I like to use the brand names for ingredients in my cookbook recipes. Not because they are necessarily any better than the generic brands, but because they often produce a better recipe result, and therefore, make family recipes more consistent. Twenty years from now, if someone makes one of the recipes from your family cookbook, will they really get the same taste from a “cherry flavored gelatin” as they do from cherry Jell-O?
For example, if I want to make Tres Leches Cake, I will always use a certain brand name product (Eagle Brand) because I like the taste better. Believe me, I have experimented with assorted sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and whipped cream for the Tres Leches Cake ingredients, and there is a certain combination that is unbeatable together (and guess what, they all are the brand name products).
So, when I add the brand names to the recipes in my family cookbook, like A.1 Steak Sauce, or Bisquick, or Corn Flakes, I respect the product and always pay attention to making sure I’ve properly identified it with capital letters and ® where appropriate. (The Symbol Builder in my cookbook software makes this really easy.)
Also, the brand name is a kind of shorthand that says it all. It conveys an expected result. Like going to a certain fast food hamburger place (McDonalds) when you are out of the country for two weeks and need a fry fix. Or using Shredded Wheat instead of “large or mini shredded whole wheat cereal biscuits.” (How insane is that?) But I have indeed seen this generic format use in many family cookbooks. Most often it is used in media, like newspaper food sections and TV food shows (because they are supposed to be neutral, you think? Hogwash! It’s because they don’t want to endorse a specific product without getting paid for advertising it).
But your family cookbook can (and should) be specific with brand names so you can preserve the taste of family recipes and pass them on to be made the way they were intended.
Okay, soapbox is over. Going to eat my nutlike cereal nuggets (Grape Nuts), and have a cup of coffee (Nescafe©) with a little powdered non-dairy coffee creamer (Coffee-Mate) and non-nutritive sweetener (NutraSweet).
Happy cookbooking,
Erin
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Hi. My Mom’s group is making a little cookbook to sell amongst family members and friends only. She is telling me I cannot use brand names in the recipes but it’s the brand names which make the recipes sometimes. Do you have any tips on this? Is it illegal for us to add the brand names?
Hi. My Mom’s group is making a little cookbook to sell amongst family members and friends only. She is telling me I cannot use brand names in the recipes but it’s the brand names which make the recipes sometimes. Do you have any tips on this? Is it illegal for us to add the brand names?