Create, Consult, Control
News & commentary on intellectual property issues.
Apr132011 | Steve O'Donnell
The Days of Turkey Roll
Last night, for a reason unknown to me, the thought of turkey roll invaded my mind.
If you’ve never had turkey roll, you should feel lucky. Turkey roll is essentially a giant hotdog, maybe 5 inches in diameter and a few feet long, made out of turkey. At least I think it’s turkey, I’m assuming the government somehow regulates what can be called turkey. However, I’m pretty sure that it’s not made out of the part of a turkey that people willingly eat. Rather, it’s probably little bits mechanically scraped off of bones, with a generous serving of eyeballs and genitals.
It seems that most people’s memories of turkey roll are limited to a couple sandwiches from high school or from a gas station (I don’t think it can be served to prisoners). My experience with this gastronomic disaster goes a little deeper.
My parents ran a small catering business on the side. When I tell that to most people, they’ll respond with something like “wow, that must have been a great learning experience for you” or “wow, you’re lucky, your mom must have been a great cook.” Sadly, neither was the case. First, the name of the business was “Ken and Barb’s Food Service.” Say that in your head a few times, now say it aloud. That should tell you everything you need to know about the business. Note: it’s not a “Catering Service,” it’s a “Food Service.”
The business was not geared towards serving delicate petits fours to powerful business leaders. The clientele were people that would base every decision about their wedding on price. Not that doing so is such a bad thing, most people have to watch the bottom line quite carefully, but my parents did seem to attract the extremely cheap. That was not helped at all by them deciding to compete solely on price.
To keep their costs down, there was no separate phone line for the business, every call to the house came to the same dark green rotary phone that was wired about 10 feet from the TV. A typical evening would consist of me having to listen to my mom discuss menu options with a bride-to-be while I was trying to watch Good Times (“there’s chicken, ham, or chicken and ham.” Seriously, those were the options. With enough planning, there could be roast beef, but that was harder to plate in a production line so my mom didn’t mention it unless asked).
Not to disparage my parents. They worked very hard to keep me fed and clothed and I thank them for that. I’m pretty sure that if I ever had to work a single week like my father did for most of his life, I would die. Still, that doesn’t mean I can’t make fun of their business.
Along with the chicken and turkey-ham, which was by far the most popular choice, there would be mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and some of whatever canned vegetable was cheapest that week--usually corn. Rolls and butter would be on the tables themselves. A half dozen rolls per table of eight, along with a full stick of butter. I never quite understood that. I’ve never been to a wedding, funeral, diner, potluck, church fundraiser, or gas station, that served less appetizing food than my mother would. Honestly, I think that is mostly a “familiarity breeding contempt” problem, since most people seemed to like what she served.
Of course, Mom would always plan for a few uninvited people showing up and make a few extra servings of everything. Sometimes there were extra people that showed up, but more commonly we had lots of food left over. Generally, you can assume attrition of at least 10% from those that RSVP yes to an event. So, if a wedding was supposed to be 200 people, my mom would usually aim for around 180. Sometimes, especially if the weather was bad (this was in Minnesota, so the weather was usually bad), the no-show amount would be closer to 25% or more. My mom would pass out the leftovers to her workers and then feed the rest to me and my dad. Our home refrigerator was usually full of number 10 cans (the big ones that chickpeas come in at Costco) filled with mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and corn. There might also be 25-50 oven-fried chicken quarters. I guess it’s better than having no food, but I would often wistfully pine for some variety.
So far, this has nothing to do with turkey roll, I’m getting to that.
Sometimes people die. Often, the family of the deceased will feel compelled to feed mourners something. I never quite understood that. I’m hoping to have my funeral first thing in the morning so my family can get by with serving Froot Loops and PopTarts. If that doesn’t work, then I’d like it to be after 9:00 PM so we can serve nachos and beer.
Sometimes, though, the family of the recently deceased wants to treat all the mourners to a lunch, typically of the fare one would expect from a crappy picnic--i.e., cold sandwiches and chips. My mom would happily feed cold cuts to mourners. In the interest of keeping costs low, she would purchase big deli-type logs of processed meats and cheeses and run them though her slicer. I would often have the task of arranging slices of meat and cheese in a spiral pattern on large serving platters. Most often, her meats of choice would be whatever summer sausage was on sale and turkey-ham (shh, no one was to be told that it was turkey-ham and not actual ham--they’ll never know otherwise), but occasionally, when the stars aligned just right, and the turkey roll was on sale because it was nearing it’s expiration date, she would purchase a log of turkey roll.
The turkey roll logs (I don’t think logs is the right name for the unit of measurement, but it works) were 5 inches in diameter and 3 feet long. If you’ve never seen turkey roll, it has an appearance and texture, or lack of texture, similar to a hot dog, only instead of being dyed to resemble beef, it’s dyed to resemble turkey. Although it had an overall consistent grey-ish beige color, there would be veins or clumps of darker “meat” that has a slightly grainer texture. I was never sure if those were because of an actual difference in how white and dark meat wound up being pressed together, or if it was a ruse designed so that the chub would more closely simulate food. I guess it doesn’t matter. I preferred the darker, grainer regions.
Picture a giant hot dog being cut in to slices so that mourners can place some on a white bread roll with a slice of American cheese and you can appreciate that a 3 foot log will produce a lot of slices, more than a typical funeral can go through, especially when they also have delicious turkey-ham (again, quiet about the turkey-ham). Granted, the hundred or thousands that might show up for the funeral of a head of state or a popular entertainer could easily go though a turkey roll, perhaps several, but those people were not my parents’ target market. The turkey-ham, salami, and even the cheese could be frozen and used for the next funeral, but the turkey roll did not thaw well. She tried, God bless her, she tried, but on thawing it would collapse into a turkey scented, grey-ish beige goop.
Turkey roll then, was not only purchased when on sale, but also only when she had two or more funerals scheduled in a single week. It truly was an event.
Still though, that’s a lot of processed turkey to go through and there was always leftover turkey roll that couldn’t be frozen, so it would sit in the fridge next to the oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and corn. Now, having an abundance of an ingredient isn’t really a bad thing, if you’re creative. Sadly, as evidenced by the name “Ken and Barb’s Food Service,” creative was not a adjective generally used to describe my parents.
There were no turkey croquettes, no turkey tetrazzini, no General Tso’s turkey, no Kung Pow turkey, no turkey pad thai, no turkey chili, no turkey bolognese, no turkey casserole, no turkey pot pie, no turkey quiche, no curried turkey, no turkey paprikash, and no turkey hash. There were cold turkey roll sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise, and there were hot turkey roll sandwiches served with mashed potatoes and covered in gravy. Since there was always rapidly aging mashed potatoes and gravy in the fridge, guess what we had most often? It’s very sad when you find yourself wishing for a cold sandwich with mayo.
That particular type of hot sandwich seems to be a midwest thing. As it’s normally served in diners across the plains, a meat sandwich is made with white bread (usually dry, but sometimes on buttered bread, if you wanted to get fancy), cut diagonally, and artfully arranged on a platter so that a large scoop of mashed potatoes could fit between the sandwich halves. Then, the whole thing is covered in gravy. The need for such food is evident if you’ve visited the upper mid-west, specifically, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and maybe Iowa. In those states, there is always the chance of a crippling snow storm striking while you’re out and exposed to the elements. Really, it can be the middle of July and you’re in a park playing frisbee golf when, boom! Snow storm, -20F, 100 mile an hour winds and hail the size of hybrid cars. If that happens, hopefully you have a hearty and hot meal in your stomach or you might not even make it to your car to get out your emergency parka and snow shoes. I believe Paul Bunyan’s cook created the sandwich in the 1800s to save on the number of bears that would have to be cut open and crawled into to survive those sudden storms.
I didn’t realize that the sandwich wasn’t common outside of the midwest until I served one such roast beef sandwich to my Pennsylvanian wife. I’m sure she looked at it with eyes full of love, turned her head towards me and said something like “Steve, what do you call this?” However, I more clearly remember the subtext, which was closer to “what the fuck is this shit?”
I went to the store today and looked in the deli case for turkey roll. I didn’t see it, and didn’t have the nerve to ask for it, because if I had asked, and they had it, I would have been compelled to buy some, and even though I’m sure it would transport me back to my childhood, I never really liked turkey roll so I’d rather just watch Scooby Doo or something.
Maybe it’s one of those foods than lived through it’s glory days and is now just isn’t widely available. You just can’t find liver or tripe as easily as you could years ago. Braunschweiger is another such food that I haven’t seen in years, although I admit, I haven’t looked for that. My mother also would serve something she called “liver paste” which was a thoroughly unpleasant spread (I can’t quite call it a pâté) she’d make with braunschweiger, mayonnaise, onion, and Worcestershire sauce; but that’s a story for another day.
Or maybe turkey roll was banned by the international community. I prefer to think that’s the case.
*****
So, how does that short story fit into my blog which usually discusses matters of intellectual property? I’m not quite sure. I wanted to write that and didn’t want to start another blog just for that, since I might lose interest in the theme, leaving a blog with one post floating out there.
I think I can fit it in conceptually however. It is a creative work, so it is automatically covered by copyright. If someone scrapes my blog and posts it, I think I can probably find out pretty easily by setting up a Google alert for “turkey roll,” since, thankfully, it’s not a popular search term.
If I do not register the copyright in a timely manner, and someone scrapes this story, I could sue them and recover actual damages/profits and get an injunction against them. For this short, short story, I doubt damages would be worth the filing fee in federal court.
If on the other hand, I do promptly register my copyright in this story, and someone scrapes it to fill up their own blog I could recover statutory damages, which are much more attractive to a plaintiff ($750-$30k, maybe even as high as $150k if the infringement is willful).
So, just to be clear, as of the time I wrote the above it was copyrighted. I have also registered it with the copyright office to put myself in a better position if someone scrapes it or otherwise infringes my work. A question I have is whether the automated nature of blog scrappers argues against a finding of willful infringement. If it comes up, I’ll have to look into that further.
Jun292010 | Steve O'Donnell
Bilski didn’t change much except my dinner plans
I (and every patent lawyer) have been anxiously awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision in Bilski, which should have given us a handle on when business method and software patents were patentable. The decision came down yesterday, and the Court punted.
Most patent attorneys had expected J. Stevens to write the opinion and guessed that it would tamp down on the patentability of business method and software patents. J. Stevens didn’t write the majority, and the opinion didn’t really change anything, or leave us with a clear indication of when business methods or software were patentable or not.
For the last few months I had some thoughts on what this post should be, I expected some softer rule than what the Fed Cir had stated, but we didn’t get a rule, only a dodge.
I anticipated a flurry of analysis and writing today and planned on picking up dinner while coming home from getting my kids at daycare to free a few more minutes for drafting. Since the Court didn’t give me much to work with, I decided that rather than trying to expound on a narrow ruling that gives little or no guidance, I instead will just write about what I made for dinner last night since the Court was kind enough to free me from my expected burden. So, here it is, Green Curry Macaroni and Cheese:
This recipe was based on Alton Brown’s Baked Mac & Cheese and inspired by Roger Mooking’s Curried Mac & Cheese.
Baked Green Curry Macaroni and Cheese
ingredients
1/2 pound elbow macaroni
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons green curry paste
3 cups milk
4 teaspoons coconut extract
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced
1 large egg
12 ounces provolone
1 teaspoon kosher salt
black pepper
fresh Cilantro
directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.
3. While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk, onion, and curry paste. Simmer for ten minutes.
4. Temper in the egg. Stir in cheese and heat till melted. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish.
5. Top with cilantro for service.
Notes: the curry paste container says to use 4T per can of coconut milk. . . which would translate to about 6T for this recipe. I find that to be waaayyy to hot, so I went with a third of that (and it's still pretty spicy, and I'm a guy that drenches pizza with hot sauce). I considered using coconut milk instead of milk+extract but I was concerned that the recipe needed the protein in the milk. . . plus, coconut milk is pretty fatty and there's already a bunch of fat from the cheese. I went with provolone because it’s a mild cheese and wouldn’t compete with the curry paste. The mix is very wet before it goes into the oven, but firms up nicely during the bake. When it was still hot from the oven, the curry spiciness was stronger than I anticipated, but as the dish sat, the spiciness mellowed yet was still very flavorful.
And no, this recipe isn’t patented.
Jul282009 | Steve O'Donnell
Open Source Chili
When I'm not managing my law office, writing or playing Wii Sports, I like to cook. As a patent attorney and cook, one of the most common questions I get is “can I copyright/trademark/patent my recipes?” The answer is a qualified “no.” but you can protect them as trade secrets.
Copyright protects artistic expression, so it can protect a story or narrative attached to a recipe, but won't give any protection to the recipe itself. There is an argument that cooking is an art so such artistic expression should be copyrighted, but that won't work. A particular dish may be art, delicious art, but its recipe is at least partially useful in that it instructs a reader how to make the dish. In cases where the artistic elements of a piece cannot be separated from the useful elements then the usefulness trumps and copyright will not protect it. Useful items can be protected by patents, but probably not recipes.
Unlike copyrights, patents undergo a ridged examination proceeding and must satisfy a number of requirements. For recipes, the big issues are probably going to be novelty and obviousness. That muffin recipe might be great, it might be the best muffin I've ever tasted, but based on all muffin recipes to have ever existed isn't there some prior art that teaches the same thing? Or maybe two or three other recipes that teach certain aspects of the recipe? It seems to be a very difficult requirement for a recipe to meet. Another requirement that could be a problem is utility, patents will only issue for useful goods. Although the level of usefulness needed is very low, I'm not sure that “delicious” would cover it. On the other hand, some recipes are patentable, such as this one for savory baking chips and this one for treating chest pain with lime juice. Granted, the lime juice patent is not much of a recipe, but it's one of my favorite patents and I wanted to use it. It has expired because the patentee didn't pay a maintenance fee, so if you feel a touch of angina coming on and want to try sucking a lime, go ahead. Let me know how that works out for you.
Trademarks also don't fit the bill. Trademarks identify the source of some goods, even if you printed an entire recipe on a t-shirt and tried called that your trademark, that wouldn't stop someone from taking your recipe and using it. It might stop them from being able to sell their own t-shirts marked with the same recipe, but why anyone would want to do that is beyond me.
What one is left with is trade secrets. As the name implies, trade secrets are secrets. They have served Coca-Cola and KFC quite well over the years. As an aside, I once knew someone that did some engineering work for KFC. He was able to automate 10 of the 11 secret herbs and spices, but the last one was added manually by a guy that would come out with an unmarked brown sack containing the most secret of the secret ingredients. Trade secrets won't help you at all if someone figures out your recipe, just look at how many copycat recipes one can find, so some extraordinary measures are taken to keep these secrets.
So, the bottom line is, if you don't want people to know your recipe, don't tell them.
Now, on to my non-patented, non-trademarked, non-copyrighted chili recipe:
Open Source Chili
from Steve O'Donnell (http://www.3cpatents.com)
time 4 hours
yield 6 servings
ingredients:
3 cans beans
1 t dried thyme
1 t dried oregano
1 t dried coriander
1 t dried red pepper flakes
4 t cumin powder
3 garlic cloves minced
1lb beef chopped
2 beef bouillon cubes
4 slices bacon chopped
1 red pepper chopped
1 onion chopped
4 oz mushrooms chopped
1.5 cup ketchup
1 tomato chopped
3 c water
2 oz corn chips
directions
1. Throw everything into a crockpot and cook on low about 4 hours or until done.
2. I trim the beef, usually a tip steak or something on sale and add it raw to utilize the rendered fat, lean hamburger can also be used, or any other protein you like. The bacon also goes in raw.
3. The corn chips are the “secret.” They disintegrate and add body and flavor. Without them, or masa powder, you get chili-soup instead of chili. I prefer Fritos, because if you buy a bigger bag you can make Frito Pie.
Chile pepper image from Forest and Kim Starr
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