Leah Chase, the New Orleans chef known as the Queen of Creole cuisine, didn’t know what the producers of “The Princess and the Frog” had in mind when they sat down to chat a few years ago.
“I’m just rattling off about my life,” Chase said in a phone interview Thursday. “I always wanted a restaurant all of my life. My first job ever was in a restaurant after I left the laundry. Shaking out sheets didn’t work for me.”
The producers borrowed parts of the now 87-year-old’s story in writing the part of Princess Tiana, the first black princess in Disney history. The movie tells the story of the Tiana’s wish to open a restaurant. The DVD arrives in stores Tuesday, March 16.
Chase’s restaurant career began after high school when she started work at the Colonial restaurant in the French Quarter. In 1945, she married musician, Edgar “Dooky” Chase II, and began working in her in-laws’ restaurant, slowing converting the menu to reflect her Creole roots.
Disney took some big liberties when it comes to her gumbo. She told Disney the story about then- Senator Barack Obama stopping by her restaurant on the campaign trail. She served him a bowl of gumbo to which he added hot sauce.
“They took that as a positive thing,” she says. In reality, no one should be adding hot sauce to Chase’s treasured gumbo. “I would be very upset.”
Asked which character in the movie she likes best, Chase defers to her 16 grandchildren, who declared Mama Odie, the fairy godmother character, their favorite. “I don’t know if Mama Yodie reminded them of me or not,” she says.
Chase, who still works at least four days a week in here restaurant, is the author of three cookbooks: “The Dooky Chase Cookbook” (1990), Down Home Health: Family Recipes of Black American Chefs (1994) and ” And I Still Cook” (2003). Another cookbook accompanied the release of the movie in theaters. It’s called “The Princess and the Frog: Tiana’s Cookbook: Recipes for Kids” (Disney Press, $10.99).
