"A 350-degree oven will not cook a bell pepper in 30 minutes. Nevertheless, I did as instructed by the Stuffed Peppers recipe in 99 South Philly's Palizzi Club Culinary Secrets: Recipes from the Heart of Philadelphia, an ostensibly Italian cookbook self-published by the Lime Lounge in 2023. I packed the peppers with a wet mix of cooked white rice, canned diced tomatoes, chopped onions, garlic, herbs, corn and shredded cheddar that made my hands look like they'd just disemboweled a pinata full of Old El Paso. I slid them in the oven and called out, "Siri, set timer for 30 minutes." "Thirty minutes and counting," answered Siri, which, for many of us, represents the first integration of artificial intelligence into our everyday lives. In 2011, Siri walked so in 2025, generative AI could dupe my cookbook."
"Last September, Joey Baldino, the chef-owner of Palizzi Social Club and my co-author on the restaurant's cookbook, Dinner at the Club: 100 Years of Stories and Recipes from South Philly's Palizzi Social Club, alerted me to the knockoff in a text-panic: "What is the protocol when somebody is ripping off your cookbook and selling it for themselves?" Joey sent screenshots of the chaotic table of contents, which included recipes for fried chicken, margherita pizza, pizza margherita, margherita flatbread, and-of all things-jambalaya. There was also an unhinged Italian hoagie recipe, consisting of pepperoni, shredded mozzarella, raw garlic, mushrooms and black olives. Most upsetting to Joey was the introduction, which asserted, "Each recipe in this book has been recreated exactly as it has been served at the Palizzi Club for generations." "Really sick about these recipes," Joey texted, along with the Amazon link. "I didn't study all my life and work nonstop just to get ripped off by some absolute shit fake bullshit.""
A self-published cookbook sold under a South Philadelphia club's name contained inaccurate and misattributed recipes. A stuffed-pepper recipe instructed baking at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, which did not cook the peppers as claimed. The knockoff included chaotic, duplicated, and inappropriate recipe entries such as multiple margherita listings, jambalaya, and a malformed Italian hoagie. The club's chef-owner discovered the counterfeit and objected to claims that the recipes were recreated exactly as served at the club. Generative AI and unscrupulous sellers appear to be producing and marketing low-quality, deceptive cookbooks that harm creators and deceive buyers.
Read at Bon Appetit
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