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Leah Chase, an Orleans-born chef and cookbook author who defended Creole cuisine over a career spanning more than seven decades and whose Dooky Chase restaurant became a haven for activists during the Civil Rights, passed away on June 1 at age 96.
His family announced the death in a statement but did not provide any additional information.
Ms. Chase lacked culinary training, but had been exposed to a rich tradition of home cooking at her family's rural farm in Louisiana. She also worked at a posh restaurant in the French Quarter of the city before marrying the son of Dooky Chase's founder.
When her stepfather became ill in 1952, she and her husband, formerly Edgar "Dooky" band leader Chase Jr., stepped in to help lead Dooky Chase. "I thought I was going to be the little front hostess," Ms. Chase told The New York Times in 1990, "but no one was cooking and I landed in the kitchen."
Dooky Chase's, located in the historic African American neighborhood of Treme, began circa 1940 as a toy and lottery store in a used rifle house. It was then expanded to meet the demand, the restaurant becoming a haven for black musicians and artists seeking to appease their hunger by 4 am.
But it was Mrs. Chase who raised the menu and made Dooky Chase one of the leading representatives of Creole cuisine. His improvements – efforts to reflect some of the luxury offerings of the French Quarter – were not always welcome.
"People did not know what a shrimp cocktail was. They thought it was something to drink, "Ms. Chase told Gourmet magazine in 2000.
Instead, Ms. Chase turned to classic Creole dishes that were primarily the responsibility of home cooks. She quickly became known as a mistress of the kitchen, a hodgepodge inspired by French, Spanish and African dishes, reflecting the diverse cultures and races of the city's settlers.
In addition to gumbo, Ms. Chase's iconic dishes include jambalaya, trout almond (fried fish and almonds) and red beans and rice, a favorite of singer Ray Charles, who has paid tribute to Dooky Chase in his version of Louis Jordan's "Early in the Morning". ("I went to get something to eat at Dooky Chase / The waitress looked at me and said," Ray, you really look beaten. ").
Ms. Chase's husband was a member of the NAACP and ensured that this establishment was a safe place for black and white activists to come together during a period of legalized segregation. It became a meeting place for personalities such as Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
The restaurant was so popular with its white clientele that city officials dared not try to close it. Ms. Chase stated that a homemade bomb had already been launched on the front door and that she had received many nagging letters, but the dominant spirit was one of a kind. interracial fellowship.
"My job was just to feed people," Ms. Chase told New Orleans' weekly weekly, the Gambit, in 2016. "In New Orleans, you do nothing without eating. I came here and I made gumbo and fried chicken, they ate lunch and planned their moves, sometimes it was hard and sometimes it was scary, because you did not know who was coming back and who did not. was not. "
For decades after the civil rights movement, Dooky Chase continued to attract political and cultural figures, including several presidents, whose characteristic and talkative and candid restorer is not afraid to reprimand his choice of campaigning candidate.
Barack Obama was "so kind," Ms. Chase reminded for the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2009. "But the only thing is that he put hot sauce in my okra." I said, "Oh, Mr. Obama." He said, "But I love hot sauce."
Leah Lange was born on January 6, 1923 in Madisonville, Louisiana, on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans. She was the eldest of eleven children of a family run by her father shipbuilder and mother, who taught her how to make strawberry wine (based on berries in their strawberry field) and the quail compote (family members have slaughtered the birds piece).
As a teenager, she moved to New Orleans to attend the city's first black Catholic high school. After graduation, she worked in sewing and domestic service jobs before working in restaurants.
In 1945, she met her future husband at a Mardi Gras ball, where he played the trumpet and directed a big band. They married the following year and had four children. Her husband died in 2016 and complete information about the survivors was not immediately available.
In 1990, Ms. Chase published her first recipe collection, "The Dooky Chase Cookbook." Her second, "And I Still Cook," was released in 2003. (Her title was a bit of an understatement, since she was present in the kitchen in her 90s.)
Over the years, Ms. Chase has assembled a collection of renowned African-American art, including works by painter Jacob Lawrence and sculptor Elizabeth Catlett, and exhibited at the restaurant.
Like many New Orleans businesses, Dooky Chase's was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The restaurant was closed for two years, Chases collecting funds and living in a FEMA caravan in front of the house. street. Chase said she saw civic responsibility in the reopening of Dooky Chase, which became an institution on the city's restaurant scene.
In 2016, the James Beard Foundation awarded Ms. Chase an award for all her accomplishments. She was the first African-American to receive this honor.
"Madisonville, look at me now," Ms. Chase said in her thank you speech by winking at her hometown of Louisiana, according to the Times-Picayune. "A long way to the strawberry."
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