"In '71 or '72 I returned to New Orleans and stayed there. I started cooking Louisiana food. Of all the things I had cooked, it was the best-and it was my heritage"
About this Quote
A homecoming disguised as a career move: Prudhomme frames his return to New Orleans as the moment craft turns into identity. The line lands because it’s half practical, half devotional. “I started cooking Louisiana food” is plainspoken, almost casual, but the next beat snaps into conviction: “it was the best.” Not “my favorite” or “what I knew,” but “the best” - a bold claim that reads less like ego than a chef recognizing, with relief, the thing he can stop forcing.
The subtext is about permission. American culinary prestige for decades leaned French, continental, imported. Prudhomme’s pivot says: the food I grew up around doesn’t need to audition for legitimacy. It already has it. Calling it “my heritage” ties flavor to lineage and place, making cuisine a form of memory you can serve to strangers. That’s also why this quote works as celebrity narrative: the origin story is edible. It invites the audience to root for a regional underdog and feel like participants in a culture, not just consumers of a dish.
Context matters: early 70s New Orleans, pre-Food Network, before “Cajun” and “Creole” became mass-market branding. Prudhomme is pointing to the moment before Louisiana cooking was a national trend - when choosing it meant betting your reputation on a local dialect of taste. The intent is quietly evangelical: to assert that the way a community eats can be art, and that authenticity can be a competitive advantage rather than a limitation.
The subtext is about permission. American culinary prestige for decades leaned French, continental, imported. Prudhomme’s pivot says: the food I grew up around doesn’t need to audition for legitimacy. It already has it. Calling it “my heritage” ties flavor to lineage and place, making cuisine a form of memory you can serve to strangers. That’s also why this quote works as celebrity narrative: the origin story is edible. It invites the audience to root for a regional underdog and feel like participants in a culture, not just consumers of a dish.
Context matters: early 70s New Orleans, pre-Food Network, before “Cajun” and “Creole” became mass-market branding. Prudhomme is pointing to the moment before Louisiana cooking was a national trend - when choosing it meant betting your reputation on a local dialect of taste. The intent is quietly evangelical: to assert that the way a community eats can be art, and that authenticity can be a competitive advantage rather than a limitation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Cooking |
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