Nathalie Dupree, the grand dame of Southern cooking whose infectious personality and vast knowledge of how to blend tastes into memorable concoctions, died Jan. 13 in Raleigh, N.C. She was 85.
Dupree in 2019. File photo, Charleston City Paper
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 that took off in Georgia.
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.
Dupree, who was born in 1939 in Hamilton, N.J., got bitten by the politics bug before 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.
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, The 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.”
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.
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