Vital Names: Remembering Edna Lewis, Founding Farm-to-Table Chef

What’s the first name that comes to mind when you think of the term “farm-to-table?” 

Alice Waters? James Beard? Dan Barber? Certainly, each of these has greatly impacted how we source and consume food (and how we orient our culinary programs here at ICE).

The same could be said of Edna Lewis, the Freetown, Virginia-born chef for whom cooking with local, seasonal foods and centering self-reliance, sustainability and food security weren’t tenets for a farm-to-table movement – they were a way of life. 

But “the same could be said” isn’t the same as “what is said,” and when it comes to Lewis, what is said isn’t nearly enough. Though her ideas around farm-to-table cooking are both first and far-reaching, her contributions to America’s foodways are often overlooked or appropriated, and her vital name is relatively unknown. 

A Guiding Light In Food

The good news is that this is changing, thanks in large part to a cadre of chefs and food content creators for whom Lewis is a guiding light. 

For Chef Adrienne Cheatham, ICE graduate and Edna Lewis acolyte, Lewis is a guiding light “not just in food, but in being a person in an industry where you’re not that prevalent.” 

“You’re in an industry where people look at you like, ‘What are you doing here,’ Chef Adrienne says, “as opposed to saying, ‘You belong here.’” 

As a Black woman leading kitchens and authoring cookbooks in mid-20th century America, this was an experience Lewis encountered often. In the documentary series, “,” award-winning writer and podcast host Debra Freeman explores this theme. 

Hidden Labors, Stolen Legacies

Freeman speaks with , author of “Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original,” who references Lewis’ time as Chef and Partner at New York’s Cafe Nicholson. Lewis landed the job in 1949 after her home-cooked dinners with friends – and the enthusiastic word of mouth they generated – made her a person of renown in the post-World War II NYC food scene. Celebrities and literati were among Cafe Nicholas’ clientele, and its menu – designed and prepared nightly by Lewis – featured the rural Virginia foods of her youth with a French inflection. “Refined comfort food,” it was called, and patrons, quite literally, ate it up. 

But while Lewis’ cooking made Cafe Nicholas destination dining, Lewis’ name and visage remained concealed. As Franklin puts it: “[The restaurant] was making a profit off her excellent food, her skill, her prowess, her embodied knowledge, but they weren’t promoting her.” 

Stories like this weren’t new to Black Americans then, and they aren’t news to Black Americans now. Consider, for example, that Lewis’ recipes are based on recipes developed by her enslaved grandparents (family purchased as property a mere two generations before her birth); that she was raised in a community founded by former slaves in the days following Emancipation; that she spent the first 50 years of her life living in a country (the U.S.) where segregation was legal; and that her name, despite all her contributions to American foodways, is generally unknown.

Understanding Lewis’ obfuscation requires contextual and historical knowledge (and is an endeavor I’d encourage everyone to undertake). Understanding Lewis’ legacy is much simpler – because it’s everywhere. 

In Pursuit of Cooking

A good starting point is her cookbooks. In of “Finding Edna Lewis”, ICE alum and James Beard Award-winner Chef Mashama Bailey cites Lewis’ “In Pursuit of Cooking” as the inspiration for her acclaimed restaurant’s menu design. Where “In Pursuit of Cooking” has section titles like “From the farmlands” and “From the stream,” Chef Mashama’s menu at The Grey features sections titled Dirt, Water, Pasture and Pantry. Chef Mashama is also the head of the Edna Lewis Foundation, a non-profit that grants scholarships to up-and-coming chefs, farmers and storytellers who embody Edna’s legacy.

Lewis’ time cheffing at Middleton Place, a former plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, offers further insight to her legacy. What initially appears an unusual choice – thinking here of both the historical pain of plantations and the current controversy around plantation tourism – later emerges as a unique choice. 

In , Freeman asks Amethyst Ganaway, a Gullah Geechee chef and food writer who grew up in Charleston, what Lewis would think about working in such a place. Ganaway’s answer is definitive.

“Pride [in being able to] make something so beautiful out of a tragedy,” she says. "...[and in] recognizing the impact of her work [and] the impact of the people that were here.” 

A Beautiful, Idyllic Life

Lewis left Middleton Place after three years of employment, returning to New York to work at Gage & Tollner, a then 60 year-old restaurant (that is now 100 and is still open and helmed by ICE graduate Sohui Kim) in Downtown Brooklyn. There, Lewis cooked as she always had, making refined comfort food that represented a love letter to her native Virginia. Three years later, at age 75, Lewis retired. She would live another 15 years, and in that time, co-author another cookbook and continue to harvest local ingredients and cook intimate meals for friends at her home in Decatur, Georgia. 

The story of Edna Lewis is inspiring in many ways. One of these, as James Beard Award Finalist tells Freeman, is the fact that “she didn’t have all of the tribulations that some of the other historical Black chefs have had – that she was just a person who had a beautiful, idyllic life, and [that she] enjoyed it and shared it with other people.” 

“And you know,” Chef Leah says, “Black people can have those stories, too. It doesn’t all have to be rising up from the ashes.”

Indeed, Lewis’ story is both beautiful and aspirational. Her influences on cooking are all around us.

As Freeman puts it in the , “To know Miss Lewis is to feel empowered, to grow your own produce, to cook for others, to celebrate the place where you grew up, to work hard and put your stamp on things. When you find Edna Lewis, you might just find yourself.”