Edna Lewis

Edna Regina Lewis (April 13, 1916 – February 13, 2006) She championed the use of fresh, in season ingredients and characterized Southern food as fried chicken (pan-, not deep-fried), pork, and fresh vegetables – most especially greens. She wrote and co-wrote four books which covered Southern cooking and life in a small community of freed slaves and their descendants, including The Taste of Country Cooking and In Pursuit of Flavor. While in D.C. Lewis worked for Franklin D. Roosevelt's 2nd presidential campaign in 1936. At some point, between D.C. and New York City, Edna Lewis married Steven Kingston, a retired Merchant Marine cook and a Communist. While in New York, she also worked for the communist newspaper The Daily Worker and was involved in political demonstrations.

In 2017, nearly forty years after its publication, The Taste of Country Cooking saw an abrupt and newsworthy spike in US sales, ranking #5 overall and #3 in the cookbook category on Amazon's bestseller list – this spike followed its thematic inclusion in an episode of the cooking competition show Top Chef.

Later career After Lewis's husband died, she returned to the restaurant business, working at such places as Fearrington House in Pittsboro, North Carolina; Middleton Place in Charleston, South Carolina; U.S. Steak House in New York City; and the historic Gage and Tollner in Brooklyn, New York, where she worked for five years before retiring in 1995. In a 1989 interview with The New York Times, Lewis said: "As a child in Virginia, I thought all food tasted delicious. After growing up, I didn't think food tasted the same, so it has been my lifelong effort to try and recapture those good flavors of the past." and they eventually collaborated on the book The Gift of Southern Cooking (2003). 1990 – Lifetime Achievement Award, International Association of Culinary Professionals 1995 – James Beard Living Legend Award (their first such award) 1999 – Named Grande Dame by Les Dames d’Escoffier, an international organization of female culinary professionals.

Other recognition According to Food & Wine, it is "impossible to overstate the importance of Edna Lewis in the pantheon of American chefs – especially in the realm of Southern cuisine". In 1979, Craig Claiborne of The New York Times wrote The Taste of Country Cooking "may well be the most entertaining regional cookbook in America".

Published works

The Edna Lewis Cookbook (1972) 4th edition The Taste of Country Cooking (1976) 4th edition In Pursuit of Flavor (1988) 4th edition The Gift of Southern Cooking (2003), co-authored with Scott Peacock