Creole Cuisine: African American Contributions is a celebration of the influence of African-American chefs and restaurateurs on Creole cuisine and food culture in New Orleans. This exhibit is based on and expands upon one existing currently in the Southern Food and Beverage Museum as well as draws on the book Creole Feast for inspiration.
Cover of Creole Feast (1978) by Frank Lotz MillerSouthern Food and Beverage Museum
In the book Creole Feast, published in 1978, Chef Nathaniel Burton of Broussard’s and oral historian and civil rights activist Rudy Lombard opened the doors to some of New Orleans’ top restaurants, revealing to the reader that the creators of Creole haute cuisine were not Creole persons of European descent but, instead, African American. The book presents chefs from some truly elite restaurants, such as Galatoire’s, Broussard’s, and the Caribbean Room, who, with few exceptions, remain today almost unknown to the contemporary public. While these men and women cooked in the days before “celebrity” chefs were hailed as masters of their art, Burton and Lombard celebrated these chefs, honoring and preserving their legacies with this account.
Lena Richard
Lena Richard receives mention in Creole Feast as a “culinary giant of her era,” which seems an understatement for an African-American woman with her list of achievements in the era of Jim Crow south. She was a chef, restaurateur, caterer, cook book author, cooking teacher, and host of her own television show in New Orleans. Richard was born in New Roads, Louisiana. Her family moved to New Orleans when Richard was a young girl and she grew up at 1572 North Derbigny Street. Richard resided in New Orleans for much of her childhood and adult life. She trained at several cooking schools in New Orleans and in 1918 graduated from the Fannie Farmer Cooking School in Boston.
In 1939, Richard self-published Lena Richard’s Cook Book with a cameo-style image of herself on the title page (see previous image). A year later,with the help of New York Herald food writer Clementine Paddleford, she landed a contract with Houghton-Mifflin, which re-issued her book in 1940 with a new title, New Orleans Cook Book, and without the image of Richard, thus eliminating any reference to the author's Afrivan-American heritage.
When Lena Richard was promoting her cookbook in the Northeast, she was recruited by Charles and Constance Stearn to be the head chef of the recently opened Bird and Bottle Inn in Garrison, New York. Richard was highly successful at the restaurant and was known for dishes such as her "Shrimp Soup Louisiane." She returned to New Orleans in November 1941, and opened Lena's Eatery, located at 2720 Lasalle Street.
Richard left New Orleans once again when she was sought out by Charles Rockefeller of the John D. Rockefeller Foundation to act as head chef of the Travis House Restaurant and Inn in Colonial Williamsburg. Richard experienced much success at the Travis House and was praised for her delicious dishes by restaurant patrons, including Clementine and Mary Winston, Winston Churchill's wife and daughter. Around 1945 Richard returned to New Orleans and started her own frozen food business. She cooked and packaged frozen dinners to be shipped across the country. Richard's frozen food was prepared at Bordelon Fine Foods Company located at 530 Metarie Road. In 1949, Richard opened her last eatery called The Gumbo House next to Holy Ghost Catholic Church.
Lean Richard on Set Close Up (1949) by WDSU New OrleansSouthern Food and Beverage Museum
From 1949 until her death in 1950, Richard hosted a twice-weekly cooking show called “Lena Richard’s New Orleans Cook Book” on a local television station, the first African-American to do so at a time when few households owned television sets.
This exhibit has been made possible due to contributions from the John & Bonnie Boyd Hospitality & Culinary Library, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, the Southern Foodways Alliance, Rise Delmar Ochsner, Leah Chase, Wayne Baquet Sr., and the Newcomb Archive and made possible with funding from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation.
