The Life of Chef Lena Richard, a culinary giant who broke barriers
2022-02-02
NEW ORLEANS —New Orleans is known for its delicious food, but do you know the chefs behind those delicious recipes? One culinary giant who paved the way, but is often left in the shadows, is Lena Richard. The first, known African-American to host a culinary cooking TV show in the U.S. and it aired on WDSU.
Richard was born in 1892 in New Roads, Louisiana. She moved to New Orleans at an early age and grew up in a home on N. Derbigny Street. Richard started her culinary career when she was 14. She helped her mom and aunt as a domestic worker for a prominent New Orleans family. "She was born only 30 years after slavery ended. So, she was born in the 1890s. She was part of this dominant workforce that were domestic servants. Those were the only jobs many African American women could get after the Civil War ended and Slavery ended," said Zella Palmer a food historian and Chair of Dillard University's Ray Charles Program in African-American Material Culture.
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Chef Dee Lavigne is following in Chef Lena Richard's footsteps
2022-12-22
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.
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Meet the chef behind NOLAs’ African American-owned cooking school
2022-09-26
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.
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The Black Creole Chef Who Paved the Way for Food TV
2022-05-19
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.
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Chef Dee Lavigne Expands The Only Black-Owned Cooking School In New Orleans
2022-05-11
Deelightful Roux School of Cooking is the only African American-owned cooking school taught by a New Orleans native, and her class is a guide to New Orleans’ food culture.
