“Art is subjective,” he said. “Somebody put their heart on a plate. It’s so creative. Everybody’s food is so creative. It’s truly an art form. It’s one of those things where you take what you want out of it and get what you put into it. Not a science.” Johnson continues to honor his great-grandmother by keeping her traditions alive in his kitchen. “I do the etouffee, I do the Creole, the red beans and rice, all the traditional New Orleans dishes,” he said. “I take it and I elevate it a little bit, but the root of it is what she taught me.” While he has added his own flair to several of her recipes, there’s one that still falls short in his mind — his favorite — that gumbo he used to stir on great-grandmother’s stove. “I do a really amazing gumbo; it still never touches hers… ever,” he said.
HEART&SOUL
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hreveport-based Chef Darrell Johnson won season 10 of Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race.” Before that, he competed on the networks “Cutthroat Kitchen.” He also competed in the Louisiana Food Prize and the World Food Championships. He is a culinary school graduate and a food industry veteran. And it all started in his great-grandmother’s kitchen in New Orleans.
“She was my first chef,” he said. “She was a very Creole lady. She was an amazing chef. Everybody in the neighborhood came to her house to eat.” “She loved food. Had a passion for it. We were really, really close. I was the kid at 5 years old on a stool stirring the big ol’ pot of gumbo. She really kept me out of trouble. New Orleans wasn’t a safe place at the time, growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when it was really chaotic. For me, cooking was my peace. It was what kept me calm.” Johnson said his great-grandmother not only kept him safe during some rough years in the Crescent City, she also gave him one of the credos that continues to guide his work in the kitchen — food is an art.
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SEPTEMBER 2021
| SBMAG.NET
BY SCOTT ANDERSON
THE MAKING OF A CELEBRITY CHEF
Cooking became Johnson’s escape from those mean streets of his childhood. It was not his only way out. He also was an accomplished athlete and had scholarship offers. Some of his peers chose that route. Others from the neighborhood found their own paths, too. He knew if they could follow their dreams out, so could he.
“Anthony Mackie, who is Falcon on The Avengers, he went to my high school. Li’l Wayne grew up in the same block as me. So many people around me did great things. But there was also some people who did some negative things. For me, I decided to keep myself safe. “I fell in love with cooking. No matter what’s going on, when I cut the stove on, my soul gets calm. It’s one of those things that gives me peace. I knew I could make a great living at it, and do something I love that’s a part of my heritage.” Johnson went from his great-grandmother’s kitchen to Commander’s Palace, where we worked under Emeril Lagasse, who further inspired Johnson to make his way in the kitchen. Johnson then traveled to Paris, where he studied for 10 months before returning to Louisiana. “It came full circle from being the kid at my great-grandmother’s stove to working for world-renowned chefs,” he said. “That gave me the energy and the pride to know I could do it.” Those qualities in Johnson shined through in his work. It’s what caught the attention of Gregory Kallenberg, executive director of the Prize Foundation, when he invited Johnson to participate in Food Prize.
