A new docuseries about Edna Lewis, the "Grande Dame" of Southern food, premieres Friday
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"Finding Edna Lewis" premieres tonight at VPM's YouTube page. Image: Courtesy of VPM
A new docuseries exploring the life and legacy of Edna Lewis — the Virginia native and "Grande Dame" of Southern food — premieres Friday on VPM online.
Why it matters: She's well known in the food world, but Lewis has never achieved the same widespread household name recognition as other chefs of her caliber and era, like Julia Child and James Beard.
State of play: Richmond-based food writer Deb Freeman hopes to change that with "Finding Edna Lewis," the first major documentary about her life.
- The series will stream in eight monthly installments on VPM's YouTube channel before being packaged into a full-length special that will air on VPM in February.
The big picture: Lewis was a Black woman born in the American South in 1916 who worked as a laundress, pheasant farmer and a seamstress — copying Dior-style dresses and even creating one for Marilyn Monroe.
- She was born in Freetown, the small farming community her grandfather and other formerly enslaved Virginians founded just west of Charlottesville. She'd spend her life moving back and forth between the North and the South.
- Lewis was the executive chef at multiple restaurants and opened one in Manhattan where Truman Capote, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Salvador Dalí and Eleanor Roosevelt were regulars.
But perhaps her greatest contribution — and her legacy — is through the four cookbooks she published, which defined Southern food as a unique style of thoughtful cuisine worthy of attention, Freeman tells Axios.
Zoom in: Prior to Lewis, Americans thought of Southern food as deep-fried, unhealthy and certainly not something esteemed chefs or restaurants should be serving, Freeman adds.
- "She single-handedly changed that mindset," Freeman says.
- Lewis' cookbooks showed that Southern food embraces seasonality of ingredients — that is, cooking locally grown things when they're in season.
- She revealed the roots of true farm-to-table cooking, including which season is best for killing hogs versus chickens — and how that affects the flavor.
- She also helped cement the "Virginia style" of cuisine as one that incorporates French technique and "delicate sauces." The roots of that style can be traced to James Hemings, the first American chef to train in France (he was also enslaved by Thomas Jefferson).
These are all things Lewis learned from her mother and aunts growing up in Virginia and through her life and work, shared with the world.
- "She was to Southern cooking what Julia Child was to French cuisine," Freeman says.
- And now her story will be told.