from the foodstuffs dept
It’s sort of funny in a way to see how ownership culture has specifically invaded the realm of the culinary arts. If ever there was a place for cultural fusion and an openness culture, it surely should be in cooking. And, yet, we have seen many instances of businesses and/or people attempting to trademark generic names for foods. Believe it or not, we had to have a decades long trademark dispute over “pretzel crisps“, for instance. Someone at one point attempted to trademark the term “breakfast burrito“. A couple in the UK did likewise with “Pho” before eventually surrendering that mark under public pressure.
That last example is perhaps the best to lead into this current discussion, given the ethnic nature of the term and its use in the UK. Once more in the UK, this time it’s the owner of a deli that is threatening legal action on publisher Bloomsbury for releasing a cookbook with a title for which she has a trademark.
Kate Attlee, the founder of Sabzi, says Bloomsbury has “refused requests” to change the name of one of their recently published cookery titles, which she claims has used her deli’s brand that is trademarked. Sabzi has also been publishing its recipes for free to its 5,000 newsletter subscribers and on its website and social media since 2023, and Ms Attlee had been planning to publish an eponymous book collating and building on this collection.
However, in July Bloomsbury published a book of vegetarian recipe by author Yasmin Khan’s book under the name Sabzi – something that Ms Atlee claims is an “infringement of her intellectual property rights.”
Now, perhaps you’re like me and wondering, at first blush, why in the world this is even a dispute. The problem is that “sabzi” isn’t some fanciful made-up brand name. The reason Khan’s book is titled Sabzi is because it’s a vegetarian cookbook with heavy Persian influences. Sabzi is a Persian word that translates roughly to “herbs” or “vegetables” depending on whom you ask. It’s also a term that is used to name all kinds of Persian dishes. Ghormeh Sabzi is an Iranian stew (and looks freaking amazing). Sabzi Bhaji is a vegetable curry dish (and also looks amazing). And this is a picture of Kuku Sabzi, an herbed fritatta.
Looks good, right? Want to know where I got that from? It’s from Kate Attlee’s own website. She is threatening to sue or perform some other retaliatory action over a trademark she has that is the name of a food. This would be as if a restaurant in America got a trademark on “herb-encrusted” and sued other restaurants and/or cookbooks that referenced “herb-encrusted salmon” and the like.
It’s nonsense. The outcome here should be exactly the same as with the “pho” example. This trademark should be undone one way or the other. It would be fantastic if Attlee realized this and voluntarily relinquished it herself.
But in lieu of that, hopefully the courts can do it for her, should legal action actually come to be.
Filed Under: cookbooks, kate attlee, sabzi, trademark
Companies: bloomsbury, sabzi
