Of course many people cook without recipe - but even then, if you choose, you can share your process.
My point of view: I love food SO much! Love trying new things, love variety, love the process of cooking/baking. For me it would be selfish to deny someone the opportunity to recreate a memorable food experience they had with one of my dishes.
It’s really only one. I found it, tweaked it and it’s a staple everyone loves at the lake. Well, if everyone is now making it, then I have to keep finding new ones, as it won’t be special anymore that all look forward to.
I now rethink asking recipes from others. If I do I always preface it with, if this is a family recipe and you don’t give it out, I understand as I do the same.
I have a friend who makes me a chocolate rum cake for my birthday. I will never ask her.
I think I’m just going to start laughing and tell people that it’s a lake recipe and they have to come to enjoy it. If we ever sell, then I’ll give it to them.
I’m another one that doesn’t really use recipes or specific measurements for anything outside baked goods. My dishes also evolve with our changing tastes over time, so I probably wouldn’t even be crazy about a “recipe” of my own from 20 years ago.
We have a joke at my house when dinner is particular delicious - we say “good batch!” because we never know if I’ll be able to replicate it exactly again! If someone asks for a recipe I’ll give them a list of ingredients and let them figure out ratios for themselves.
When cooking we also have a family tradition where I call W or D for “first pass” and “second pass”, those being the initial taste test and 2nd taste test where they give input on what to adjust, which to me is how all home cooking should be done! I’m always baffled when I see comments for a recipe saying, “it turned out terrible”. Well duh, didn’t you do a couple of taste tests and adjust? That’s the trap of blindly following a recipe, imho.
I’d give them the original recipe but honestly I tweak things so much that mine might not be close to the original."
I think many of the “secret recipes” are just from very old cookbooks. The old ones used a lot more butter, fat, sugar, cheese, salt than most newer recipes. The new version may be healthier but just not taste nearly as good. Some of my favorite recipes are from the older Southern Living cookbooks. The new Betty Crocker cook book isn’t nearly as good as the one from 40 years ago.
I recently bought a cookbook from a thrift store called “America’s Best Lost Recipes”. I got it because it had a recipe for a cake that I’ve looked for for years unsuccessfully.
I’m definitely a recipe sharer, but I also often make substitutions, so the recipe might be “It’s just the x from The Joy of Cooking, but I didn’t have y so I used z instead.” My cookbooks are full of notes about what I did instead.
My story about recipe sharing involves a housemate I had when my husband was in grad school. He’d been forced to be a baker during the cultural revolution, but now was getting a Phd in biology at Caltech. (Aside, he did substitutions too, like mooshoo pork in flour tacos.) Anyway, at some point he taught us all to make mooncakes. Everyone who lived in that house taught their kids. And now when we have reunions, one of the regular activities is for us all to make mooncakes. My son’s wife is from Hong Kong and she was really impressed that he could make mooncakes. She certainly didn’t know how!
I shared a cake recipe with a friend, she made several changes, the shape of the pan, the type of nuts, etc., and brought it to my home for an open house, proudly declaring she’d made “my” cake. Um, nope, not my cake any more, now it’s your cake. That being said, she had given me a dessert recipe and a few years later she served it to us at a gathering, my DH later told me he liked my version way better. People do make tiny adjustments which change the outcomes.
One of my DDs makes a certain fantastic cookie, at my home, with my ingredients, using my oven, but even when she has hand held her sister through each step, they don’t come out the same. Weird.
I do understand the annoyance of sharing a special recipe and then it’s no longer special. I have a signature cake and I shared the recipe with friend A. One time DH & I went to friend B’s home and I brought that cake and they asked if it was “friend A’s” cake. Um, no, she makes MY cake 
I do try to write down all the details of recipes so the kids can replicate family meal items.
There are so many recipes available online. I agree that saying you are an eyeball or tasting cook and don’t have a written recipe is a good idea if you don’t want to share.
I often modify recipes (but I do try to note the mods so can replicate if it turns out).
I think that anyone giving you credit for a recipe - whether they altered or not - is a compliment snd sign of respect for you sharing.
And if their final product was not as good as yours - well if I’m someone tasting it I’m not blaming the recipe GIVER, I’m thinking the recipe MAKER didn’t do such a good job!
To add to my earlier post, I’m just lazy to grab measuring cups. I have not owned a set of measuring spoons; I just use my spoons. I am a chemist, so I can measure things consistently. So yes, when people ask for recipes, I tell them that I use pinches and handfuls. This usually dampens the enthusiasm. 
My son-in-law asked me for my deviled egg recipe. I told him it’s not a recipe, it’s more like a method. Which is true.
I’m not that interested in cooking so if someone likes something I made I’m happy to print out the recipe from whatever website I found it on and give it to them.
This. My DD actually wanted me to give her MY Betty Crocker Cookbook. That wasn’t going to happen, but a FB friend had a copy she donated…and I found an old Better Homes and Gardens one (which looked brand new) and got that for DD too.
I used to not mind sharing recipes if they were for something that could be easily replicated. It bugged me when people then said they made “my” recipe, it didn’t turn out to their liking. Later they admitted they changed several ingredients because they either didn’t have or didn’t like something in my recipe. After a few complaints like that, I began begging off sharing because “I never measure” and “I make it differently every time.”
Also, I was a little embarrassed when a friend who’s an awesome cook asked repeatedly for a few very simple recipes. I thought at first she was just trying to pay a compliment, but she seriously wanted the recipes for some family gatherings. I finally confessed that they often included box mixes or had only three ingredients (one of which was a sauce from the store) or that I used a rotisserie chicken from Publix for the main ingredient. She was delighted. Too many of her meals required half a day of prep and cooking, and she was tired of that.
My mom had a recipe she began making when she was retired, and she refused to share it. I finally found out why. She was afraid people wouldn’t invite her over if they knew how to make her in-demand dish. I couldn’t believe that she felt that way … people truly liked my mom (although my dad could rub people the wrong way, so maybe that was part of it). I had to assure her that she would always be invited to my house, and she not only gave me the recipe, but she made it with me. Looking back, that was a sign of her dementia that I can see in hindsight. I am glad she shared with me.
I’ve actually wondered how to respond to recipe requests as well so am happy to read this discussion. I’m a pretty good baker, not that great a cook. So my recipe world is very precise and specific and I never bake anything without following the recipe. I’ve always been very happy to share the recipes, but now that I’ve moved to our forever home in a new city I have one recipe I’d rather not share. It’s a baked dessert so I can’t really use the “pinch of this, handful of that” excuse. It’s been used several times as a fundraiser for a women’s club I joined so for those folks I can say that I won’t share it as long as it’s making money for the club. But I struggle with what to tell people who aren’t part of that organization. I live in an area where nothing stays secret for long so I can’t give it to some people and not to others.
I don’t see why one can’t say it’s a family secret and I swore not to disclose it to the person who gave it to me, CMS I it’s not mine to disclose. Sorry.
Some bakers DO modify the recipe as they prepare it and many cooks do. I’m an eyeball cook myself and mostly have had excellent success with it!
We had a similar thread years ago, and I am pretty sure I shared this story. My mother is an excellent baker and would make no less than 20 different desserts and pick up sweets for family wedding and Bar/Bat Mitzvah hospitality rooms. She would always bake cookies for my kids events, the baking gene skipped a generation with me!
One of my dear friends was baking with her girls and mother for Christmas and asked if I thought my mother would share her oatmeal cookie recipe as her daughter said my mother made the best. If possible, she would also like her chocolate chip cookie recipe. When I told my friend that they were a well kept secret, she said she understood. I then paused before telling her, the oatmeal cookie recipe could be found under the lid of the Quaker oatmeal container. The chocolate chip cookies were from the Toll house cookie recipe on the back of the Nestle Toll House semi sweet chocolate morsels. We had a good laugh about my mother’s beloved cookies and decided her secret ingredient, love, is what made them so tasty.
IMO, no recipe is too precious not to be shared. Nothing anyone makes is a state secret. In my circles, not only do we share, we often bring printed copies of the recipe for the dish we bring (especially a new one) and leave them next to the dish for anyone to take. That’s a lot easier than promising to share a recipe and then forgetting to follow up.
I make the best Cowboy Caviar, but everyone has my not-so-secret recipe (and alters it to their own taste). Prior to gatherings, we usually decide who is going to bring it as it’s become a staple. If more than one person brings it, great — all of it will get eaten! Among my friends, we’re all decent cooks, so no one is left in a quandary if someone else brings the Caviar.
As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Share your recipes, enjoy the flattery, and come up with something new to wow at the next event.
The discussion reminded me of a funny meme I recently saw on FB, where a grandma’s beloved secret recipe was etched on her tombstone.
I don’t cook that much but would be happy to share recipes. I readily admit that my killer pot roast in recent years has been made with the Knorr tubs of concentrated beef stock.
Maybe an answer when you prefer not to share - “I am very flattered by your request. But I prefer to prepare this treat for treasured friends and family instead of sharing the recipe”.
My daughter makes the Tollhouse recipe, but hers are better than anyone else’s.
Well, I disagree.