The intellectual property of an individual is already protected in significant ways.
If a chef develops a truly different dish, his recipe can be copyrighted (and "truly different" is not merely an adjustment of commonly used ingredients).
In this case, we're talking more about things that are cultural norms, like Senegalese twisting hair braids. Is an American hair stylist who is impressed by that method of braiding and wants to incorporate it into her styles supposed to pay some sort of tariff to the nation of Senegal?
This isn't the same. Using someone's culinary intellectual property has no inherent protection. That is why, believe it or not, many of us who are scientists, mathematicians, linguists, and literary specialists do not respond to every debate request of evidence - as the proofs or substance for that would need to be protected to prevent one from using it and distributing it in a way that gets capital gains.
Food recipes are similar; they are intellectual property that - if it can be proven the source - are marketable, and capable of distribution to the market. In that case, there is a legal obligation on the person(s) who knowingly and consciously refers to said marketable product to separate his or her product from what is challenged. And, this is assuming law and protections on intellectual property are the SAME over borders -
and, if the other party itself is protected.
This is why it is not the same as hair (...?!) or other pedestrian issues of "borrowing" ideas.
So, it is exploitation at best - I am sorry if the majority of the people don't think so, especially by using tangential examples of "acceptable" exploitation and appropriation.
To take someone's recipe knowing you are going to market products that directly utelize the materials and processes of said recipe - especially for the purposes of distribution and commercial - is ignorant at best, and malicious in general.
OTOH, I do think that an ethical stylist would give credit to having gotten the idea from Senegal and not pretend to have originated it (but then again...such things tend to come out pretty quickly).
I've already pointed out that I consider it unethical for someone to steal and claim an innovative style that can certainly be pointed to a limited set of people, such as early white rockers who portended to have invented a style they got from a small number of black rockers.
I would also consider it hypocritical for African-Americans to claim fair use of African hair styles while denying that use to white Americans, because culturally we had repudiated them long ago.
The hair issue is a non issue compared to this. The entire hair culture is manufactored, and has been since before the "Americas" were discovered. In Europe, Africa, and Asia alike
The issue of hair is a testament to the culture that actually treats that (and not the actual blaring racial disproportionalities, for example) as something of a serious matter.
Food is a culture much more than hair is. Cuisine is antiquated and entwined with the history of the geography. Hair is TRIVIAL, so I won't even feed into the possible race conversation that will befall this thread concerning "black vs. European" hair, especially in relation to the OP.
Hair is also not a necessity for life; food is. There is much, much more implicated in the OP than it seems the House seems to realize.
This wouldn't be an issue if this was the
formula for Coca-Cola. It is the same principle, yet. The fact that a profit can be made without any hint of recognition for where the recipe came from (other than "thank you," or a shoutout) should be the troubling part...
But, capitalism is a shrew entity... it makes people compromise their integrity for the bottom dollar without warning, or preparation.
(BTW, I teach and give lectures, often with my own original methods and pedagogy. It would be a breach of academic integrity if, for example, someone took my technique for solving nonlinear inhomogenous PDEs and passed it off as their own - even making money off of it - without at LEAST crediting me. It would at least warrant a review.)
