But in legal terms, the application of intellectual property rights to the world of gastronomy can be complicated.

As such, guaranteeing copyright and monetising the ‘ownership’ of culinary creations can prove tricky.

However, cooks could potentially monetise their signature dishes by sharing all their secrets – from the exact cooking times to the precise temperature, or when to add this or that ingredient – with artificial intelligence.

Californian start-up CloudChef has developed a software programme that does just that. Specifically, cameras and sensors are placed at the level of the cooking hob.

The aim is to record, for example, the proportion of each ingredient, the temperature of the meat, the precise size of the cut vegetables, but also the exact moment when the piece of meat is turned over, the thickness of a sauce or the degree of caramelisation of a food such as onions.

How might it work?

All these measurements are then transcribed into a highly detailed recipe. The interest of the technology lies in the capacity of this artificial intelligence programme to provide the smallest details of a recipe so that it can be reproduced anywhere without the presence of its creator.

Chefs could then sell their cooking secrets to “dark kitchens,” the virtual restaurants that supply meal delivery platforms.

According to one of the founders of CloudChef, who envisions this software as a kind of “Spotify of recipes,” dish creators could then get royalties every time a dish is ordered.

On the consumer side, this innovation would allow people to taste the signature dishes of a chef working anywhere in the world.

It remains to be seen whether the world’s major chefs would really agree to have their culinary secrets captured by artificial intelligence.