My Home Version of HoJo’s Southern Fried Chicken

I had never encountered a dish prepared quite like the chain’s famous Southern fried chicken, with its delicious crispy coating. We used a piece of equipment I’d not seen before, a combination deep-fryer and pressure cooker. I enjoyed that chicken so much that I often duplicated the dish at home, making a few adjustments for a nonindustrial kitchen.

I began by cutting a chicken into pieces and soaking them for 24 hours in buttermilk and a bit of Tabasco sauce. While I heated lard and peanut oil in a large cast-iron skillet with a tight-fitting lid, I shook the buttermilk off the chicken and rolled the pieces in flour mixed with a little baking powder — making in essence a self-rising flour. When the fat reached 325°F, I dropped the chicken pieces into the pot and put on the lid to replicate the moist conditions of the pressure cooker for 20 minutes or so. The result: chicken at its most succulent.

But then in 1974, everything changed. While driving, he hit a deer and was so severely injured he nearly died. He broke his back, and his shoulder was so badly hurt that he could no longer work in a demanding professional kitchen. So he pivoted again and began giving cooking demonstrations at culinary shops across the country, along with lecturing at Boston University. Then in 1982, he found his way to TV, where his elegant cooking style made him a PBS star.

TV fate knocked again in 1999, when he teamed up with longtime friend Julia Child for their show, Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. They were a spirited pair, she with her quirky sense of humor and he with his poised wit. “We loved to argue because our verbal jousting for the most part concerned trivial matters,” Pépin writes. “Julia, for example, swore by regular salt and white pepper. I prefer kosher salt and black pepper and occasionally tried to sneak these non-Julia-approved ingredients into our demonstrations.”

Child and Pépin were among the first celebrity chefs in America, using TV to demystify French cooking. And while his notoriety has only grown over the years, he carries that fame with a heaping dose of humility. “Seventy years ago, the cook was at the bottom of the social scale; now we are geniuses,” he tells us. “I’m not sure how that happened — it can be dangerous.”

To be sure, Instagram is filled with young chefs touting their latest masterpieces. But Pépin remains a firm believer in disciplined training. His early education in Paris was one of conformity, studying with one chef then another. He trained under Lucien Diat at Plaza Athénée, along with stints at Fouquet’s and Maxim’s. “Only then, after eight or 10 years like this, after you’ve absorbed multiple points of view, can you begin to filter it,” Pépin instructs. “Then you can bring your own sense of taste, your own aesthetic.”

Over the years, he has developed a more international style of cooking, blending recipes and ingredients from many cultural traditions. But his philosophy remains the same: Cooking

1959

Moves to the United States and works at New York City’s Le Pavillon. Befriends New York Times Food Editor Craig Claiborne and chef/TV personality James Beard.

1961

Turns down an invitation from President John F. Kennedy to work as the White House chef and instead accepts a job as director of research and development at Howard Johnson’s restaurants.

1966

Marries Gloria Evelyn Augier, who he met while working as a ski instructor when she booked a private lesson with him.

1970

Opens specialty soup restaurant La Potagerie in Manhattan. Earns his bachelor’s degree in general studies at Columbia, then two years later his master’s in French literature, also from Columbia.

1974

While driving, strikes a deer and is seriously hurt, fracturing multiple bones in his back, pelvis and arms. Because of these injuries, decides to shift his attention to writing, teaching and TV.

1976

Authors the landmark cookbook La Technique, which uses thousands of photos to definitively illustrate classic cooking techniques. It’s followed by the companion book, La Methode, in 1979.

1982

Becomes dean of the newly formed French Culinary Institute in New York City (today the Institute of Culinary Education). Also films his first PBS series, Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pépin.

1999 together should be fun, recipes should be fairly simple, and taste should always trump presentation. “When you are a young chef, you have to put more on the plate — more garnish, and more and more,” Pépin explains. “Now in my eighties, if I have a good tomato out of the garden with a bit of salt and some olive oil, I don’t need many embellishments. So I retrieve, retrieve and take away from the plate, to be left with something more essential.”

Costars alongside Julia Child in the iconic PBS TV show Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, which goes on to win a Daytime Emmy and a James Beard Award.

On this day, we ask Pépin about the home cook and what sage advice he has for those learning to cook. “Drink enough wine,” he quips. “People say, ‘I don’t cook at all.’ Well, if you have a friend who cooks, the next time you go see them, ask if you can come an hour early and cook with them in the kitchen. Bring a bottle of wine, drink the bottle of wine and if the chicken is over-cooked, who cares?”

He’s just as spirited talking about popular cooking TV shows, which are often filled with drama. “I know this is TV, but if cameras came into the kitchen of chef Thomas Keller, it’d be like a ballet back and forth with almost no noise,” Pépin points out. “But for TV, they want to create kitchens where people are yelling at each other and insulting each other. It doesn’t work like that in a professional kitchen, frankly. You don’t really teach people to cook by yelling at them.”

These days, the master chef relishes the quiet of his Connecticut home, where he’s lived for 46 years. Everywhere, you’ll find photos of loved ones. After 54 years of marriage, his beloved wife, Gloria, passed away in late 2020. The sadness is palpable still. But his vivacious daughter, Claudine, and her husband, Rollie (also a chef), are always there in the background cheering him on. So too is his granddaughter, Shorey, who is in college now after growing up alongside Pépin in the kitchen.

In 2016, Claudine and Rollie helped set up the Jacques Pépin Foundation, which provides free culinary training through community-based organizations to individuals often excluded from the workforce due to issues like homelessness or previous incarceration. For fans of the beloved chef, there are also paid memberships granting access to a video recipe book as well as an exclusive Rouxbe course, “A Legacy of Technique.” The foundation has become a passion project for the entire family.