Nathalie Dupree, the South’s cooking queen, passes away at 85

[UPDATED, Jan. 14, 2025] Nathalie Dupree, the grand dame of Southern cooking whose infectious personality and vast knowledge of how to blend tastes into memorable concoctions, died Monday in Raleigh, N.C. She was 85.

A celebrated national figure in the culinary world who won four James Beard Awards, Dupree wrote 15 cookbooks and appeared in more than 300 television shows during her career.

In 2020, she and her historian husband Jack Bass moved from Charleston to Raleigh to be closer to Bass’ children. They moved to Charleston two decades earlier when Bass, author of nine books, was teaching at the College of Charleston. They married in 1994.

In Charleston, the couple often entertained in their Queen Street single house with Dupree offering impromptu parties to host friends’ new books or to tout a favored cause. These were relaxed affairs where people talked politics, food and books, helping themselves to delectable food from a dining table and wine in coolers on a sloped porch with a mish-mash of wine glasses that looked like they were on a flea market table.

Dupree, who was born in 1939 in Hamilton, N.J., got bitten by the politics bug before making a career in food. She reportedly was the youngest precinct captain for John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1960. Fifty years later, she ran as a write-in candidate in an unsuccessful – but fun – attempt to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

Food was her calling

But food was what led people across the country to know and adore Dupree. Her culinary career started in a co-op house in college, only to cross an ocean where she earned a certificate at Le Cordon Bleu and operated the kitchen of a restaurant in Spain. She later opened a restaurant, Nathalie’s, in the back of a Social Circle, Ga., antique shop with then-husband David Dupree. It quickly became a destination for foodies in Atlanta before food enthusiasts had a nickname.

Dupree upped the food ante in the late 1970s by directing the South’s first participation cooking school at Rich’s department store in Atlanta where she taught more than 10,000 students. That gig led to the start of a popular television career that spanned PBS, Food Network and The Learning Channel.

As described in an obituary, Dupree championed cooking at home and simplifying complex dishes. She wasn’t averse to using microwaves or lots of butter.

“Her quips and messy foibles in the kitchen endeared her to legions of fans. Applying French techniques she learned in culinary school to the bounty of the Southern garden, market, rivers and ocean, she lifted the profile of Southern food to a national audience. Her 15 cookbooks stand as reliable guides for the home cook filled with what she called ‘do-able’ recipes.”

One example: Biscuits. Dupree spent dozens of years searching for the perfect biscuit recipe. Biscuits, she wrote in 1970, were a total experience:

“Do you want one to melt in your mouth, oozing with butter, or one that is firm enough to sandwich a piece of sausage or pork tenderloin. The ideal Southern biscuit is feathery light with a light brown crust on the top and a moist interior. It may have slight indentations on the sides where it has bumped into other biscuits as it baked.

“Finally, I should say that to make true Southern biscuits requires something my colleagues and I call a touch of grace — a gift that some people are blessed with.”

A rich legacy

Dupree’s legacy to Southern foodways endures through her 15 books and the students and chefs with whom she shared her encyclopedic knowledge.

SFA founding member Nathalie Dupree with her Jack Daniel’s Award in 2007 Credit: File photo

She co-founded the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) along with chefs Julia Child, Jacques Pepin and Martin Yan. She also was the founding chair of the Charleston Wine + Food Festival, as well as a founder and board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

And she loved mentoring. Dupree organized several chapters of Les Dames d’Escoffier, an international association for women dedicated to advancing women in the culinary industry. In 2011, it bestowed Dupree with its highest honor, Grande Dame, for her achievements.

In Charleston in a classic single house on Queen Street, Dupree would welcome people into a small kitchen that had a regular stove and packed refrigerator. All around were well-used cooking tools – spoons, whisks, bowls, knives and everything in between. Often on a nearby countertop was a can of caffeine-free Diet Coke.

“She loved oranges, fresh shrimp, cornbread and field peas,” remembered Charleston private chef Lauren Furey, who interned with Dupree in 2019. “She ate small pieces of biscuit dough when no one was looking. If I caught her, she would offer me some and jokingly say, “Never eat raw dough!’”

Furey, who now has a cooking show on SCETV, said Dupree taught her to season food with love and was instrumental in her building confidence.

“Nathalie schooled me endlessly in the arts of storytelling and television. Her eyes lit up when she opened the door every morning. Or, if I opened the door, she usually was sitting in her comfy chair, surrounded by piles of cookbooks that she was reading and reviewing. She made everybody feel like they belonged.”

Former City Paper editor Stephanie Barna said she felt blessed to know Dupree.

“She was a supporter, champion and cheerleader to so many, including me, and I’m so grateful I was in her orbit.”

Longtime friend Jimmy Williams of Charleston added, “The advice she gave was a commodity only outweighed by her heart. Every time I sat down with her, be it at a Southern Foodways Alliance symposium or just the two of us slicing turnips for a photoshoot, she told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear. That was pure Nathalie.

“Could I have had a better food mom? Hell no. She was it.”

More information

Dupree is survived by Bass and their children Audrey Thiault (Pierre-Henri), Ken Bass (Antoinette), David Bass (Bonnie) and Liz Broadway (Joel); sister Marie Louise Meyer; brother James Gordon Meyer (Nancy June); seven grandchildren, and Dupree, who she often referred to as her “favorite former-husband.”

A memorial service will be held 2 p.m. Feb. 22 at Meadows Funeral Home in Monroe, Ga. In lieu of flowers, donations are welcome to the Atlanta chapter of the Les Dames d’Escoffier International Scholarship Fund to help the future careers of young female cooks. According to a family member, plans are being discussed for another memorial event in Charleston in the spring.