Pod Insights The Sporkful Southern Cooking Icon Edna Lewis Gets Her Due About this episode Edna Lewis was one of the first Black women to write a successful mainstream cookbook about the South. She talked about seasonality and farm-to-table cooking long before it got trendy, and she tied that approach to the way she grew up in Virginia. So why isn’t Edna Lewis better known?
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Pashman? As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. Start the day strong with Quaker Protein Products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious to get a good source of protein. No matter what the day has in store, Quaker Protein
0:43 Dan Pashman? Products give you a variety of ways to reach your protein goals. Oatmeal, granola, bars, and rice snacks in flavors you already love like maple and brown sugar and blueberries and cream. Quaker Protein helps fuel you to start whatever's next. Get your protein with Quaker. Available at a store near you.
1:01 Speaker 01 The first thing that I thought of is barbecue. Yeah, a lot of people think that barbecue, first of all, started in other places. It starts in Virginia, first of all. Let's, let's put that out there.
1:12 Dan Pashman? Okay, all right. Anyone who disagrees can send emails directly to Deb.
1:17 Speaker 01 I've gotten emails before. I've gotten them before. I'm not, I'm not new to this.
1:26 Dan Pashman? This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Now, quick heads up before we get into it, we are getting ready to tape another call-in show. So if you have a food-related disagreement or dispute with a friend or loved one, maybe you got a food hot take to share, I want to hear from you. Email me at [email protected] by February 26th, and you might find yourself in the episode. Thanks.
1:54 Dan Pashman? Okay, now on today's show, we are continuing the Sporkfuls Month in the South. We've already driven across Alabama and Mississippi, eating at some incredibly delicious gas stations. We did a live show in Memphis, and today we're focusing on Virginia with someone who's not afraid to say that barbecue was invented there. That's Deb Freeman, who said that at the top of the show. She's a food writer and podcast host who spent most of her life in Virginia and lives there today. She's written about things like the history of yellowcake and the tradition of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's, and she always has an eye out for any story that's got a connection to Virginia. Now, Deb started writing about food a decade ago. When she was starting out, she wanted to learn everything she could about African-American food ways, which led her to a fellow Virginian who she hadn't heard of before, Edna Lewis.
2:38 Dan Pashman? Deb read that Edna was most famous for a book that's considered a seminal work in food circles, but less well-known elsewhere, The Taste of Country Cooking.
2:46 Speaker 01 So, went to the bookstore that day, picked up the book, and was just reading it in the car, like a novel. And there were very few cookbooks that I had seen at the time that really reminded me of my grandmother's cooking that really spoke to you how I grew up. It was just really off to the races once I started reading that book.
3:07 Dan Pashman? Well, you're like driving home, reading the book. I'm picturing you in a car.
3:10 Speaker 01 In the parking lot.
3:11 Dan Pashman? Oh, in the parking lot, okay. I picture you like stopped at the red light, people behind you were honking, and you're like, but wait. What's going through your head as you're first leafing through those pages?
3:22 Speaker 01 What's going through my mind is, what is this? In my mind, I thought it was just a cookbook with recipes, but I didn't expect to find these descriptions of where she was from and what makes, what makes a good chicken, and, you know, how do you make eggs? Like, I did not expect that, and was just so shocked by reading this prose that was just like... Do I buy a memoir or do I buy a cookbook? You know? And so I was instantly enthralled. It's been nearly a decade of trying to delve into her life and try her recipes and get to the source of who she was and why she decided to write about Virginia food.
4:07 Dan Pashman? In the past year, Deb's interest has gone a step further. She made a documentary called Finding Edna Lewis, which airs on PBS this month. In it, she talks with people who knew Edna personally. She digs up what little archival footage there is of Edna, and she visits places where the author lived and worked, talking to different chefs today about how they've been influenced by Edna's legacy.
4:26 Speaker 01 It's really interesting to me that she's not a household name like a Julia Child is or Alice Waters is. She's not quite on that pantheon. She's on my personal pantheon of culinary figures. But, you know, for the average household name, she's just not on that list. And that's just really unfortunate, considering the profound impact she's had on food.
4:50 Dan Pashman? Edna Lewis was one of the first Black women to write a successful mainstream cookbook about the South. She talked about seasonality and farm-to-table cooking long before it became trendy and tied that approach to the way she grew up in Virginia. As I said, she's well-known among insiders in the culinary world, so her work has probably influenced meals you've eaten. But as Deb points out, she's not a household name. Today, with Deb's help, we're asking, why isn't Edna Lewis better known? And who exactly was this person who changed the way Americans think about the food of the South?
5:24 Dan Pashman? Edna Lewis was born in Free Town, Virginia in 1916.
5:27 Speaker 01 Free Town, Virginia is about 20 minutes away from Charlottesville, which is where Monticello is.
5:33 Dan Pashman? So Thomas Jefferson's estate slash plantation.
5:36 Speaker 01 Exactly. What's really interesting about Free Town is it was created by a group of formerly enslaved people and aptly named Free Town. So these were people who, you know, were very familiar with the land and working with their hands and all of that sort of thing. But they wanted to create a place that belonged to them, formerly enslaved Black people who wanted to live life on their terms.
6:01 Dan Pashman? Here's Edna Lewis talking about Free Town in an episode of the Kitchen Sisters Radio Show from 1983.
6:08 Speaker 02 It was like one big family. I always felt loved and unafraid because everybody was your parent. Everybody loved you. Never lived in a community like that since and it's unforgettable.
6:25 Dan Pashman? Edna's grandfather was one of the formerly enslaved founders of Free Town. These founders had little education because learning to read and write was illegal when they were enslaved. But they built a church and hired a teacher for the children and they created a farming community. So Edna grew up foraging for wild berries, nuts and greens.
6:43 Speaker 01 When it comes to food, she's eating what's available at the time. So before, you know, it's, we think about seasonal cooking now and it's kind of this phrase that we're all familiar with.
6:52 Dan Pashman? You mean seasonal cooking wasn't invented in San Francisco?
6:56 Speaker 01 It was here in Virginia now.
7:00 Dan Pashman? That's when I thought they had that idea.
7:03 Speaker 01 That's called marketing.
7:08 Speaker 01 But yeah, I mean, but before that kind of becomes a catchphrase, a farm to table, you know, really Ms. Lewis is on the front end of that in the seventies because that's how she grew up and the, yeah, her parents and et cetera.
7:22 Dan Pashman? One of the points that one of your early guests in the documentary makes that struck me was that it seems like she had a pretty good upbringing and a pretty good life and that that is, it makes her story different from the stories of a lot of the black American protagonists that we hear throughout our history. How is her story different from those and why was it important to you to include that in the film?
7:49 Speaker 01 Well, I think what's so interesting and that was Chef Leo Branch, who is the executive chef at the Roosevelt here in Richmond. Why I think that's so important is a lot of, there's no way to say this, I suppose, but there's a lot of black trauma porn out there, if you will. And these are true stories and they are horrible stories about what African Americans went through in this country. On the flip side, there are also stories of triumph and also everyday life. You know, being able to live your life on your terms, particularly in that timeframe for an African American, that's a victory, you know, and that should be celebrated in and of itself.
8:31 Speaker 01 There are so many different stories of the African American experience that are not based on slavery, that are not necessarily based on segregation. Not to say that these things were not happening around them. I want to be very clear. Lynchings were happening in the next county over. It was just really important for me to show the different sides of the black experience.
8:56 Dan Pashman? As I said, Free Town was a black farming community, but it was also heavily influenced by European cuisine because it was near Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's estate slash plantation. Jefferson made Monticello a center of power and culture in the earliest days of America.
9:10 Speaker 01 And obviously, because Thomas Jefferson was a Francophile and everyone says he's America's first foodie, but who was cooking that food, you know? And so I think that that is a key thing to talk about when you send an enslaved person off to get trained in France and to learn French techniques and come back and cook those things, it trickles down.
9:33 Dan Pashman? And in particular, we should say James Hemings, the brother of Sally Hemings. James Hemings, the enslaved man, he went with Jefferson to France, lived in France with Jefferson, trained under French chefs there, brought back a lot of that food to Monticello. Anyone who was invited to eat at Monticello would have a taste of France. But James Hemings also kind of combined French technique with black Southern cooking and Southern cooking more broadly. In fact, you could argue that mac and cheese is a French/Southern hybrid dish. Am I right?
10:05 Speaker 01 Oh, you're talking to me. You're talking to me right now. I have, I have written articles about this.
10:11 Dan Pashman? Yes, yes.
10:12 Speaker 01 Because without Hemings, one, there's an English version of mac and cheese, if you allow me to go into a deep dive.
10:20 Dan Pashman? Let's take the time here, Dad. Good. We need to get into this.
10:24 Speaker 01 There's an English version that is a what we would call kind of a stove top, kind of a creamier mac and cheese versus when it's being cooked in a hearth, the way that Hemmings did, that becomes your baked macaroni and cheese with the crust. And so that's why, you know, there's two types of mac and cheese that folks are familiar with.
10:45 Dan Pashman? That's so the like the sort of two canonical styles of mac and cheese. You're telling me that they go back to England and France, like one is sort of an English and one is sort of a French?
10:55 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
10:56 Dan Pashman? The crucial point here is that French and European cuisine was in Virginia.
11:03 Speaker 01 Yes.
11:03 Dan Pashman? And it was brought to Virginia by James Hemmings and other enslaved people and spread throughout the region, going back to the 1700s. Uh, how did that influence the food that Edna Lewis saw growing up?
11:15 Speaker 01 When you think about the way that she's cooking, I think a lot of people have a misconception about southern food and Virginia food as well. Where it's just kind of these fried chicken, you know, collard greens, like kind of the, the big hits, right? The standards, but there's a lot of technique involved in many dishes that are southern.
11:35 Dan Pashman? A number of the women in Free Town worked in Washington DC, just 130 miles away, cooking for white families. And they brought this French inflected food with them.
11:43 Speaker 01 That would not have been strange to them to be able to create a souffle or to create, for example, a cake that required a special technique of the way that you beat it or, you know, creating a mother sauce. Like all of these things were not new. They just weren't talked about and they weren't written down. And so it just doesn't come out of nowhere.
12:05 Dan Pashman? Right. Are there other, a couple of other specific examples that come to mind of some of the dishes that Edna Lewis would have seen cooked in Free Town or would have cooked herself as a girl or young woman that are indicative of, of that?
12:19 Speaker 01 The way that she cooks asparagus, the way that she's handling vegetables.
12:24 Dan Pashman? So what? So, so I want to hear the details.
12:26 Speaker 01 Sure.
12:26 Dan Pashman? What exactly about the way that she cooked asparagus would have been French or European in?
12:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, so for example, with asparagus, her recipe, the sauce that's used is a beurre blanc sauce, but that's not what it's called. It's just called a white sauce, right? Or an herb and lemon sauce in some instances. And so that is directly French. However, no one calls it that, right? But those are things that were just kind of handed down. It was just an everyday thing. We're going to make the sauce with herbs, with butter, and with what we have available to us.
13:03 Dan Pashman? As idyllic as Edna's childhood in Freetown was, things would take a turn. By the time she was a teenager, her father had died and the Great Depression hit. As with many places around America, times in Freetown got tough.
13:15 Speaker 01 Freetown kind of limps along, to be honest. It was it was there for several years, several decades after that, but it's no longer there. People moved to where jobs are. So eventually it kind of dwindles out, unfortunately. The land is there. There's a historical marker for it for Ms. Lewis that stands where Freetown would have been.
13:38 Dan Pashman? At age 16, Edna and her sister moved to Washington DC in search of work. Edna became a seamstress, then a typist. After a decade or so there, she made her way to New York City, arriving in the early 1940s. That's where she met her husband, Steve Kingston. He was a cook with the US Merchant Marine. It's in this period, when Edna's in her mid 20s, that she really comes into her own as a cook.
14:00 Speaker 01 During this time in New York, so she begins to actually cook for dinner parties around the city. And so she had a reputation as being this incredible cook for wealthy families in New York.
14:12 Dan Pashman? Predominantly for white people, is that right?
14:14 Speaker 01 Correct. Yep.
14:15 Dan Pashman? As she's making the rounds, people are talking about this incredible chef, Edna Lewis, and a guy named John Nicholson hears about her. John Nicholson's an art dealer, a white guy who's the type to frequent the parties that Edna's catering. He's decided he wants to get into the restaurant business. Then he hears about Edna. Her food's been creating a buzz, exactly the kind of buzz John wants for his fledgling restaurant. And even though Edna had never cooked in a restaurant, John hires her as executive chef. He calls the place Cafe Nicholson.
14:41 Speaker 01 And this is the first time you see kind of the Freetown food and the Virginia food on menus. She was known for her chocolate souffle, for example. The New York Times wrote about that dish. And so that's not something that you, she was on a plate readily in Freetown. But she takes her experiences from cooking for all of these white families and these white dinner parties and marries that with the tradition of cooking that she had back in Virginia and creates this menu. It really became the hotspot for bohemians, to use that word all the time. And so folks, very famous people would show up there. Eleanor Roosevelt showed up there and all of these dignitaries show up there for her food. And
15:24 Speaker 01 unfortunately, there are a lot of photos, but you can kind of see her in the back, kind of in the shadows in one photo. That was her first professional job, cooking.
15:33 Dan Pashman? What other menu items do we know of from that restaurant? You said chocolate souffle?
15:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. And this is where seasonality starts to happen, because she's going to the market every single day and choosing what's fresh, what is actually there, what's available to create a menu. So the menu actually varied depending on what was in the market from day to day. There was chicken on the menu. It was not fried chicken. Truman Capote would ask her to make biscuits and she would, she would kind of push him away and say, no, no, I'm not making biscuits for you. That's not what I'm here for. But as they established a little bit of a relationship, she would make a couple and, and give it to him.
16:10 Dan Pashman? Why didn't she want to make biscuits?
16:12 Speaker 01 I think, honestly, my opinion is that she didn't want to be pigeonholed. You know, I think that's something that even today, a lot of black chefs wrestle with, with being pigeonholed into cooking very specific things. And I think that at that point, because she was able to cook some things that were not necessarily southern, that were not necessarily stereotypical, I think that she was enjoying kind of expanding her culinary palate and her culinary talents. And I think she wanted to Not necessarily show off, but show range.
16:47 Dan Pashman? So, so the food that she's making at Cafe Nicholson is really, it really is kind of like the next chapter in this centuries old story of the confluence of black southern cooking and French cooking.
17:00 Speaker 01 Mm hmm, absolutely. And I think that it's notable that, that, you know, when the New York Times, for example, comes and they write about all of these different food, they, if you go back and read it, you know, the writer seems a little surprised, I think, because she knew who Edna Lewis was and knew what she looked like. I think that was a little surprising.
17:19 Dan Pashman? You're saying that writer from the New York Times was surprised, not that Edna Lewis was black, but surprised of the type of food?
17:26 Speaker 01 Exactly. She shows a variety. She shows that we are, are different, you know? Heck, people in Alabama are cooking different than people in, in Virginia. We're, we're not modelless here in the South, and particularly not as black people.
17:41 Dan Pashman? How did the New York restaurant scene react to this restaurant and to Edna's cooking?
17:47 Speaker 01 It was a huge success. Honestly, I'm not sure she expected that because she's just kind of cooking the way she's always cooked in a lot of ways. And so it was received incredibly well. And I think that really is where she's starting to get legs under her and her name underneath her.
18:05 Dan Pashman? Edna left Cafe Nicholson in 1954 after five years as the executive chef. We don't know why she left. She never said anything about it publicly. And the decade or so after, she and her husband opened a pheasant farm in New Jersey, but all the birds got sick and died. She opened a southern restaurant in Harlem, but it went bankrupt. At one point, she got a job as a teaching assistant at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Edna seemed to be struggling to get a foothold in food or anywhere. Coming up, she gets the opportunity to write a cookbook, but it doesn't go the way she hopes. Then later, long after many folks would have retired, she returns to restaurant life. That's after the break. Stick around.
18:51 Speaker 03 Time to cook up some advertisements.
18:56 Dan Pashman? I am so happy that American Express is the presenting sponsor of today's episode because I myself have an Amex Gold Card and I truly love it. And in the new year, I am very excited to try some great new local spots just near me. I also want to like hit up some new neighborhoods in New York City. There's some areas that I just don't get to go to that often that have some phenomenal restaurants that I've heard all about. That's what I'm looking forward to this year. Maybe you want to go to your favorite neighborhood spot. Maybe you want to try someplace new. Whatever you're trying, I suggest you pay with an Amex Gold Card. Cardholders can enroll and earn up to $120 back in statement credits after paying at participating dining partners up to $10 each month and get up to $100 bucks back annually after you pay with the American Express Gold Card to dine at US Resy restaurants or make other eligible Resy purchases.
19:39 Dan Pashman? With my Amex Gold Card, I just feel like a VIP and I feel like I'm always racking up points. I get four times points at restaurants globally on up to $50,000 annually. Amex Gold rewards your love of dining experiences, allowing you to check out new restaurants, connect with your family and friends, and explore exciting flavors all while earning points. That's the powerful backing of American Express. For terms and to learn more, visit americanexpress.com/withamex. When you're cooking, ingredients matter, right? You use higher quality ingredients, you usually get better results. And if you're listening to this show, you're probably the kind of person who puts some thought and effort into your ingredients. But ingredients don't just matter with food, they also matter with laundry detergent.
20:21 Dan Pashman? Of course, the cleaning job needs to get done, the odors and stains have to be tackled, and I want to feel good about the detergent and the ingredients in it. Because remember, whatever's in your laundry detergent is essentially in your clothes, and then you're putting those clothes on, you want good stuff in there. And All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients. It's 100% free from dyes, perfumes, parabens, and irritating residues. Check out the label and see for yourself, it lists all the ingredients and what they do. We've been using it in my house, we're very happy with it, and let me tell you, family of four, two teenagers, we do a lot of laundry, so we have put All Free Clear to the test. It's a powerful clean that you can feel good about. All Free Clear is the number one detergent brand recommended by dermatologists for sensitive skin. When it comes to laundry detergent, the choice is clear: All Free Clear.
21:06 Dan Pashman? Pick up a bottle for your next laundry day. As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider.
21:43 Dan Pashman? There's nothing quite like Aruba. The white sand beaches are truly unlike anything you've seen. But what really stands out is the food. Because Aruba's not like other Caribbean islands. French pastries, Spanish paella, Peruvian barbecue, papardelle that has no business being that good that far from Florence. Not to mention the local fair. Aruba's food scene pulls you in with its astonishing variety of cuisines and beyond satisfies you with its unexpected flavors. So plan your escape to culinary delight at aruba.com. Your taste buds will thank you.
22:16 Dan Pashman? Start the day strong with Quaker Protein Products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious to get a good source of protein. No matter what the day has in store, Quaker Protein Products give you a variety of ways to reach your protein goals. Oatmeal, granola, bars, and rice snacks in flavors you already love like maple and brown sugar and blueberries and cream. Quaker Protein helps fuel you to start whatever's next. Get your protein with Quaker. Available at a store near you.
22:46 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Hey, you know, it's not too late to catch up on our month in the South. We did a live show in Memphis with local restaurateur Karen Blockman Carrier. She's got stories about everyone from Nina Simone to Tom Cruise. Then last week, I hit the road and sampled a bunch of gas station eateries in Alabama and Mississippi. This was the last of their chicken spaghetti today. He was reluctant to serve it to me. But I think he could tell by the look in my eyes that I desperately wanted it. So he said, he said he would sell it to me at a discount.
23:15 Dan Pashman? So I'm eating some discount, several hour old chicken spaghetti at a gas station in Tupelo, Mississippi, and I am having a blast. You'll have to listen to the episode to get my full thoughts on this dish. For now, let's just say I was quite shocked. Hear about everything I ate and all the people I met along the way in that road trip episode in your feed right now.
23:40 Dan Pashman? Okay, back to Deb Freeman and our conversation about Edna Lewis. After struggling for 15 years to find a career foothold, Edna gets an opportunity. A white socialite named Evangeline Peterson takes a liking to Edna and wants to write a cookbook with her. In 1972, they published the Edna Lewis Cookbook.
23:57 Speaker 01 A lot of people actually don't talk about that cookbook or even know about that cookbook. It feels like any other cookbook. That cookbook really pulls from a lot of her dinner parties that she was cooking for. It's a lot of fancier kind of cooking, and I feel like there's a disconnect there. And I think that's because she was writing things that she could do and do well, but I don't think she was passionate about it.
24:21 Dan Pashman? It wasn't personal.
24:22 Speaker 01 It wasn't personal. And so that cookbook did not have a lot of commercial success.
24:27 Dan Pashman? Oftentimes, that's the end of your cookbook career.
24:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:30 Dan Pashman? And yet, just a few years later, she gets a call from who?
24:34 Speaker 01 From Judith Jones.
24:35 Dan Pashman? Judith Jones, legendary cookbook editor. We actually did a whole episode featuring her story this past fall, so I'll encourage listeners to check that out for a deep dive on Judith Jones, but most famous for discovering and editing Julia Child's most seminal cookbooks. So this is in the 70s, so this is 10 years after Julia Child's first cookbook comes out. Judith Jones now is a huge figure in publishing after that success. She takes an interest in Edna Lewis.
25:01 Speaker 01 Absolutely. So she takes an interest. I mean, Judith Jones was interested in kind of creating this series, this kind of types of cookbooks. So a French cookbook and all of these sort of things. And she wanted a cookbook that really taught to the American South. And so she, you know, meets Miss Lewis, and Miss Lewis comes in with a yellow legal pad with all kinds of notes. And so they had a series of meetings. And Ms. Lewis decided she wanted to do this cookbook. And I think that what she saw in Ms. Lewis was something, a perspective that was not necessarily heralded. I think that she saw a versatility in Ms. Lewis because she can do both, right?
25:43 Speaker 01 She can do the expected quote unquote southern food, but she can also do, you know, more experienced, the things that I was mentioning earlier that aren't necessarily typical. Also, the editor, where I was reading the book by Sarah B. Franklin, you know, there's a passage in there where Judith Jones is so taken by what Ms. Lewis looks like, you know, that she was so tall and graceful and dressed in African attire. And I think that might have sparked something in Judith Jones's mind as well, that there's, there's something a little different here.
26:16 Dan Pashman? Yeah, I have that quote and that struck me too. Judith Jones said, "When Edna swept into my office in this beautiful garb, her hair piled up, she was just such a presence that you were a little awed by her."
26:28 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
26:28 Dan Pashman? Now, first of all, Judith Jones was known to be a somewhat intimidating figure.
26:32 Speaker 01 Right.
26:32 Dan Pashman? So for Judith Jones to be awed by someone.
26:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:36 Dan Pashman? Already tells you something kind of about Ms. Lewis's presence. But I also feel like, you know, reading that quote, it really made me think Edna Lewis couldn't possibly have been the only black woman in New York who was a great cook at that time.
26:53 Speaker 01 Oh, of course, of course.
26:54 Dan Pashman? I'm sure there were many, and yet she was the one who got all this buzz around her from the dinner parties. She was the one who was picked to be the chef at a restaurant. She was the one who got two cookbook opportunities in the 1970s. What do you think it was about her that made her the person that did all this?
27:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good question. I think. Is it fate? Is it that the way she carried herself and that people were not used to seeing black women carry themselves in that particular way? I mean, Ms. Lewis was also quite tall and she looked like a model. So many people say, oh, I thought she was a model. So I wonder if it's her countenance. And so the way when people interact with her, if people are kind of taken aback, then there's something different. I think she stands out in a way the other cooks at the time don't, you know? And not to say that they weren't great cooks of their own, but I think that Ms. Lewis had a little something extra that folks had not seen yet.
28:00 Speaker 01 And so I think that uniqueness is what made her stand out and what led to these opportunities for her.
28:06 Dan Pashman? There's something about the way that she speaks and the way that she carries herself. You can even see it in photos that is almost sort of regal.
28:12 Speaker 01 Yeah. And not in a kind of snobbish way either, just I am what I am kind of thing. I think that her upbringing in Free Town has a lot to do with that. I think that because that community was so tight knit and because it was an all-black community, I think that her sense of self really comes through in a way that perhaps someone in a more populated area who has to deal with segregation on a daily basis, perhaps that might be a part of it.
28:45 Dan Pashman? So Judith Jones was very impressed with Edna Lewis and wanted to take Edna's second book in a very different direction from the first one. No more New York dinner parties. Instead, Judith encouraged Edna to think back on her childhood in Virginia and put those experiences into the book. It would be called The Taste of Country Cooking. This is the book that Deb couldn't put down in the bookstore parking lot.
29:05 Speaker 01 When she's writing it, she is absolutely, you know, recalling things from her childhood, what she's experiencing, what the steps are, all the recipes.
29:15 Dan Pashman? Edna made frequent calls back to Free Town to confirm the details of certain recipes. She would write the pros and recipes on yellow legal pads. Then her niece, Nina Williams, typed up the manuscript. Deb spoke with Nina for the documentary. Nina says her aunt cooked some dishes over and over again to be sure the recipes were just right.
29:32 Speaker 01 I think what was important for her was just to... Represent her community. I think that's what her niece kept saying was that her intentionality um in wanting to make sure that she did justice to where she came from. That was the the driving focus for her. And so what stands apart is because she's putting all of herself into it. I think that Jules Jones knew that if she could convey that on a page, other people would be very interested in it and it would be received well. And she was absolutely correct.
30:07 Dan Pashman? So in The Taste of Country Cooking, Edna didn't just share recipes like the other cookbooks of the time did. This was actually kind of an early version of a genre that's become very common, a cookbook memoir. Edna wrote about hogbutchering time in Free Town and reminisced about the dishes she remembered from Christmas. I asked Deb to read an excerpt, which illustrates Edna's vivid storytelling.
30:29 Speaker 01 A stream filled from the melted snows of winter would flow quietly by us, gurgling softly and gently, pulling the leaf of a fern that hung lazily from the side of its bank. After moments of complete exhilaration, we would return joyfully to the house for breakfast.
30:49 Dan Pashman? To me, that really shows you how evocative this book is of a specific place.
30:54 Speaker 01 Absolutely. I'm right there with her. The way that she does that really invokes the reader in and it also gives a sense of place that surrounds all of these recipes.
31:08 Dan Pashman? In 1976, when Edna Lewis is 60, The Taste of Country Cooking comes out. It gets good reviews, but it's not a massive hit.
31:16 Speaker 01 But I think what's more important than how it was received is that it was respected. I think that it made people in the culinary world really start to sit up and go, oh, wait a minute. This is this is something different.
31:28 Dan Pashman? In other words, the book's biggest impact was among chefs and other insiders who recognized it as a new addition to the American canon. That said, it didn't make Edna a ton of money.
31:39 Dan Pashman? She'd write two more books in her lifetime with long stretches of time between them. In Pursuit of Flavor came out in 1988 and The Gift of Southern Cooking came out in 2003. She also got back to working in restaurants. When she was almost 70, she got a job at Middleton Place in South Carolina. It was a wedding venue and a former plantation.
31:57 Speaker 01 She was cooking at the restaurant that was on property and she actually lived on the top floor of the Mill House. And the Mill House is where enslaved women and children would basically mill rice. And it overlooks the rice paddies. So she's constantly surrounded by thoughts of what this place was, right? Even though it's no longer a working plantation, it's very clear that it was a plantation. What's interesting about her time there, though, is that she starts to kind of learn different ingredients. For example, red rice, she comes up, that's a very popular dish in Charleston that's not found in Virginia, but she's expanding her culinary repertoire. She remarked that she was lonely there.
32:42 Speaker 01 She did not have a lot of friends there, so it was a very lonely time for her.
32:47 Dan Pashman? Did she wrestle with the decision to go in the first place?
32:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, we don't have any public knowledge of that. I think that that's one of the biggest questions I have personally, is how did that feel being there for that amount of time, knowing what that place was and living physically above where enslaved people were working? What was that like?
33:11 Dan Pashman? Edna stayed at Middleton for about three years. Then, in 1989, she got a job that brought her back to New York, this time at the oyster and chop house Gage and Toner. Now, Gage and Toner's got its own wild history. It first opened in the 1800s. When Edna came on board, she changed their menu for the first time in more than 100 years. She added dishes from her own repertoire, like pan-fried quail and she-crab soup. Several years after she left, the restaurant closed and became a TGI Fridays, among other chains. It only recently reopened after a big renovation, under the leadership of Chef Sohee Kim, friend of the show. Sohee put the she-crab soup back on the menu. Anyway, while Edna was a gage and toner, she finally started to get her due after decades cooking in restaurants and writing cookbooks.
33:54 Dan Pashman? It seems the respect she earned with Taste of Country Cooking slowly permeated the whole food world, and over time, the book influenced a new generation of chefs. Edna won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She won the James Beard Living Legend Award. She was named a Grand Dame by Le Dame de Scaphier. So I asked Deb, what did all that recognition mean to Edna?
34:17 Speaker 01 I think that she was actually a little surprised. She definitely was grateful and loved it, but for her, she was still just cooking what she knew. And so she was not someone who was interested in celebrity or interested in accolades. I think that she was far more interested in being true to who she was as a chef. But I think that it's also interesting that all of these accolades happened so late in her life.
34:47 Dan Pashman? Was she ever resentful that she didn't get the credit she deserved, more credit and earlier?
34:53 Speaker 01 I'm sure there had to have been some sense of, come on now. I think there did have to be some sense of, it took this long for y'all to see this? But I think that, you know, everyone describes her as gracious and humble. And so I think that, of course, who doesn't like to be told that they're really great and get pats on the back? But I don't think that was a primary focus. But I do wonder if it might have been too late for it to matter in the way that could have, say, 20 years prior to that, when she was 59 versus 79.
35:33 Dan Pashman? Edna spent the last years of her life with a perhaps unlikely friend, a chef from Alabama named Scott Peacock, who was 50 years younger, white, and gay. They became not just friends, but also co-authors of Edna's last book, and eventually roommates. He took care of her until she died in 2006 at age 89.
35:51 Speaker 01 He really admired Ms. Lewis and the work that she did. And I think that he really does work to make sure that folks still know who she is and really, you know, talks about his time with her in a way that's not only fond, but almost puts her on a pedestal.
36:09 Dan Pashman? In the documentary, you spent time with the chef Mashama Bailey in Georgia. She's the chairperson of the Edna Lewis Foundation. She also has a very well-known restaurant called The Gray. And you cooked the braised lamb shoulder from The Taste of Country Cooking. You also met up with a friend of the show, Nicole Taylor, at Gage & Toner, and ate some dishes there inspired by Ms. Lewis's cooking.
36:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, the she-crab soup, first of all, which I think is a really lovely tribute. They have fried chicken on the menu, but yeah, there's a spin on it with kimchi. So, but that is still a nod to Ms. Lewis. And when you walk in and you're greeted at the hostess stand, there's a postcard with Ms. Lewis's portrait on it.
36:51 Dan Pashman? What does it feel like for you to cook those dishes, to eat those dishes today, having gone through this journey of learning so much about her?
37:02 Speaker 01 It makes me feel a bit closer to her. I mean, in a lot of ways, she is still very much an enigma for me because there's not a lot of documents that I can look to and definitively say what she was thinking or point to about how she felt in a particular moment. That definitely was the challenge in this documentary. But I think that Ms. Lewis really was talking to us through her food and the way that she wrote about her food. And so I think tasting those recipes made me feel closer to her and that she was just kind of out of focus, just kind of in the background somewhere. Her cookbook still speaks to so many people because her life and the way that she desired
37:46 Speaker 01 to write about food, because it impacts people today, she's still here. She lingers.
37:52 Dan Pashman? There are very few recordings of Edna Lewis still around today, but the documentary ends with a clip of her sharing her philosophy on food.
37:59 Speaker 02 You spend just intensely, intensely working on something and then it is, is eaten and gone. But I think some foods linger, which although they're eaten and gone, if it's good, it'll be remembered.
38:23 Speaker 02 So it is gone, but remembered.
38:43 Dan Pashman? That's Deb Freeman. Her documentary Finding Edna Lewis airs on PBS on February 18th, which is also when it'll be available on demand on the PBS app and website. Next week on the show, we complete our month in the South with Devin Pickard. He's a barbecue pit master during the week and a preacher on Sundays. That episode comes out next week. Why wait for that one? Check out last week's gas station road trip across Alabama and Mississippi, where I sampled tacos, sushi, and a very specific regional pasta dish. That one's up now. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that?
39:26 Dan Pashman? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer-
39:43 Speaker 04 Emma Morgenstern.
39:44 Dan Pashman? and senior producer-
39:45 Speaker 05 Andres O'Hara.
39:46 Dan Pashman? with help this week from talent Stradly. Our engineer is-
39:49 Speaker 06 Jared O'Connell.
39:50 Dan Pashman? and our intern is-
39:51 Speaker 03 Julia Leo.
39:52 Dan Pashman? music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
39:59 Speaker 07 And I'm Russell Green from Merle's Inlet, South Carolina, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat no better.
40:19 Dan Pashman? Thank you to our presenting sponsor, American Express. Amex Gold makes your dining experiences more rewarding, so you can discover more, connect more, and experience more dining moments. Enjoy every meal with the benefits that come with the American Express Gold Card. For terms and to learn more, visit americanexpress.com/withamex. What do I gift my mom and nieces?
40:40 Speaker 06 Walmart has top brands you know, like Ninja, Disneyland.
40:47 Dan Pashman? Oh, Dad loves music.
40:48 Speaker 06 Sonos can bring his songs to life.
40:55 Speaker 06 And my coffee-obsessed bestie?
41:00 Speaker 06 All those great brands at Walmart? Who knew?
41:05 Speaker 06 Shop gifts no love at Walmart.
41:09 Speaker 06 Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5, only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
Previous Hot Chicken Is Hot, But Who's Benefiting? (Reheat) Next Pho The Love Of Slurping Noodles (Reheat) Page updated November 4, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated