Edna Lewis Remembered

Edna Lewis, a giant of down home southern cooking, died on February 13th at the age of 89. From Epicurious.com's 2001 profile of Lewis:

"No one has done more to take down-home cooking beyond the Grits Belt than the indomitable Edna Lewis — the granddaughter of slaves, a chef and cookbook author who is the unofficial ambassador of Southern cuisine. Her groundbreaking career was capped in 1999 with her designation as Grande Dame by Les Dames d'Escoffier, an organization of female culinary professionals from around the world.

Lewis's life is a great American story. Born in 1916 in Freetown, Virginia, a tiny farming community founded by her grandfather, she traveled to New York and became a chef at a time when female chefs, let alone black female chefs, were few and far between. Her landmark 1976 book, The Taste of Country Cooking, was one of the first cookbooks by an African-American woman to reach a wide audience, and it is credited with helping spark a nationwide interest in genuine Southern, country-style cooking."


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