The Biography of Miss Edna Lewis
One of her students, Scott Peacock, who is the executive chef at the Watershed restaurant in Decatur, was dutifully at Miss Lewis’ side when she died peacefully at their Georgia residence. Peacock and Miss Lewis started their long time friendship as teacher and student. Their friendship then became deeper when Peacock becoming his mentor’s caretaker in 1999.
Born in Freetown, Virginia on April 13, 1916, the African-American lived with her parents and grandfather. Before Edna was ten years old, both her father and grandfather passed away. These absences left her mother responsible for raising and providing for her and her seven siblings. Edna was sent to live with extended family in Washington. She then moved onto to New York.
Edna never graduated from high school. She went to work as a seamstress, at a mail center, at a laundry, and at a newspaper.
Miss Edna Lewis learned the art of Southern cooking from her aunt. Together, they spent many hours cooking meals and baking goodies by using a wood stove in Freetown. Edna learned to cook by using fresh ingredients that were available depending on the seasons. And, she took that simple philosophy with her.
In 1948, she used her talent of cooking tasty Southern dishes to start a restaurant with John Nicholson, an antiques dealer. Although Edna had never worked as a professional chef before, she drew on her childhood memories and the wonderful Southern food she had grown up with.
Soon, Edna’s delicious Southern cooking at the Cafe Nicholson drew crowds of hungry writers, artists, and stars of the silver screen to the Cafe Nicholson. Celebrities such as William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Greta Garbo, Howard Hughes, Salvador Dali, Marlene Dietrich, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett, and Truman Capote could be spotted eating Edna’s simple, yet delectable cooking at the restaurant.
Edna, who was now known as a culinary genius, left the Cafe Nicholson in 1954.
Throughout her life, Miss Edna Lewis taught the art of Southern cooking to many students. She also wrote four cookbooks. Her cookbooks were not only filled with recipes, but they also contained personal stories and reflections of her life in Virginia. Her cookbooks, coupled with her Southern cooking successes, earned her the recognition of being named in the “Who’s Who in American Cooking by Cook’s Magazine in 1986. Edna was also awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Association of Culinary Professionals in 1990. In 1995, Edna won the first James Beard Living Legend Award, and in 1999, she was named “Grande Dame” by Les Dames d’Escoffier. The same year, Edna won the first Lifetime Achievement Award from Southern Foodways Alliance.
The new millennium brought two more awards and additional recognition for Edna’s talents. She earned the Barbara Tropp President’s Award in 2002 and she was Inducted into the KitchenAid Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2003.
Another accomplishment of Miss Edna Lewis’ is the co-founding of the Society for the Revival and Preservation of Southern Food in the 1990’s.
Edna finally ended her successful career as a professional chef in 1992. She had been a chef
at the Gage & Tollner restaurant in Brooklyn.
Miss Edna Lewis had actually become “Mrs. Steve Kingston” earlier in her adult life. But Kingston passed away in the 1970’s. The couple had no biological children. Edna adopted an adult son, Afeworki Paulos, a doctor who was born in Africa.
