Paul Prudhomme

The youngest of 13 children born to Eli Prudhomme, Jr. and Hazel Reed,[1][3] Prudhomme was raised on a farm near Opelousas, the seat of Saint Landry Parish, Louisiana. His father was a farmer, who struggled financially during Prudhomme's childhood, and his mother was a creative cook.[4]

Previously named after Saint Paul, as chosen by a Catholic priest, Prudhomme adopted the pseudonym "Gene Autry Prudhomme" during his youth.[1]

His maternal ancestors include early Acadian settlers Martin Aucoin (c. 1651 – 1711) and Marie Gaudet (c. 1657 – 1734).[5][6]

Prudhomme opened his first restaurant in Opelousas in 1957, a hamburger restaurant called Big Daddy O's Patio. The restaurant went out of business in nine months, during which time his first marriage also ended.[1] He became a magazine seller initially in New Orleans, and afterwards several restaurant jobs took him around the country. During this period he began creating his own spice mixes and giving them away to customers.[4] In 1970, he moved back to New Orleans to work as a sous chef at Le Pavillon Hotel. He soon left to open Clarence Dupuy's restaurant Maison du Puy. While there, he met his second wife, Kay Hinrichs, who worked at the restaurant as a waitress.[4] In 1975, Prudhomme left to become the first American-born executive chef at Commander's Palace[7] under Richard Brennan, Sr.[1] Chef Paul turned the Garden District restaurant into a world-class destination.

In 1979, Prudhomme and Kay opened K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen in the French Quarter of New Orleans.[8] The restaurant was named as a portmanteau of their names, with Paul working as head chef and Kay as restaurant manager.[9] For a while he attempted to operate the restaurant while still working at Commander's Palace, but the demand in his new restaurant was such that he moved to work there full-time, while also appointing Emeril Lagasse to take over as executive chef at Commanders Palace.[4] In 1980, Prudhomme was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the French Ordre National du Mérite Agricole in honor of his work with Cajun and Creole cuisines.[4]

His cookbook, Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, was published by William Morrow and Company in 1984. It was given a Culinary Classic Book Award in 1989 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals.[10] Prudhomme has been credited with having popularized cajun cuisine and in particular blackened redfish during the 1980s.[11][12][13] The popularity of the fish was such that commercial fishing of the species was restricted to prevent its extinction.[4] Prudhomme was also credited with introducing the turducken into American cuisine.[14]

During a summer residence in New York City in 1985, Prudhomme's pop-up restaurant was reported to the Board of Health, which visited the restaurant and closed it before it opened, reporting 29 violations of the city's health code.[15] Prudhomme ignored the order and opened the restaurant anyway,[16] resulting in the Board of Health threatening him with jail time if he continued to operate the restaurant.[17] The city's mayor Ed Koch appeared with Prudhomme at the restaurant to declare an end to what the media reported as the "gumbo war".[15] The restaurant was quite successful during the five weeks it was open, with lines sometimes reaching four blocks long.[18] Four years later, Prudhomme opened a permanent restaurant in New York City at 622 Broadway, which had queues of up to two hours.[18]

In 1992, he was charged with possession of a weapon while trying to board a plane at Thurgood Marshall International Airport after leaving a loaded revolver in his carry-on luggage. He later released a press statement saying that he had forgotten it was in the bag.[19]

He made a guest appearance at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, France, in October 1994.[20]

In 2004, he traveled to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, along with 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) of food and seasonings to cook for the troops stationed there.[21]

Following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Prudhomme was forced to close his restaurant. During the restoration efforts, he cooked for free at a relief center for the military and residents staying in the French Quarter; at one point his team cooked over 6,000 meals in ten days.[22] He reopened the restaurant during the following October;[23] the premises were not extensively damaged by the storm.[24] Bon Appétit awarded Prudhomme their Humanitarian Award in 2006 for his efforts following the hurricane.[4]

After his death in 2015, Prudhomme's personal library of nearly 600 cookbooks, food reference books and technical books on food science was donated to the John and Bonnie Boyd Hospitality and Culinary Library, which is affiliated with the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.[25]

• Culinary Hall of Fame induction[26]

In 1986, Prudhomme's wife, Kay, was diagnosed with lung cancer. She died seven years later on December 31, 1993.[4]

One of his students was Aaron Sanchez, who moved from New York to become an apprentice when Sanchez was 16.

Prudhomme had a long-running issue with his weight, resulting in his working from an electric wheelchair on occasion.[20][28] In order to lose weight, he wrote his 1993 cookbook, Chef Paul Prudhomme's Fork in the Road. He deliberately avoided marketing it as a low-fat cookbook in order to prevent customers from being put off by the premise after testing the recipes at K-Paul's Kitchen in New Orleans.[29]

In March 2008, Prudhomme was grazed by a .22-caliber stray bullet while catering the Zurich Classic of New Orleans golf tournament. He at first thought a bee had stung his arm, required no serious medical attention and within five minutes was back to cooking for the golf tournament.[30] It was thought to have been a falling bullet.[31]

Prudhomme died in New Orleans on October 8, 2015, after a brief illness.[32] He was 75.

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul Prudhomme.

• Official website
• Official website, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen
• Always Cooking! Archived March 1, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
• Quotes by and about Prudhomme
• Paul Prudhomme at IMDb
• Interview with Paul Prudhomme, A DISCUSSION WITH National Authors on Tour TV Series, Episode #61 (1993)
• Appearances on C-SPAN