Leni Ashmore Sorensen is an American chef and culinary historian. She focuses on the lives of Black cooks, with a particular emphasis on the early 1800s and the Colonial period. She is featured on the

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

television series, '' High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America''.

Early life

Sorensen was born in Los Angeles in 1942. Her mother Lisa, a Communist who later joined the Unitarian Church, was white. Her father, Billy, was black; his grandfather was enslaved. Her stepfather, a Black man from New Orleans, sparked her interest in cuisine, and taught her how to cook Southern Creole staples. She was the first of three generations of interracial children. Sorensen completed a BA in history in 1992 through the

Mary Baldwin College Mary Baldwin University (MBU, formerly Mary Baldwin College) is a private university in Staunton, Virginia. It was founded in 1842 as Augusta Female Seminary. Today, Mary Baldwin University is home to the Mary Baldwin College for Women, a resid ...

Adult Degree Program, after having left high school at 16 play guitar and sing with folk group,

The Womenfolk The Womenfolk were an American folk band from Los Angeles, California. The Womenfolk were active from 1963 to 1966 and were signed to RCA Records during the folk revival boom of the 1960s. They released several albums, the most successful of which ...

. She went on to earn her master's in 1997 and her Ph.D. in

American Studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory. Sch ...

in 2005 from the

College of William and Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III a ...

Career

The Womenfolk recorded five albums and appeared on the ''

Ed Sullivan Show ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' is an American television variety show that ran on CBS from June 20, 1948, to March 28, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the '' CBS Sunday Night ...

'' three times; their cover of "

Little Boxes "Little Boxes" is a song written and composed by Malvina Reynolds in 1962, which became a hit for her friend Pete Seeger in 1963, when he released his cover version. The song is a social satire about the development of suburbia, and associat ...

" was on the ''Billboard'' Top 100 for three weeks. Her first child was born when she was 18. She began to host dinner parties and teach cooking classes in the early 1970s. In 1974 Sorensen described herself in a personal ad in ''

Mother Earth News ''Mother Earth News'' is a bi-monthly American magazine that has a circulation of 500,520 . It is published in Topeka, Kansas. Since its founding, ''Mother Earth News'' has promoted renewable energy, recycling, family farms, good agricultural p ...

'' as "31, Black, tall (5’9”) and sorta freaky for around here. I'm a hell of a good cook and am skilled at gardening, canning, raising rabbits, sewing and minor carpentry (have also begun to handspin wool) so favor a man with a country lifestyle over a city-minded dude.” That ad led to her marriage to Kip Sorensen, a carpenter and farmer from South Dakota, which lasted until his death in 2017. Her career before retirement included time as a food historian specializing in African-American foods at

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

, Thomas Jefferson's home, and working as a costumed interpreter at

Colonial Williamsburg Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has 7300 employees at this location and ...

, where she "demonstrated how to dye cloth with indigo, spin wool and cook over a hearth". She operates Indigo House, a five-acre farmstead in the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...

where she teaches classes in canning and presents group dinners prepared from historic recipes. Her research focuses on the lives of Black cooks, with a particular emphasis on the early 1800s and the Colonial period. She is a co-presenter on the

television series, '' High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America''.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sorensen, Leni American chefs 1942 births College of William & Mary alumni Living people 20th-century American historians