A Singaporean-born chef based in the United Kingdom has had her cookbook taken off the shelves after Sharon Wee, another Singaporean chef, accused her of stealing recipes from Wee’s cookbook, according to a report by the UK’s Daily Mail.
In May, Michelin-star chef Elizabeth Haigh released her cookbook “Makan”. According to Wee, up to 15 recipes had been lifted word for word from her own book, “Growing Up in a Nyonya Kitchen”, published in 2012.
In a message posted on Wee’s Instagram account on Oct 6, she wrote: “I was distressed that certain recipes and other content from my book had been copied or paraphrased without my consent in ‘Makan’ by Elizabeth Haigh.”
Haigh has also been accused by Malaysian chef and food blogger Low Bee Yinn of taking a recipe from Low’s “Rasa Malaysia” blog without her permission. (Sidenote: recipes from Rasa Malaysia feature regularly on FMT, with permission.)
According to Low’s Facebook post on Oct 10, Haigh had purportedly plagiarised a ngoh hiang, or lor bak, recipe from Rasa Malaysia, contributed by a now inactive blogger.
In the same posting, Low chided Haigh for disabling the comments section on her Instagram page and disallowing mentions, which means no user can tag Haigh for now.
Since the allegations were made, Haigh’s publisher Bloomsbury Absolute has withdrawn “Makan” from circulation “due to rights issues”.
Born in Singapore but raised in the United Kingdom, Haigh appeared on “MasterChef UK” and founded a restaurant that was awarded a Michelin Star six years ago.
Fans of UK-based Malaysian YouTuber Uncle Roger, who regularly features food-related content on his channel, may have seen Haigh appear in several videos as “Auntie Liz”.
As of the time of writing, neither Haigh nor Bloomsbury have responded to further requests for comment.
While the truth of the matter may remain murky for the moment, there is strong evidence in Wee’s favour. On the topic of “agak-agak”, the method of rough estimation while cooking, Haigh writes:
“By tradition, Nonya Aunties engaged all their senses when they cooked. It was really important to gauge the smells and colour of the gravy; feel the warmth of the charcoal or wok heat; listen to the sizzle of the rempah; and – the best bit – taste constantly. The Aunties cooked by agak agak, or ‘guesstimation’. This meant that passed-down recipes were totally inexact and is why I’ve struggled so much with this project.”
This text is similar to that of Wee’s writing:
“Traditionally, the Nonyas engaged all their senses when they cooked – it was important to gauge the colour of the gravy, smell the aroma of the spices, feel the warmth of the charcoal heat, listen to the rhythm of the pounding and most importantly, taste the final product when the cooking is finished. As such, recipes passed down the generations were inexact. Cooking was by estimation or what the Nonyas called agak-agak.”
In another example, Haigh writes: “Ginger is thought to have healing properties – ‘pukol angin’ (to beat the toxic gases and dampness out of you to relieve aches and pains). This is why postnatal mothers were given lots of ginger to ‘beat the wind’”.
In her book, Wee had written: “Ginger is thought to ‘pukol angin’ (beat the toxic gases and dampness out of you to relieve aches and pains). Hence, postnatal mothers were given lots of ginger to ‘beat the wind’.”
Netizens have also found that Haigh’s ingredient lists and cooking instructions are similar to Wee’s.
Other authors and figures in the food industry have since stepped forward with claims of plagiarism by Haigh, to which she has failed to respond.
Criticism has also been levelled by bookshops that no longer carry Haigh’s books. Cook the Books, a New Zealand store, wrote on Facebook: “To pass someone else’s recipes off as your own is one thing. To appropriate their personal memoir is unforgivable.”
The US-based store NowServing LA wrote on Instagram: “The major publishing world doesn’t offer enough titles that highlight cuisines such as Peranakan and we were thrilled to share ‘Makan’ with our guests.
“Instead, we have a celebrated chef who has used her privilege and scrubbed her social platforms of her book’s very existence without a simple acknowledgment of her actions.”