Amba Poli of a different kind
There are forums to fight plagiarism, I scream, you scream and it just ends there. Lately however my sitemeter gives me a good insight into how plagiarism happens. Someone searches on this blog, many times not another blogger. Then the treasure hunter sends the recipe to a blogger requesting to post the recipe with some creativity from the pirate. I say to myself, "Good we are seeing new creations in the blog world" and mind you without a word of acknowledgement. Then my blogger friends will ask for proof to take action. I am sick and tired of the same game. I do not want to waste my precious energy on such things.
This is an appeal to all bloggers incase some one sends you a request to post their own recipe the least a blogger can do is just verify the originality before being party to plagiarism, I like to believe unknowing that is.
You know who you are! Are you running out of ideas?
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Anyways sharing here a picture of Amba PoLi, Mango leather a friend sent me. This one is brittle unlike the soft succulent ones that we know of in Mumbai. This is from coastal Karnataka.
Amba poli, oh i just got it mailed yesterday. We call it mambula and I just love to suck and bite these. Comming to plagiarism I am sick and tired of it as well. Taking actions nothing has helped it till date.
ReplyDeletewhat is that amba poli looks nice but i dont know what it is
ReplyDeleteAnjali, I know I look for similar recipes on other blogs that I can link to when I post a recipe.
ReplyDeleteFor my recent post on nankatai, I was in a peculiar dilemma. My mother's recipe had only the baking time but not the temperature for the oven. I asked on food forums, I searched on blogs and I tried baking small batches at various temperatures. The best results were at 350F and in half the time that the recipe said it would take. I took heart from the fact that Vaishali also made hers at 350F. I spent a lot of time on her blog. Does it mean I plagiarised her recipe? Certainly not from my perspective! The recipe remains the one from my Mom's diary. But I don't know where she got that recipe from. A magazine? Maybe someone told her verbally? I really don't know nor do I have a way of confirming. I could be accused of plagiarism on several counts right there, too, and especially if looking through blogs is the criteria.
Recipes cannot be copyrighted. Remember that. The words that describe the method, yes. But again there are loopholes. The additional words that go with the post and the images, yes.
In Indian food, there is a great deal of overlap and recipes are very similar even across regions. That and much more is revealed when you dig through the history of food. And then we make our own tweaks - which may result in a recipe very similar to something someone else in another region grew up with.
I'm probably not helping you much here but I do feel that some of the paranoia associated with plagiarism does need to be rationalized.
Hi Anjali,
ReplyDeleteThats looks really interesting...heard or saw Poli in square shape....Wonderful recipe.
Manisha I understand all that you said and we have talked about it repeatedly in the same fashion. I am not saying this blog has to be linked. There could be so many others or atleast one other reference. When I post I first look for people who have posted before me. I understand sometime we post it in a hurry and migth not have time to link up. But inspite of all the difference in the pirated post I still go red in the face while reading it if it sound like my recipe or post.
ReplyDeleteanjali, i hear ya. but why not come out and say who did this? i mean making a vague reference does not really help.
ReplyDeleteIf someone did it, they may not realise that you are referring to them ('cos they do it all the time, or they genuinely had a recipe from somewhere else and it happens to be very similar to yours).
Have you got in touch with this person / blogger?
ReplyDelete