Paul Prudhomme, Cajun chef who popularized Louisiana cuisine, dead at 75

“Paul was a joy to work with and he’s been an inspiration to all of us in the food world”, the Brennan family said in a statement. It didn’t matter because he gave each job his best and he continued to learn and develop his signature cooking style which gained popularity all over the world. Prudhomme sparked the Cajun food craze, but he often said few Cajun restaurants outside Louisiana served the real thing.

Flowers are placed outside K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Thursday, October 8, 2015.

In addition to serving as the executive chef at Commander’s Palace before opening K-Paul’s in 1979, Prudhomme rose to national prominence with his cookbooks, PBS cooking shows, and a line of spices that have become grocery staples – essentially helping establish the template that’s since been followed by many celebrity chefs since. Prudhomme is also credited with introducing the turducken poultry dish, now a mainstay.

“His timing was ideal”. The restaurant now accepts reservations and remains a must-visit for locals and tourists alike.

“I think that Paul Prudhomme has had the greatest influence on American cooking, in cultivating the public interest in American food, of anybody I know”, Claiborne, who was born in Mississippi, said in a 1988 interview. “In his prime in the early 1980s, there was no chef whose fame exceeded his. People don’t get it now that there was no Cajun food in New Orleans at that time”. “He grew up in a large, poor Cajun family and turned himself into a world-class chef”.

“He changed the way we eat in New Orleans in a major way, by bringing Acadian or Cajun cuisine to the restaurants of the city”. The chef, who was known around the world for his Cajun and Creole cuisine, died on Thursday, according to Boston Globe.

K-Paul’s was affordable and unassuming – formica tables, plywood walls and drinks served in jars – but it was soon the most popular restaurant in New Orleans.

That day, Huget said he received his first autograph ever. “Chef Paul was not only a genius, but a kind, generous and thoughtful friend”. “People would come to New Orleans to experience what everyone was talking about”. But as other restaurants began copying Prudhomme, the species became threatened, and the sport fishermen of Louisiana and Texas organized political lobbies and got their state legislatures to enact bans on commercial redfish fishing. He really took food and made it so much more exciting. He later launched a company to market his spices worldwide. One year later, he published his first cookbook. During the Eighties and Nineties, Prudhomme built an empire from that one restaurant. Prudhomme is survived by his widow, Lori Bennett.