In 1957, a hamburger joint called Big Daddy O's Patio opened in Opelousas. Its owner was a naive, newly married 17-year-old, the youngest of 13 children who grew up on a farm outside of town. He went by Gene Autry Prudhomme, still unaware that Paul was the name on his birth certificate, put there by a baptismal priest who insisted that the boy share a name with a saint.
Save for the fact that Prudhomme ground his own meat to ensure each hamburger contained the "proper amount of fat for moisture, " nothing about Big Daddy-O's suggested that its owner would one day become the most famous American restaurant chef in the world. Less than a year after the burger joint's opening, Prudhomme recalled, "I was out of business . . . It was a quick nine months." His marriage was over as well.
Prudhomme came to New Orleans, not to cook, but to sell magazines. The job took him out West, where he eventually landed back behind the stove. For a decade, he bounced from restaurant kitchen to restaurant kitchen, mostly in Colorado, where the Cajun was never once asked to prepare his native cuisine.
The realization that the food he learned to cook at his mother's hip was foreign to people outside southern Louisiana prompted him in 1970 to move back to New Orleans.
The city, and his profession, would never be the same.
Prudhomme's upward career trajectory hit a steep incline in 1975, when he became the first American-born executive chef at Commander's Palace, and shot into the stratosphere after he and his second wife K Hinrichs opened K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, which just celebrated its 25th year.
At its peak in the 1980s, Prudhomme's profile cast a shadow even over such culinary legends as Julia Child and James Beard, and there was no restaurant-world precedent for the celebrity he enjoyed. The portly chef starred in several cooking shows and home videos, was a regular on local and national TV, appeared on magazine covers and became a best-selling cookbook author a decade before chefs such as Emeril Lagasse, his heir at Commander's Palace, ushered in the age of the celebrity chef. His first of eight books, 1984's "Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, " is still widely considered a classic.
- An oral history: Paul Prudhomme
Without ever finding success as a multi-unit operator -- he owns just one restaurant -- Prudhomme managed to get his food tasted by the masses.
Today, with his Magic Seasoning Blends spice line, he has ensured that home cooks can closely duplicate the flavors from his kitchen -- and he became a pioneering chef-entrepreneur in the bargain. What began with Prudhomme employees stuffing baggies with homemade spices for sale in the restaurant has mushroomed into a full line of products produced in a 30,000-square-foot plant with 53 employees and distribution in all 50 states and 28 foreign countries.
Prudhomme helped ignite a revolution in American gastronomy, inspiring chefs and diners to embrace regional cuisine and fresh, local ingredients. By uncovering opportunities for chefs outside their restaurant kitchens, he transformed his profession. In drawing influences from beyond the parish line, he profoundly altered the dining landscape in New Orleans. And he found a national and international audience for local chefs and restaurateurs, pushing Louisiana, particularly New Orleans, onto the world map of great culinary destinations.
Is K-Paul's a classic New Orleans restaurant? Would New Orleans be a singular dining attraction if Prudhomme had never left Opelousas? Does the cultural saturation of blackening misrepresent Cajun cuisine? It's a measure of the magnitude of his success that enthusiasts continue to debate his impact a quarter-century after his initial splash drenched the town -- and more than a decade after he ceded the reins of his restaurant's kitchen.
Today Prudhomme, who will be 65 next month, is noticeably trimmer than during his media-saturation prime -- the result of diet and exercise, he says -- and you're more likely to find him tending to the business of his spice empire than blackening fish at K-Paul's.
But to truly understand Prudhomme's extraordinary career, you must ask the people who were there. What follows is an oral history -- essentially a biographical account of the career of Paul Prudhomme, culled from hours of interviews and told entirely in the words of those who either watched his meteoric rise from afar, or took part in the restaurateur's wild ride.
It is a long and colorful tale, full of professional twists and personal turns, all leading to one inescapable conclusion: He's come a long way from Big Daddy O's Patio.
Brett Anderson can be reached at 504.826.3353. Read more dining features at nola.com/dining or nola.com/dining-guide. Follow him at twitter.com/BrettAndersonTP.
