this book]

My polite inquiry to the publisher was not answered, so I was forced to be a bit more assertive on this matter. The first thing I did was spend the $20 to get an ebook copy of the text. I then went through the recipes one by one looking for those that looked familiar.

Of the recipes that Breverton included, at least 19 were taken directly from my website. In some places the occasional word was changed, but my (admittedly strange at times) wording is still clear. For those playing at home, here is a list of those recipes with the ebook location and a link to the version on MedievalCookery.com:

Rapes in Potage - Baldrick's Turnip Broth (Location 1723)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/pottage.html

To Bake a Gammon of Bacon (Location 1871)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/bacon.html

Mawmeny - Chicken Stew (Location 1984)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/mawmeny.html

Capon Stue - Chicken Stew (Location 2339)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/caponstew.html

Meat Pyes (Location 2363)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/pyes.html

Pygge Y-Farsed - Stuffed Piglet, Goat, or Sheep (Location 2658)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/piglet.html

A Dishe of Artechokes (Location 3197)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/artechokes.html

Divers Sallets Boyled - Sweet-Cooked Salad (Location 3221)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/diuers.html

Compost (Location 3245)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/compost.html

A Tart of Ryce - Rice Pudding Pie (Location 3909)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/ricetart.html

Tostee - Ginger Syrup Toasties (Location 3955)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/tostee.html

A Dysschefull of Snowe - Strawberries on Snow (Location 4071)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/strawberries.html

Peach Tarte - Any Fruit Pie (Location 4438)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/peachtart.html

Gyngerbrede - Honey Ginger Bites (Location 4572)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/gyngerbrede.html

Cruste Rolle - Henry VIII's Crackers (Location 5584)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/crusterolle.html

Poudre Douce - Sweet Powder Two Ways [second version] (Location 5709)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/douce.html

Poudre Fine - Fine Powder (Location 5730)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/fine.html

Sobre Sawce - A Sauce for Freshwater Fish (Location 6095)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/sobre.html

Buttered Beere Another Way (Location 6986)
http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/butterbeer.html

In addition to those, I have found four more that were taken from Kristen Wright's website (Greneboke.com):

To Bake a Mallard - Duck in Tudor Sauce Pie (Location 3044)
http://greneboke.com/recipes/bakedmallard.shtml

Buttered Wortes - Buttered Cabbage and Leeks on Bread or Toast (Location 3336)
http://greneboke.com/recipes/wortes.shtml

Tart of Prunes - Damson Pie (Location 4001)
http://www.greneboke.com/recipes/prunetart.shtml

Leach of Almonds - Almond Pudding (Location 4185)
http://www.greneboke.com/recipes/almondpudding.shtml

Nasty-grams have been sent out, so I expect the ebook version to be dropped within the next day or so. We'll see if / how the publisher responds.

Here's the real irony: Breverton listed MedievalCookery.com among the "Useful Websites" ...

... of course he doesn't say it's one of the ones "Of particular excellence and endeavour". Maybe he only steals from sites he's not impressed with. If so then the folks lower down on the list might be concerned too.

I'll post more if / when things progress.

(Stolen?) Recipes from the Tudor Kitchen

A friend posted a link to a review for a cookbook of Tudor recipes that I hadn't seen yet, so I was understandably excited to check it out. Then I found something disturbing. The review included some recipes from the cookbook ... and two of them were mine.

I was not asked for permission to use the recipes, and from what I can tell no credit was given, so I sent off a quick note to the publisher to see what's what and what can be done.

But of course my mind couldn't leave it alone. The review included eleven recipes, and it seemed unlikely that a random selection of eleven recipes from a cookbook would just happen to include the two that were taken from my website .... unless of course more than just those two were copied from elsewhere on the internet, and I only recognized the fact because I wrote them.  So I took another look.

The following recipes are listed in the review:

Salmon Sallet for fish days
Roast capon (Spice roast chicken)
Salmon Rostyd in sauce (Grilled salmon in wine sauce)
To fry whitings (Fried whitefish in apple or onion sauce)
Steamed asparagus spears in orange sauce
Compost (Cold spiced vegetables in wine and honey sauce)
Sweet potatoes in rose and orange syrup
Egges in moneshyne
Tostee (Ginger syrup toasties)
A dysschefull of snowe (Apple puree in snow)
Smartard (Sweet cottage cheese fritters)

There's also another review that includes just two recipes:

A Dysschefull of Snowe – Strawberries on Snow
Steamed Asparagus Spears in Orange Sauce

This makes for 12 different recipes (the steamed asparagus shows up in both reviews).

The first thing I noticed is that they seem to be an odd mix of US and UK measurements. The author is from Wales, and in the intro of his book (available in preview on Amazon.com) he says he did this because the over-sixty crowd is "more acquainted" with the US (non-metric) measures. Huh. I could understand having them all one way or the other, but a mix of the two seems odd.

I started to do some web searches, and it looks like MedievalCookery.com isn't the only place recipes were taken from.

Salmon Sallet for fish days - [Shakespeare's Kitchen by Francine Segan]
Compost (Cold spiced vegetables in wine and honey sauce)  -  [MedievalCookery.com]
Tostee (Ginger syrup toasties) - [MedievalCookery.com]
Smartard (Sweet cottage cheese fritters) - [The Foody UK and Ireland]
A Dysschefull of Snowe – Strawberries on Snow - [MedievalCookery.com]

Some of the recipes have edits, possibly in an attempt to disguise their origins or circumvent copyright law, or possibly because an editor didn't like the original wording, but in each case the source of the recipe is still quite clear.

This means that of the dozen recipes from the book that were featured in interviews, almost half can be found online with a quick search. This is not good.

A Copyright Public Service Announcement

It looks like another cookbook has been published which contains recipes copied from the MedievalCookery website, so I thought I'd take some time to clear up some potential confusion over the internet as a whole, recipes, and copyright.

First let me point out that just because something is freely available on the internet does not mean that you copy it and use it as you will.  For example, I have a recipe online called Tostee.

It's a nice little recipe, and while it didn't take me too long to work out, it's still my work. I place a certain amount of value on my work, even the small stuff, and therefore would like to receive compensation and credit whenever it's reproduced. To remind people of this I even added this bit at the bottom of the web page:

That's a copyright notice (note that the page would still be copyrighted without it) and a link to a "Terms of Use" page that essentially says, "Don't steal my work. Ask permission for use." What it means is that it is a violation of copyright laws to copy the page and publish it as your own work.

Now here's the interesting part. There are portions of this recipe that actually could be used without permission. For example, the page contains the original source of the recipe, which is a manuscript from the fourteenth century.

That original manuscript is in the public domain. You can copy and paste and publish it to your heart's content and nobody's lawyers will send you a nastygram about it. You can even read through it and work out a modern version of the recipe ... which is exactly what I did. If I found out someone else did that I'd say, "Good job! Do another one!" Really. I'm quite enthusiastic about people working out modern versions of medieval recipes.

The tricky part is the chunk of the recipe above that.

That part of the recipe is my original work. If you use that part in your cookbook without permission then I'll be rather cranky, especially since I don't make it all that difficult to actually get permission.

Oh, and if you use that part without permission and change a word or two, that still counts as copyright infringement and I'll still get cranky.

There is one weird bit to copyright law however, and that has to do with this bit of the recipe:

Technically, a simple list of ingredients cannot be copyrighted, so you might be able to get away with using this part as well. However, the wording of the individual items and the order they're given in is still covered by copyright law, so it's really not a good idea to use it without permission either.

So remember: if you want to use something from someone's website, ask first! If they're like me then the odds are pretty good they'll let you.

Another Response

Last night I received another email from Crystal ceder. This one was longer (though it was still "formatted" in one big block of text) and made a number of statements that I think are worthy of discussing.  I have summarized them below:

1. She got the recipes from "an anonymous source" and was not aware they were from my MedievalCookery.com. 

2. A friend of hers sent her the recipes to put together in a book. 

3. She just visited MedievalCookery.com and found my recipes came from "multiple cookbooks" but are published under my name. 

4. I claim the recipes as being my own work. 

5. She has seen the recipes on other sites presented as the work of others. (stated twice)

6. She got "many of those recipes from a friend" 

7. She incorrectly assumed that her friend had the legal rights to the recipes. 

8. The book will be removed. (stated twice)

9. Copyright for cookbooks is complicated. 

10. Recipes aren't usually original, and are versions of other recipes or are original. 

11. She is sorry I think the recipes were taken from MedievalCookery.com. 

12. She wasn't making any money off the cookbook anyways. (stated twice)

13. Her friend may have taken the recipes from other sites. 

14. It's not worth emailing back and forth because she's resolved the issue. 

15. She didn't take the recipes from MedievalCookery.com. 

16. The issue is resolved.

First, having read through all three of her emails multiple times, I must say I'm confused about the origin of her book. Her friend, who is an anonymous source, sent her the recipes to put into a book, that Crystal would sell as her (Crystal's) favorite medieval recipes. Either Crystal has trouble organizing her thoughts or her friend is the invisible type that one makes in childhood.

Next there are the statements that suggest the recipes could have been taken from some other source. How about I provide examples of what makes me think they're from my website and let you decide.

Here is the first recipe in her book ...

... and here is a recipe from my website ...

Here is the second recipe in her book...

... and here is a recipe from my website ...

Note how the ingredients, the instructions, and the color text match up exactly. Also note the words "Emma's Day Tart" in the Ember Day Tart recipe.  Emma is my wife's name in our medieval reenactment group.

I think that's pretty clear.  For all 18 of the recipes in the book there is an exact 1-to-1 correspondence to a recipe on my website, and in all cases the wording of the ingredients, the instructions, and the color text are identical - not similar, not close, but completely the same. Whenever I had a photo to go along with a recipe, that photo is included in the book.

As an aside, here's a portion of the book's introduction ...

... and here's an answer from a Yahoo! Answers page on the question "What did Kings eat in the Medieval Ages?" ...

See the part that I circled in red?  That's the result of Yahoo! erroneously censoring the word "cock". Note that I make no claim that I wrote this text (the poster copied it from a book and noted the source at the end). I just think it's pretty funny for someone to steal an entire book intro and not clean up typos from the source.

As to Crystal's repeated claims that she's seen the recipes on other websites, and the implication that I've stolen them from other sites, there is a possibility of the former but not of the latter. I have been very careful to get permission and give credit any time MedievalCookery.com is hosting recipes written by someone else.

I have come across situations where my recipes have been posted to recipe-sharing websites. When that happens I have sent copyright violation notices to the site and had the recipe removed. Occasionally I'll receive a request to reprint a recipe, but in those cases I always require full credit and a link to the original be provided.

To be fair, there are parts of the recipes on my website that are someone else's work, and which will often show up all over the web. Those parts are the original source material I based my work upon, all of which were published hundreds of years ago and are now in the public domain. It is interesting to note though that I always identify where the source material came from - it's an important aspect of research that allows others to evaluate how closely I've re-created the medieval dish. Take a look back at those screen shots. See the part that's marked "Source:"?  Do you see the same thing in Crystal's book?

I'll be writing another blog post soon about medieval recipes, copyright, and public domain sources (this post is already way too long) that will address Crystal's statements on the subject. Maybe she will read it. Hopefully she won't copy it into a book.

Julie Smith Responds!

I just received two short emails from Crystal ceder [sic] (a.k.a. "Julie Smith" ?), and as I suspected, she doesn't seem to think she did anything wrong.

Update:  I originally posted the entire text of Crystal's emails, but after checking on the copyright laws regarding emails I decided that doing so was iffy in both legal and ethical terms. So I've replaced the content of her messages in this post with the gist of the communication.

-=-=-

Subject: no subject
From: Crystal ceder
Date: Mon, Jan 26, 2015 12:43 pm 

[Crystal stated that she received the recipes by email from "a friend" and created the medieval cookbook as a favor for her. She also seemed to feel that she was being punished unfairly. She then went on to say that my recipes would be removed from the cookbook when her account was reinstated. Note that I never asked Amazon to block her account, but only that the book be removed from their catalog. Finally, Crystal stated that I copied some of the recipes from other sources, but did not go into specifics.]

-=-=-

Subject: RE:
From: "Daniel Myers"
Date: Mon, Jan 26, 2015 1:30 pm 

Hi Crystal, 

I'm really curious which of the recipes you think aren't mine. I still
have the copy of your ebook, and the ingredients and method for every
single recipe were taken directly from my website. Please let me know
which sources you think the recipes came from as they may also be
violating my copyright. 

The fact that you did this for a friend does not make any difference.
The fact that someone emailed something to you does not make it
copyright free, and presenting the work of others as being your own is
plagiarism. 

Regards, 

Daniel Myers
MedievalCookery.com

[a list of recipes from her cookbook and my corresponding web pages followed - they can be seen in my previous post on this matter]

-=-=-

Subject: no subject
From: Crystal ceder
Date: Mon, Jan 26, 2015 12:46 pm 

[Crystal's second email took the form of a brief postscript to the first. She said she'd looked through my website and that many of my recipes were stolen from other "medieval cookbooks". Again she did not provide specifics. She then implied that I was being hypocritical for saying what she did was wrong.] 

-=-=-

Subject: RE:
From: "Daniel Myers"
Date: Mon, Jan 26, 2015 1:34 pm 

Hi again, 

I'm very surprised to hear you say that. Can you provide an example of
which recipe you think is stolen?  

What made your situation wrong was that you plagiarized by presenting
someone else's work as your own and that you violated copyright laws by
including copyrighted material without permission. 

Regards, 

Daniel Myers
MedievalCookery.com

Theft by Cut and Paste

I don't understand people.

What makes someone think that it's acceptable to take a bunch of copyrighted stuff from the internet and use it to make an e-book to sell on Amazon.com?

They have to know what they're doing is wrong, don't they?  I mean, part of the process of e-publishing involves checking a box that says you have the rights to publish the submitted material. Are they too dumb to understand the basic concept of intellectual property and copyright?

In this particular case, Royal Kitchen: medieval recipes, by julie smith consists almost entirely of recipes and images copied directly from my website.  The "author" didn't even take the time to edit the material. Cut, Paste, Published!

So here's the thing, you want to see exactly what's in this book? No problem. Here, I'll give it to you for free:

Introduction 

Blancmanger 

Ember Day Tart 

Cormarye 

Pegions Stewed 

Mawmeny 

Pety Pernauntes 

Chike endored 

Rice Lombard 

Pigge or Chiken in Sauge 

Onion and Parsley Salad 

Pynade 

Quynces or Wardones in Paast 

Applemoyse 

A Dishe of Artechokes 

Peach Tart 

To Make Pyes 

Humbles of a Deere 

Conserve of Orenges

Other than four short sentences added at the end of the intro, that's the entire book.  Hey!  I just saved you $3.99.

I won't post the link to Amazon though because it would be pointless. They tend to pull down stuff like this pretty quickly after being notified.


[Update - 1/19/2015:  I just got an email from Amazon saying that the book in question is being pulled from all of their websites. - DMM]