NEW ORLEANS — The SoFAB Institute announced the arrival of the complete works of Chef Louis Osteen to the John & Bonnie Boyd Hospitality & Culinary Library, located at 1609 Oretha C. Haley Blvd.
Louis Osteen, a South Carolina native, former member of the board of the SoFAB Institute and co-founder of the Southern Foodways Alliance, is one of the foremost pioneers in the growing popularity of southern food and lowcountry cuisine. Osteen acquired fame as a chef before networks began to focus on TV chefs, and wrote a book, Louis Osteen’s Charleston Cuisine: Recipes from a Lowcountry Chef.
Chef Louis Osteen has donated more than 30 years of his work in ten boxes to the SoFAB Institute, which will be sorted and filed in the archives of the Boyd Culinary Library. The boxes are full of notes, early menus, recipes, and correspondence with other chefs including Julia Child. The papers will be open to the public and available for review.
The John & Bonnie Boyd Hospitality & Culinary Library contains more than 15,000 volumes of culinary books, food and cocktail menus, pamphlets, archival documents and a growing number of important collections, other literature and ephemera, all collected by and donated to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. The collection is non-circulating but available for reference. The library serves as a unique resource for residents, visitors, and researchers in the fields of fitness, nutrition, policy, and public health as well as an open resource that facilitates the professional development of current and future culinary artists.
The library also houses the Menu Project, an ongoing effort to collect, catalog, and digitize menus from every restaurant throughout the South and beyond. The database records the public history of eating and equips scholars with a critical tool in their study of American foodways.
