Copyright Live 5 News WCSC
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Culture is at the core of one Charleston chef’s cooking and now she’s winning awards and making history doing it. Charleston’s Kardea Brown juggles many different titles: chef, business owner, author and TV host. But they all stem from her time in the kitchen. “It started off with my grandmother. My family’s from Wadmalaw and going out there and my uncles and my cousins getting the shrimp out of the creek and making shrimp and grits and red rice and collard greens and all of those things and Hoppin’ John and stuff. That’s what I grew up eating,” Brown said. Brown is the star of the Food Network TV series “Delicious Miss Brown.” Guests dined at her restaurant, Kardea Brown’s Southern Kitchen and got a big surprise when she visited the restaurant based in the Charleston International Airport Thursday. “We always tell folks to come a couple of hours ahead of your flight. So what better reason now to do that because you get to sit down, you get to taste some of the South’s best cooking: fried green tomatoes, the shrimp and grits, the fried—as she would say—fried “fush” not fish," Spencer Pryor, who is the Executive Vice President of the Charleston International Airport said. “It is all right here.” Now, Brown’s customers aren’t just enjoying her cooking. They’re the ones serving up a side of ‘congratulations’. That’s because the Lowcountry legend just made history. Brown is the first African-American woman to win a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Culinary Host and another for Outstanding Culinary Instructional Series. “It means the world to me, especially being from Charleston, South Carolina and having that honor,” Brown said. “I think that not only is it amazing to set that trail and to blaze that trail, but to also call my grandmother and to tell her that I was the first from Charleston. It’s just, nothing, nothing compares. I don’t even think words can adequately describe how it feels.” Not only are her wins historic, they are hard-earned. Brown is a self-taught chef with no formal culinary degree. “Even with all the accolades and all of the shows and everything, it’s still a challenge as being an African-American woman in this industry which is male-dominated and so having to constantly sometimes kind of [say] ‘Hey, I belong here.’ And not only just say that but to show that,” she said. But her plates, positivity and passion are leaving a lasting impact on those she comes across as she makes sure the Lowcountry and her culture are at the core of her cooking. “The Gullah Geechee culture is so important to me. A lot of our recipes were not written down. They’re only passed on through word of mouth and so being the first in my family to write a cookbook, being the first to own a restaurant, being the first to win Emmys, like all of that is awesome, but it doesn’t matter if the story isn’t preserved,” she said.
