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The ‘Grand Dame of Southern Cooking’ is also to be honored with a historical highway marker in Virginia.
Edna Lewis’s story portrays the roots of Southern soul cooking, reaching beyond the familiar dishes into a shared way of life. Of necessity, traditional Southern cooking embraced ideas now seen as conventional: seasonal fresh ingredients, pasture-raised meat and poultry, all without pesticides, herbicides or preservatives.
Lewis was born in Orange County, Virginia, on April 13, 1916, in a community named Freetown, a settlement founded by her grandfather and other emancipated slaves.
She left home as a young teen to earn money for the family and held a succession of jobs in Washington, DC, and New York City, preparing dishes for celebrities including Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, William Faulkner and Eleanor Roosevelt.
She also authored four successful cookbooks, including The Edna Lewis Cookbook (1972) and The Taste of Country Cooking (1976). She won countless awards and was honored with a U.S. Postage Stamp in 2006. A historical marker is to be erected near her birthplace in Unionville.
Despite her success, Edna Lewis never forgot her Virginia roots or her family. In fact, she visited often, reconnecting with loved ones and cooking for potlucks and homecomings at her home church, Bethel Baptist Church.
To honor her, Orange County has created the Edna Lewis Menu Trail. Until Memorial Day 2023, restaurants along the trail will highlight their interpretations of recipes from Lewis’s first cookbook. To explore the seven participating restaurants, go to visitorangevirginia.com/taste/the-edna-lewis-menu-trail
African Americans’ culinary skills and influences have been the backbone of Southern cooking. When other cultures influenced the cuisine, the cooks were still often African American.
The story above first appeared in our March / April 2023 issue.
