City Lights: The Life and Legacy of New Orleans Chef Lena Richard
Dee Lavigne joins the Smithsonian Associates' Cooking Up History series to share a classic Creole recipe and stories of a groundbreaking woman.
Lena Richard’s New Orleans Cook Book: A Groundbreaking Story of Innovation and Resilience
Lena Richard‘s groundbreaking career as a chef, cookbook author, and restaurateur in the segregated South set the standard for New Orleans cuisine and Creole cooking during the first half of the 20th century. During the Jim Crow era’s oppressive racism, Richard established a catering business, a fine-dining restaurant, a cooking school, and more within the Louisiana city.
By 1939, she self-published the first Creole cookbook written by a Black person; a year later a publishing house republished the text as New Orleans Cook Book. In 1949, Richard also became the first Black woman to host a television cooking show under the same name as her book—revolutionizing the public’s perception of Creole food by highlighting its Black roots.
Other News
News
Women entrepreneurs: Continuing a legacy, creating new opportunities
March 22, 2023
By last year, Chef Dwynesha “Dee” Lavigne, a lifelong cook, was already a well-established culinary presence in New Orleans. She had worked in the industry for years, owned a pastry business and hosted a periodic cooking segment on WWL-TV.
News
Chef Dee Lavigne is following in Chef Lena Richard's footsteps
December 22, 2022
In February of 2022, Chef Dwynesha “Dee” Lavigne founded Deelightful Roux School of Cooking, following in the footsteps of her heroine, the late Chef Lena Richard. It’s been over eighty years since a Black woman has owned a cooking school in New Orleans, ever since Richard closed hers—the first—to pursue opportunities in New York City in the 1940s.
News
Meet the chef behind NOLAs’ African American-owned cooking school
September 26, 2022
Chef Dee Lavigne learned to cook at the age of seven. After a brief career in accountancy, she decided to ditch the world of spreadsheets and focus on her true passion: food. Now she runs the first African American-owned cooking school New Orleans has seen in over 80 years, whipping up Cajun and Creole classics for hungry travellers.
News
The Black Creole Chef Who Paved the Way for Food TV
May 19, 2022
A belated celebration of Lena Richard. In 1949 — more than a decade before Julia Child’s television debut — a boisterous Creole chef put on a cook’s uniform and made history.
