27 Facts About Leah Chase

Leyah Chase was an American chef based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Leah Chase was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Southern Foodways Alliance in 2000.

Leah Chase was awarded Times-Picayune Loving Cup Award in 1997.

Leah Chase was born to Catholic Creole parents, on January 6,1923, in Madisonville, Louisiana.

Leah Chase's father was a caulker at the Jahncke Shipyard and her grandmother was a registered nurse and midwife.

Leah Chase was the second oldest of 13 children, according to The New York Times; other sources report that she had 10 or 13 siblings.

The children helped cultivate the land, especially on the 20-acre strawberry farm her father's family owned, which Leah Chase described as forming an integral part of her knowledge of food:.

Madisonville, a segregated town, did not have a Catholic high school for black children, so Leah Chase moved to New Orleans to live with relatives and pursue a Catholic education at St Mary's Academy.

Leah Chase's roots were heavily centered in Louisiana, with only one great-grandparent born elsewhere.

Leah Chase's ancestry was multiethnic inclusive of African American, Spanish, and French.

Leah Chase's ancestors include one of the first African Americans to serve in the Louisiana state House of Representatives.

Leah Chase's parents owned a street corner stand in Treme, founded in 1941, that sold lottery tickets and homemade po-boy sandwiches.

Dooky Leah Chase became a staple in the black communities of New Orleans, and by the 1960s, became one of the only public places in New Orleans where African Americans could meet and discuss strategies during the civil rights movement.

Dooky Leah Chase had become so popular that even though local officials knew about these "illegal" meetings, the city or local law enforcement could not stop them or shut the doors because of the risk of public backlash.

Dooky Leah Chase's Restaurant was key when King and the Freedom Riders came to learn from the Baton Rouge Bus Boycott.

Leah Chase studied art in high school, but because museums were segregated in the Jim Crow South, she was 54 the first time she visited an art museum, with Celestine Cook.

Leah Chase began catering gallery openings for early-career artists during the Civil Rights period, and started collecting African-American art after her husband gave her a Jacob Lawrence painting.

Leah Chase soon began to display dozens of paintings and sculptures by African-American artists like Elizabeth Catlett and John T Biggers, as well as hire local musicians to play in her bar.

Leah Chase was one of the women associated with the group that flew to Washington, DC, to speak to Congress and the White House.

Leah Chase was awarded "Best Fried Chicken in New Orleans" by NOLA.

Leah Chase received the James Beard Lifetime Achievement award in 2016 for her lifetime's body of work, which had a positive and lasting impact on the way people ate, cooked, and thought about food in New Orleans.

Many world renowned chefs, such as John Besh and Emeril Lagasse, honored Leah Chase and credited her with perfecting creole cuisine.

Leah Chase fed many celebrities, politicians and activists, such as Hank Aaron, Bill Cosby, Lena Horne, James Baldwin, and many other prominent figures in the African-American community.

Dooky Leah Chase's operated under limited hours in the years after Hurricane Katrina.

Leah Chase envisioned her restaurant as a modern version of what it once was.

Leah Chase was the inspiration for the main character Tiana in the 2009 Disney animated film The Princess and the Frog.

Miss Leah Chase made a cameo appearance as herself in a Season 2 episode of NCIS: New Orleans.