Ryan Smolkin (1973–2023), founder of Smoke's Poutinerie

Ryan Smolkin was a restaurateur, entrepreneur, and social media personality who founded the restaurant chain Smoke's Poutinerie, with over 100 locations in Canada.

David Mintz (1931–2021), inventor of Tofutti vegan ice cream

David Mintz was the inventor of Tofutti, the first commercially successful vegan ice cream.

Famous Chefs

Great chefs inspire us with their creative recipes and love for food. When featured on television, the best chefs help us gain confidence in our cooking abilities by breaking down seemingly complicated recipes into simple steps. Even chefs who choose to stay behind the scenes can achieve gastronomic greatness, their culinary artistry admired by all who dine in their top-rated restaurants. Today, we're remembering some of our favorite chefs who have died.

Narayana “Grandpa Kitchen” Reddy (2019), YouTube star cooked for orphans

Narayana Reddy was a YouTube star known as Grandpa Kitchen, whose viral videos showed him cooking massive meals for orphans in his community near Hyderabad, India.

Leah Chase (1923–2019), New Orleans chef perfected Creole cuisine

Leah Chase was the "Queen of Creole Cuisine," the owner of the legendary Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New Orleans who fed presidents and made space for civil rights leaders to meet and plan the movement. She and her husband, jazz trumpeter Edgar "Dooky" Chase, took over his parents’ sandwich and lottery shop in the Treme neighborhood, and she used her background of working in French Quarter restaurants to build it up into a fine dining establishment for the black community in the days when New Orleans was still segregated. Dooky Chase was a popular gathering place whose prominent customers included the , James Baldwin, and , and wrote it into his song "Early Morning Blues." Credited with perfecting Creole cuisine, Chase was honored with the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, and Food & Wine magazine named Dooky Chase one of their 40 most important restaurants of the past 40 years. Chase was also an avid art collector with a notable collection of art by African-American artists, and her own portrait by Gustave Blache III hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

Charles Sanna (1917–2019), invented Swiss Miss Cocoa

Charles Sanna invented Swiss Miss Cocoa, the first hot cocoa mix that could be made with hot water instead of milk.

R.I.P. Kurt Michael Friese: How Apple Pancakes Became a Recipe for Sweet Memories

In Legacy's "Recipe Vault" series, chefs and food lovers share how meals connect us to those we've lost.

Dorcas Reilly (1926–2018), creator of the green bean casserole

Dorcas Reilly first created the iconic green bean casserole in 1955 while working as a staff member in the kitchen at the Campbell Soup Company. Cream of Mushroom soup was a popular base for casseroles around the country, but Reilly was the first to add frozen green beans. Campbell Soup estimates that around 40 percent of their sales of cream of mushroom soup goes towards making green bean casserole.

Chef Addie Gundry: From Farm to Food Network Star

Here's what she cooks to honor her grandparents' Minnesota roots.

The True Story of the Chocolate Chip Cookie (video)

A video tribute to the creator of the chocolate chip cookie.

Mom's Old Handwritten Recipes

Long before the internet became a storage center for any recipe you could ever wish to cook, moms had a different system for finding the recipes they’d use to feed their families. They wrote them down on recipe cards and stored them by the hundreds in recipe boxes and binders.

Thomas Forkner Sr. (1918–2017), Waffle House co-founder

Co-founder of the Waffle House restaurant chain.

The Taste of Beautiful Memories

Making favorite family recipes helps us hold onto the loved ones we miss most.

Food, Memories, and Loss

Eating is the ultimate social activity; we build relationships around the irreplaceable pleasure of sharing food with others.

The Zen of Food in Hospice

Food can nourish and nurture, even at the end of life.

Yeh-Yeh's Red Roast Pork Shoulder

In Legacy.com's series, celebrity chefs and food bloggers share how recipes preserve our life stories and connect us to those we've lost.

Laura Silver on Knish, the Jewish Soul Food

Knish is a Jewish comfort food that collects adjectives like "humble" and "homey." It's not pretty, but it's delicious and a powerful connection to family and culture.

Lefse

For Lisa's Norwegian family, Thanksgiving isn't complete without the soft flatbread lefse, a dish that always reminds the family of their mother-grandmother, Emma.

Kapusca (Sauerkraut)

The Polish dishes she prepares at Thanksgiving remind Estelle of her father, who loved them all.

Pasteles

Every Thanksgiving, Maddie's family looked forward to her mom’s pasteles.

Rice Pilaf

Lee finds a special way to connect with lost loved ones when making rice pilaf.

Soup With Little Meatballs

After Chuck's mom died unexpectedly at 63, he recreated her soup recipe in her memory.

Galaktoboureko (Phyllo Custard Squares)

Sue shared her family's recipe for Galaktoboureko, a deliciously rich and sweet dish that is one of those must-have Greek dishes at her family Thanksgiving.

"One of Life's Great Pleasures"

Lebanese-American cookbook author Maureen Abood on the importance of food and the hunger for connection.

Nana's Scones

My favorite story about Nana involves her legendary baking skill. Nana was already a mother when she emigrated from England to America in 1909, and with her came favorite recipes from her home in the industrial north.

My Italian Grandmother’s Lentil Soup

Author Jodi Moreno remembers a hearty, comforting lentil stew.

Lessons From My Mother

Dina Rose's career is a tribute to her mom.

Bubba's Thumb Print Cookies

Dan Pashman, creator and host of the James Beard Award-nominated WNYC podcast The Sporkful , grew up baking Thumb Print Cookies with his mother in the family's New Jersey kitchen.

Hearty Short Rib Stew: A Food Network Star's Family Recipe

Duff Goldman, the pastry chef behind Food Network’s ‘Ace of Cakes,’ shares a recipe that figures deeply into his family history.

Mamo's Mushroom Barley Soup With Short Ribs

Duff Goldman shares his Grandma's recipe for Mushroom Barley Soup with Short Ribs.

Pie Ladies

In the past year, quite a few “pie ladies” have passed on. Let us take a moment to remember them.

Throwdown with Butch Lupinetti

The popular BBQ chef will be remembered for the time he battled Bobby Flay and won.

Jimmy Dean Before He Was Sausage King

Those who grew up in the 1980s are more likely to associate Jimmy Dean with processed meat than country music.