Sims 3: learning bar food recipes?

@Kya10  The bar recipes can't be learned.  The fact that other sims bring them over doesn't mean they actually prepared the plates; the game is just spawning a group serving of something for the guests to provide.  The list of meals that are allowed to be shared this way doesn't have to correspond exactly with the list of meals that can be cooked, and, in fact, I'm reasonably certain that the game doesn't check whether an inactive sim "knows" a recipe before allowing them to bring it over.

By the way, it's been my experience that only Natural Cooks can learn recipes from watching the cooking channel.  To trade kitchen secrets, both sims need to have the trait, and there's a cooldown of a day or two before the interaction can be used again.  But in this case as well, the inactive sim sharing the recipe definitely doesn't need to know that particular recipe.