“A Creole Lady’s Stories & Recipes” Debuts in Shreveport, Blending Black History and Cuisine

By: D.D. Reese
Published July 20, 2025

Renowned Louisiana artist and cultural storyteller Karen La Beau officially launched her new cookbook, A Creole Lady’s Stories & Recipes, during a special segment this weekend that celebrated Black heritage through food, memory, and tradition. The event drew a diverse crowd of food lovers, artists, and community members eager to experience a unique fusion of storytelling and culinary history.

Held at the Southern University Museum of Art at Shreveport (SUMAS), the launch featured a live reading, recipe demonstration, and an intimate Q&A session with La Beau, who is well-known for her work in preserving and celebrating African American and Creole culture. The cookbook, years in the making, is more than a collection of dishes; it’s a memoir, family archive, and cultural lens rolled into one.

“This book is not just about food,” La Beau explained during the launch. “It’s about the women who stirred the pots, the children who watched them with wonder, and the wisdom that was passed from one generation to the next, often around the dinner table.”

A Creole Lady’s Stories & Recipes features over 75 traditional dishes, including gumbo, smothered okra, pain perdu, crawfish étouffée, and pralines, all interwoven with personal stories, ancestral photographs, and regional history. Each recipe is paired with a narrative that connects the dish to a specific memory or cultural theme, such as the resilience of Black women in the kitchen or the symbolism of gathering over a Sunday meal.

La Beau, who grew up in a multigenerational Creole household in southern Louisiana, said the inspiration for the book came from her grandmother, whom she refers to throughout the volume as “Mamané.” Many of the recipes were passed down orally and are now appearing in print for the first time.

The cookbook has already drawn interest from educators and cultural institutions who see it as a valuable tool for teaching regional history, Black culinary influence, and the legacy of food as a storytelling medium. At the launch event, attendees sampled several dishes from the book while listening to live Zydeco music and reflections from local chefs and elders who contributed to the book’s oral histories.

“It’s a celebration of culture, identity, and flavor,” said Kendra Ellis, director of SUMAS. “Karen’s work reminds us that food is never just food, it’s a living archive of who we are and where we’ve been.”
A Creole Lady’s Stories & Recipes is now available in select bookstores and online, and La Beau is scheduled to begin a regional tour that includes appearances in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Dallas, and Atlanta. She also plans to release a companion video series later this year that will feature cooking tutorials, interviews with community elders, and in-depth segments on Louisiana’s Creole culinary roots.

For Karen La Beau, the project is a labor of love and a tribute to those whose recipes weren’t always written down, but whose impact lives on in kitchens across the South.
“I wrote this book for the daughters, the sons, the grandbabies, and the neighbors,” she said. “So they’ll remember where they came from, and know how to make a really good roux.”