Amazon's Problem With AI Copycat Cookbooks
Plus: it's hot out.
Howdy cookbook fans!
My mom is in town! It’s 153°F in Texas right now! After a decade or so of developing recipes I finally learned the keyboard shortcut for the ° symbol, aren’t you impressed! I smoked some barbacoa yesterday and made a cheesecake this morning and I’m making gnocchi for dinner! That’s the update!
Let’s talk cookbooks!
Your worst enemy is a cookbook because you are rigorously looking at exact portions in some dish that's been made the same way for years. Forget about that. Experiment. Try different things. That's the whole art of cooking. It's half art, half science.
—Shark Tank’s1 Kevin O’Leary is wrong about cookbooks. [Mashed]
Korean Vegan Author Molinaro Calls Out Copycat Book
TikToker and cookbook author Joanne Molinaro took to, well, TikTok to call out “someone” named Rachael Issy for ripping off her 2021 cookbook, The Korean Vegan Cookbook. The cover, chapter listing, and other similarities were enough that Molinaro, whose day job is an attorney, felt readers might be confused about which work is legitimate. (Although the similarities are only to a point, as apparently some of the recipes in Issy’s version weren’t actually vegan? Seems like a problem.) The listing for the copycat has since been pulled.
I suspect this kind of thing is more common than people know. Amazon has an eBook and paperback self-publishing program called Kindle Direct Publishing, which makes it really easy to just upload…whatever…and, since it’s print-on-demand, no one is putting up cash up front. The result has been a TON of books that pop up on Amazon that are just like… chum. Spam? Internet detritus? Listings created by bots that someone somewhere is hoping you click on by accident? I encounter them constantly doing research for this newsletter. And until recently, they were INCREDIBLY identifiable, as they are largely full of just garbage text scraped from who-knows-where. But AI is making this type of more-specific knock-off work easier to achieve.
Since the listing is gone, I can’t confirm the Issy book was a product of KDP, but it’s also not available anywhere else online, so I’d say there’s a pretty good chance. (To be clear, there are legitimate works published through KDP too! And I know a lot of people have success with the program, include some SPN readers. No shade.)
Molinaro’s Twitter followers were quick to point out the copycat seemed AI-generated. No kidding, check out the subtitle on the Issy book: “A Korean Chefs’ Traditional Recipes Simply Explained with Easy-to-Find Ingredients to Enhance the Taste of Vegetables” sounds exactly like something ChatGPT would spit out if you asked it to give you an SEO-friendly subtitle to a book called The Korean Vegan Cookbook.
Direct plagiarism is against the Terms and Conditions for KDP (and, uh, is against the law), but this kind of thing is a numbers game. It’s whack-a-mole, and not every cookbook author doubles as an attorney! Surely this won’t become a bigger and bigger problem as AI tech gets more advanced. Surely.
Coming Attractions: Below Deck, Bourbon, “The Best,” The Ambitious Kitchen
Above: I don’t watch Below Deck but Daisy Kelliher is publishing a cookbook with chef Bryony Johnson called Galley Girls in the City. I believe I am correct in saying that there are a bunch of chefs on Below Deck but none of them are these two women? Anyway, good luck to them! EBook out now, hardcover TBA.
Drinks write Robert Simonson to write Bourbon Cocktails for Ten Speed. 65 recipes, and a look at the history and production of bourbon. Fall 2025.
Ooooh I love this: Ella Quittner to write The Best and the Rest, “a culinary exploration of America's obsession with ‘the best,’ including well-researched comparison tests of cooking methods, accompanying recipes, and reported essays on Americana consumption culture.” I refrain from commenting on these types of recipes because I know people love them, but they have never sat well with me. William Morrow, winter 2025.
Monique Volz to write The Ambitious Kitchen Cookbook, based on the recipes she writes for her blog of the same name. Recipes will be “inspired by the author's Puerto Rican mom and grandmother, and her dad, [and] invite readers to redefine the word ‘ambition’ and celebrate balance and flexibility in the kitchen.” Clarkson Potter, pub date TBA.
KICKSTARTIN’ Any fans of Portland’s Mudge Fudge out there? Owner Samantha Kirsch has launched a Kickstarter to support a cookbook. Vegan fudge! $30 gets you a copy! (US only.)
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Above: is the best cookbook stand hiding in…your closet? [TikTok]
At 81, cookbook author and covergirl Martha Stewart has no plans to retire, thank goodness. [People]
Cookbook author/UK celebrity chef Ken Hom talks real financial numbers. [This Is Money]
I’ve mentioned this book before, but I am never not going to link to a story about The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book. [Guardian]
Historian Lorraine Daston looks at the history of rules through the lens of cookbooks. [Public Books]
The go-to cookbook for 20th century home cooks in Edinburgh. [Edinburgh Live]
Beyond The Joy of Cooking: these books recorded the culinary history of St. Louis. [Feast]
Book review: Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson [n+1]
Cookbooks review: Love Is a Pink Cake by Claire Ptak and the revised edition of Mary Berry’s Baking Bible. [Eater]
Stained Page News Classifieds
American kitchens have been forever changed by Alfred A. Knopf cookbooks. Since 1961, Knopf Cooks has published some of the most enduring names in the culinary sphere (Julia Child! Edna Lewis!). Check out our Spring/Summer and Fall catalogs for what’s next (Sohla El-Waylly! Hetty McKinnon!).
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A thing that surprises people about me is I watch…a lot of Shark Tank. And have for years. I’m not sure why that is surprising!
And say hi to your mom from me!