Whose recipe is it anyway?

Plagiarism is becoming a problem in the food world

Pastry chef Nick Malgieri was scrolling through a food blog when he came upon a recipe for panettone, a puffy sweet bread that the author said conjured up fond memories of Christmases spent with his Italian grandmother. But it seemed familiar to Malgieri,who soon recognised it as one of his own.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a one-off experience for him. After decades of work and 12 published cookbooks, the American baker has seen his work reproduced without his consent on numerous Internet sites. Some of his recipes have even been claimed by other chefs and included in their cookbooks.

Last October, a recipe scandal rocked the culinary world. Singaporean chef and author Sharon Wee accused Elizabeth Haigh of having “copied or paraphrased” recipes and other passages from her 2012 book Growing Up in a Nonya Kitchen, which recounted her experiences cooking with her mother. Wee said she was “distressed” by the incident, which resulted in Haigh’s book Makan being withdrawn from circulation.

Plagiarism has become widespread in the food world. It is difficult to curb, and even more difficult to prosecute. When chefs do look to the US courts for relief, the chances of getting recognition of their copyright or a monetary settlement are seen as remote, because recipes are generally not protected under intellectual property laws.

“A recipe is just a listing of ingredients and simple instructions,” New York-based attorney Lynn Oberlander, who specializes in the area, told AFP. “How can you copyright, for example, scrambled eggs?”

The only hope for chefs wishing to protect their concoctions may rest in recipes that include “enough original literary expression,” either in the instructions or in the historical narrative, to be considered unique, Oberlander says.

As recipe plagiarism has multiplied in recent years, cookbook authors have been using “more descriptive stuff ” in their written work, according to Jonathan Bailey, a consultant on plagiarism issues.

Meanwhile, there have been calls on some food blogs to end plagiarism, with explicit instructions on how to correctly credit the work of another chef.