By Don Valentine
Meet Black America’s “Unknown Celebrity Chef”, Lena Richard, a gift to Cajun cuisine foodies everywhere. In 1892, just 27 years after the Civil War, this phenomenal chef was born in New Roads, Louisiana. In a Smithsonian Magazine interview, Marie Rhodes, Richard’s daughter and sous chef: “Her reputation was very fine…Everybody used to call her Mama Lena.”
Lena Richard was born in New Orleans during the early 20th century and learned how to cook as a domestic worker. Mama Lena began her cooking at the age of 14, helping her mother as a part-time domestic worker for the Vairins, a wealthy New Orleans family. Noticing her natural talent and curiosity for cooking, Mrs. Vairin set aside a day each week for her to experiment with unique dishes. Mrs. Varin generously paid for her to attend Boston’s prestigious Farmer cooking school.
Mama Lena’s gift for cooking quickly out shined the other students. In an interview for the Smithsonian she humbly said, “When I got ‘way up there, I found out in a hurry they can’t teach me much more than I know. When it comes to cooking meats, stews, soups, sauces and such dishes we Southern cooks have Northern cooks beat by a mile.” Her classmates began taking copious notes on the unique way Mama Lena cooked her Creole gumbo, chicken vol-au-vent, and other classics. That inspired her in 1939 to write her own 300 recipe cookbook Lena Richard’s Cook Book.
Her book was very well received and is regarded as the first Creole cookbook written by a Black person. The chef’s career began a meteoric rise in the “Nola” area. In the late 1930s, she opened a cooking school. The 1940s saw her open Lena’s Eatery and Lena Richard’s Gumbo House. In 1946, she started her own frozen-food business, where she sold fully cooked packaged dinners that were shipped across the country. Mama Lena made history by becoming the first Black woman to host a cooking show. Her show Lena Richard’s New Orleans Cookbook would air on Tuesdays and Thursdays on New Orleans local NBC station.
She overcame all the racial roadblocks. Jim Crow may have cast a long shadow, but Mama Lena’s kitchen always had a light on. She was the original Martha Stewart, with a cooking show, a cookbook and multiple restaurants.