There’s a never-ending stream of cookbooks featuring New Orleans cuisine.
Creole Cookbooks
To wrap up week three of the Friends of the Cabildo tour guide class for 2025, Ms. Barbara Giangrosso, class facilitator and tour guide extraordinaire, presented a talk on New Orleans food. This inspired me to set up a resource page where some of the older cookbooks can be downloaded.
Lafcadio Hearn
Patrick Lafcadio Hearn was a British/Japanese national of Greek-Irish descent. A journalist and author, he spent a number of years in New Orleans. From his Wikipedia entry:
Hearn lived in New Orleans for nearly a decade, writing first for the newspaper Daily City Item beginning in June 1878, and later for the Times Democrat. Since the Item was a 4-page publication, Hearn’s editorial work changed the character of the newspaper dramatically. He began at the Item as a news editor, expanding to include book reviews of Bret Harte and Émile Zola, summaries of pieces in national magazines such as Harper’s, and editorial pieces introducing Buddhism and Sanskrit writings.
This isn’t the place to do a full discussion of Hearn, but he did create/edit a cookbook on New Orleans cuisine, La cuisine creole : a collection of culinary recipes from leading chefs and noted Creole housewives, who have made New Orleans famous for its cuisine. We’ve downloaded it from archive.org.
Here’s a quick search link for Hearn on bookshop.org (great starting point to jump off to your favorite bookseller).
The Daily Picayune
While Barbara mentioned the 1901 edition of The Picayune’s Creole Cookbook in class, I was unable to find it online. Here’s the fourth (1910) edition. The Daily Picayune would later merge with the New Orleans Times-Democrat to become the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper. The paper kept up with the cookbook for decades.
The Women’s Exchange
The Women’s Exchange was originally named the Christian Women’s Exchange. From a 64 Parishes article by Erin Gabrielle Walker:
The Christian Woman’s Exchange was the first New Orleans women’s organization established by women for women. Organized in April 1881 and chartered in May of the same year, the Christian Woman’s Exchange was structured much like the original woman’s exchange groups located in the northeastern United States. Their buildings housed consignment shops, rooms for rent, and dining rooms for women of every social class. As the needs of women changed, the group modified its mission to promote public history education in and out of the classroom. In 1998, the organization dropped the word Christian from its name so as to not appear exclusively Christian or religious in its work. Through their two historic house museums—the Hermann-Grima House and Gallier House—the Woman’s Exchange offers a glimpse into nineteenth-century Louisiana life from the perspective of both the wealthy and the enslaved.
The Hermann-Grima and Gallier House museums are two of my favorites in New Orleans. While the Creole Cookery Book dates to 1885, and I’m OK with sharing the PDF, it’s still published by Arcadia (shout-out to my publisher).
Lena Richard
Ms. Richard was a cook, author, and local television personality. From her Wikipedia entry:
Richard initially received her culinary education locally in New Orleans, and later in Boston where she attended the school founded by Fannie Farmer. She graduated in 1918 and returned to New Orleans where a few years later[7] she opened her own catering business and several restaurants.[8] She opened a cooking school in 1937 in New Orleans specifically for Black students.[4] In 1939, Richard self-published Lena’s Richard’s Cook Book. The cookbook made her the first Black author to feature New Orleans Creole cuisine.
Ms. Richard appeared on her own television show on WDSU-TV from 1949-1950. Since her cookbook is not in the public domain, we encourage you to go buy it.
Thanks again to Barbara for turning the class on to these great books!
In addition, let’s add one more that hits home for me, because of its transit connections.
NOPSI/Entergy
New Orleans Public Service, Incorporated (NOPSI) operated the electrical grid in the City of New Orleans. The company was the result of a reorganization of New Orleans Railway and Light Company. NOPSI was the final stop in a chain of reorganizations of the city’s transit system that began with streetcar electrification in 1893. Electrification bankrupted many of the streetcar operators, as building out the infrastructure was beyond their financial means. So, EBASCO, a General Electric subsidiary, acquired the grid and transit assets. They created a larger entity, Middle South Utilities (MSU), which combined NOPSI with power companies in other parts of Louisiana, as well as Mississippi and Arkansas. In 1983, NOPSI turned over the city’s transit system to the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority. In 1994, MSU re-branded as Entergy Corporation. NOPSI became Entergy New Orleans, Incorporated.
So, NOPSI provided electricity, transit, and, for a time, natural gas, to the city. Naturally, they wanted to promote electricity consumption. The company sold electric appliances as well as operating streetcars and buses. To entice families into buying new appliances, NOPSI added recipes to many of their publications, such as the “Riders Digest” pamphlets available for reading on all buses and streetcars for decades. They also stuffed recipes into bills mailed to customers. After doing this for decades, the company amassed enough recipes to publish them as a cookbook. Entergy continues to offer that book online and as a PDF.
On a side note: I can’t for the life of me find my PDF of an older (NOPSI) version of this cookbook. If someone has one, please let me know if you’d be willing to share it with me. Thanks.
More Cookbooks!
We’ll keep adding to this page as we go forward.
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