WHAT GREAT RECIPE HEISTS?

Someone is robbing the great chefs of Europe. At least that’s what about 40 of the best and most famous culinary geniuses of France--men of the caliber of Alain Senderens, Jacquest Maximin and Michel Guerard--are saying, according to an Associated Press story in another section of this newspaper recently.

The chefs are complaining, that is, that other lesser chefs--in France and elsewhere--are stealing their recipes. The offended cusiniers have “had it up to here,” one of them told the AP’s Suzy Patterson, and are calling for some form of recipe copyright system under which they would be protected from “plagiarism”--and through which they might even be awarded royalties if their creations are appropriated by others.

Har har har. Peel me another onion, boys, because my tears are starting to dry up. . . .

Now, it has been established legally, in this and other countries, that the language of a recipe is indeed copyrightable--that a written recipe may not be used verbatim, and there have been several successful prosecutions of cookbook plagiarism on just those grounds. But the notion that a recipe itself, that the very idea of combining certain ingredients in a certain way, is or should be somehow protectable is quite ridiculous, I think.

To begin with, there are only so many raw materials and cooking techniques in the world in the first place--and I simply don’t see how anybody can ever claim without absolute certainty to have brought them together for the first time in a way that nobody else had ever done before.

Senderens, for instance, calls the use of deep-fried celery leaves as a garnish “my own invention.” He may well have popularized the idea, and lots of other chefs may indeed have borrowed it directly from him--but celery has been around for more than a few years, and so has deep-frying, and for Senderens to claim that no other chef, ever, has applied that cooking method to that leafy vegetable is nothing short of ingenuous.

Maximin, by the same token, claims to have invented braised stuffed zucchini blossoms--but the Italians have been stuffing zucchini blossoms for centuries, and if Maximin can prove conclusively that he was the first person ever to braise a blossom so treated, I should be very interested to find out how. More to the point, though, who cares ?

Restaurant cooking is by its very nature a collaborative, public, social idiom. It is dependent upon an audience and influenced by its environment; it is shaped by the climate, economy, political philosophies, leisure habits and both physical and emotional appetites of the community it serves. It is also an idiom based on shared knowledge, experience and professional intercourse--and an idiom that has borrowed, adapted, and, yes, stolen for as long as it has existed. No chef has ever thrown out the books and started from scratch; and whether they realize (or admit) it, Senderens and company have “stolen” much more from other, earlier chefs than any of their contemporaries have stolen from them.

DINING FOR DOLLARS: Food and wine “festivals,” at which numerous restaurants and wine producers or distributors offer their wares to the public for a fee, in benefit of some charitable organization or other, have proliferated in these parts in recent years. (News of two of the latest of these appears below.) But just how much money actually gets raised for the various good causes whose names get attached to such events? Well, I can’t speak for most of them, but the granddaddy of them all, the American Wine and Food Festival organized by Spago, has just presented a check for $100,000 to the Los Angeles chapter of Meals on Wheels--the proceeds of their fourth annual affair last fall. The sum will provide over 50,000 meals to needy citizens in the L.A. area in the coming year.

NEW TABLES IN TOWN: The long-awaited Citrus, Michel Richard’s new restaurant in West Hollywood, opened at last this week. . . . Christos Haritonides, proprietor of the cheery Greek Connection restaurant on La Cienega has opened a second establishment on the same street. He calls it (what else?) Christos Cajun--and specializes in Louisiana seafood. (Blackened grape leaves are apparently not on the menu.). . . . La Loggia opens this week in Studio City, with three veterans of Jimmy’s, James Saliba, Tom Bailey, and Hector Leon, as owners. Chef is Giancarlo Lorio, from Venice (Italy). . . . On the other hand, Anna’s in Sherman Oaks will close later this month--lease trouble, as usual. The 19-year-old Anna’s on Pico in West L.A. will remain open.

EVENTS: The handicapped children’s program at the San Luis Obispo YMCA will receive proceeds from the fifth annual “Sea Fare and Wine List Preview” at the Olde Port Inn in Avila Beach this Tuesday. Call (805) 595-2515 for more information. . . . The Planned Parenthood Guild’s “Fantasy Food Fare ‘87” takes place this Thursday at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and again from 6 to 10 p.m. Dishes from Orleans and La Fabula and a Cointreau Margarita bar will be among the attractions. Tickets are $50 for the daytime and $75 for night, and details are available at (213) 223-4462. . . . A UCLA Extension “Westside Ethnic Market Tour” next Saturday will take participants through four important “ethnic” markets. Call (213) 206-8120 for more. . . . Gilliland’s in Santa Monica features wines from Acacia and Carmenet and a special five-course menu for $45 per person next Sunday evening. (Gilliland’s also opens for lunch as of tomorrow.). . . . And the wines of Beringer Vineyards will meet the food at Cafe Katsu in West L.A. on Feb. 9 for a TASTE! Wine and food group dinner. Prospective members are welcome for a $50 fee. Call (213) 558-3281 to sign up.