Martha Stewart weighs into RecipeTin Eats v Brooke Bellamy recipe stoush

Having written over 100 books, many of them cookbooks, and spawned countless imitators, who better to comment on the latest food world stoush than the doyenne of homemaking, Martha Stewart?

At Wednesday night’s headline event for Vivid Sydney, appearing in conversation with Benjamin Law, the 83-year-old was asked by an audience member to weigh in on the ongoing dispute between Nagi Maehashi and Brooke Bellamy.

Martha Stewart spoke as the headline act for Vivid Sydney last night.Credit: Wolter Peeters

“To what extent does one own a recipe. Have you ever had your recipe stolen, for instance?” Stewart was asked.

“Probably. But I have so many recipes,” said Stewart.

“In the magazine [Martha Stewart Living] we developed thousands of recipes every year and it’s hard to develop a recipe without having a repertoire behind that recipe and I don’t think too many recipes are owned by anybody. They are handed down,” she said.

Last month, RecipeTin Eats founder Nagi Maehashi accused Bake With Brooki author Brooke Bellamy of plagiarising several recipes from her and other cookbook authors, including the late Bill Granger.

The two recipes Maehashi claims were stolen from her are caramel slice and baklava.

Bellamy strenuously denies the claims.

“I do not copy other people’s recipes,” she said in a statement through her lawyers.

“Like many bakers, I draw inspiration from the classics, but the creations you see at Brooki Bakehouse reflect my own experience, taste and passion for baking, born of countless hours of my childhood spent in my home kitchen with Mum.”

This masthead does not suggest the accusations of plagiarism are true, only that they have been made.

“They [recipes] are used and changed,” said Stewart.

“And if you print somebody else’s recipe word for word in your own cookbook then that might be plagiarism but I think it’s very hard to prove who actually came up with that particular recipe.”

“Has anyone taken a recipe of yours word for word, and if so, how would you react?” asked Law.

“Who knows?” said Stewart.

This is Stewart’s first visit to Australia since 2019, when she holidayed here with family to catch the Sydney to Hobart race. Before that, she was in Sydney in 2011 with George Clooney for the inaugural Global Leadership Forum.

“Last evening in Sydney I spoke to a large audience of approximately 3500 Aussies, interviewed on stage by Benjamin Law,” the celebrity wrote in an Instagram post this morning.

“Celebrating ‘Vivid Sydney’ the largest gathering of its kind in the southern hemisphere, which is meant to encourage tourism in this beautiful city, we, covered a wide variety of subjects about career, life, goals, and even gardening! The audience was lively and interested and we had a great time.”

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