Leni Sorensen

Leni Ashmore Sorensen is an American chef and culinary historian. She focuses on the lives of Black cooks, with a particular emphasis on the early 1800s and the Colonial period. She is featured on the Netflix television series, High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America.

Early life Sorensen was born in Los Angeles in 1942. Her mother Lisa, a Communist who later joined the Unitarian Church, was white. Her father, Billy, was black; his grandfather was enslaved. She was the first of three generations of interracial children.

Sorensen completed a BA in history in 1992 through the Mary Baldwin College Adult Degree Program, after having left high school at 16 play guitar and sing with folk group, The Womenfolk. She went on to earn her master's in 1997 and her Ph.D. in American Studies in 2005 from the College of William and Mary.