Lena Richard (1892-1950) was the “Martha Stewart” of New Orleans. With a mind for business and an arsenal of recipes under her belt, she took Louisiana by storm as the host of her own cooking show.
Lena Richard (1892-1950) was the “Martha Stewart” of New Orleans. With a mind for business and an arsenal of recipes under her belt, she took Louisiana by storm as the host of her own cooking show.
Food has been a unifier for millennia, not just gathering people together to share a meal, but acting as a warm introduction to new histories and traditions. This February on Womanica, we’re celebrating Tastemakers - the Black chefs, cooks, and food historians who created new foodways and preserved important culinary stories of the past. The impact of chefs like Pig Foot Mary, Mama Dip, and Georgia Gilmore stretch far beyond the culinary scene - uplifting their local communities and inspiring those who came after them.
History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.
Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Ale Tejeda, Sara Schleede, Abbey Delk, and Alex Jhamb Burns. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.
Original theme music composed by Miles Moran.
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Hi! I'm Chef Kia Damon.
I'm a Florida born chef, writer, host and recipe developer. I served as an executive Chef of New York City restaurant Lalito at the age of 24 and became Cherry Bombe magazine's first Culinary Director at 25. Since leaving I've founded Kia Feeds The People, a budding mutual aid effort. I’ll be your guest host for this month of Womanica.
This month, we're talking about Tastemakers. We're celebrating the Black chefs, cooks, and food historians who created new foodways and preserved important culinary stories of the past.
Today, we’re talking about the “Martha Stewart” of New Orleans. With a mind for business and an arsenal of recipes under her belt, she took Louisiana by storm as the host of her own cooking show. Let’s talk about “Mama” Lena Richard.
Lena was born in New Roads, Louisiana, in 1892. While she was still very young, she moved to New Orleans, where she, her mother, and her aunt worked for the Vairins, a prominent local family. Lena helped out in the kitchen.
Lena’s dishes impressed Alice, the Vairin matriarch. Every week, Alice gave Lena one day of free rein in the kitchen to experiment with ingredients and serve whatever she came up with. Lena didn’t disappoint. Alice liked her inventions so much, she hired Lena full time and signed her up for a local cooking class. Once she saw Lena couldn’t learn anything more in Louisiana, she sent her up north, to attend the acclaimed Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery in Boston.
There, Lena spent eight weeks attending classes. At first, Boston was lonely: lessons were rigorous, and Lena was likely the only woman of color in her class. Soon, though, she realized she knew a whole lot more than her classmates– even more than her teachers! Most days, Lena would look up from stirring a pot of gumbo, or filling her chicken vol-au-vents, to find the whole class watching her, pen in hand to capture her gusto and technique on paper.
Boston, it turns out, was no match for Lena. She later said: “When it comes to cooking meats, stews, soups, sauces and such, we Southern cooks have Northern cooks beat by a mile. That’s not big talk; that’s the honest truth.”
Still, Lena saw merit in her time up north. She experienced firsthand the benefit training education in a kitchen for occupational cooks like herself. She also knew how rare that opportunity was for Black, Southern home cooks who didn’t have sponsors to send them to schools like Fannie Farmer’s.
So, in 1937, Lena opened her first business: a cooking school. Lena’s school welcomed young African Americans seeking experience in the culinary and hospitality businesses. She knew folks with schooling could get better positions and better pay, a rarity for Black workers in the Jim Crow South.
Beyond her cooking school, Lena’s star kept rising. She even started her own frozen food company that sold products across the nation.
In 1939, Lena self-published the first edition of her cookbook. It collected more than 300 recipes that Lena had researched and prepared in her own kitchens. Lena’s cookbook became the first Creole cookbook written by an African American. At the time, Creole recipes had mainly been written down by white, southern cooks. They often took credit for dishes developed by African American chefs and communities, and relegated Black culinary practice to a “sixth sense,” rather than the skilled, hard work Lena knew it to be.
Lena’s book was so popular, she and her daughter traveled up north to promote it. Apparently, Lena wasn’t too sure the supermarkets in the northeast would have the ingredients she needed: so, she packed a suitcase laden with dried shrimp, pure cane syrup, Louisiana shelled pecans, and old-fashioned brown sugar.
Lena also worked as a chef at renowned restaurants in New York and Virginia, but she soon returned to New Orleans. In New Orleans, she opened two restaurants, Lena’s Eatery, and then, Lena Richard’s Gumbo House. Her second restaurant sat right across the road from the Holy Ghost Catholic Church; Gumbo House instantly became a meeting place for the Black community as churchgoers streamed out of mass and late-risers congregated for lunch.
In 1949, Lena became a household name and face– quite literally: Her face was broadcasted into living rooms across Louisiana. She appeared on TV twice a week with her own cooking show, “Lena Richard’s New Orleans Cook Book.”Lena reached Black and white viewers, dominating the airwaves at a time when TV was climbing in popularity, yet long before the medium would admit other women of color into similar positions. Lena’s show was the first cooking show to spotlight a Black woman at its center– and it would be the last to do so for years.
Lena continued to inspire her TV audience with recipes and cooking skills until her death in 1950. She was 58 years old.
All month, we’re talking about tastemakers. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to co-creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan, for having me as a guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!