Chef John Folse: The Catholic King of Cajun Cooking

If you live everywhere near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, acquire Cajun-Creole cookbooks or watch meals indicates on PBS, the call “Chef John Folse” will ring all styles of kitchen chimes. After all, his culinary empire includes—among others—the White Oak Estate and Gardens for weddings and social events, the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University, and his Cajun and Creole Company Store that stocks Cajun and Creole meals products plus affiliated cookbooks.
But possibly Chef Folse’s biggest impact on nearby lives comes from his religion. He strains that lower back to his German Catholic amazing-grandfather who arrived in New Orleans within the 1700s with orders to build the first St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans and then ultimately constructed the Ursuline convent there. In the following centuries, several Catholic German families moved into the region and fashioned a decent family community, Chef Folse stated.
With this Old World Catholic history, Chef Folse’s father desired his kids to turn out to be very worried about their Catholic religion. And he additionally insisted that his sons examine the traditions and techniques of the neighborhood Cajun cuisine. He desired us to attend to ourselves as impartial men, Chef Folse said. “He instilled that during us at an early age, so we all became suitable chefs at domestic,” he said. “All my brothers are still surely exact cooks. And one has his personal catering corporation.” To these days, he brought, the brothers get collectively to preserve big crawfish boils to advantage local churches, faculties, and family gatherings.
What led this unique son to influence his career into professional cooking? He was given into the lodge enterprise on the now-closed Prince Murat Hotel in Baton Rouge. He changed into concerned in its operation by way of running in the front of the house, even though he used to “hang out inside the kitchen,” he said. During that time, he met a German chef from Munich who came to be a manager in that resort. “He told me something interesting about cooking,” he said. “I did not start off to be a chef, however, Fritz Blumberg said to me, ‘Get off the front table and visit the kitchen.’ I never dreamed of being a cooking expert until he was given me into this. And we additionally pointed out religion, meals, and family.”
After honing his culinary skills, Chef Folse released his personal organization, Chef John Folse & Company. In 1978, he opened his first restaurant, Lafitte’s Landing Restaurant. He then set out to take the flavor of Cajun cooking and New Orleans international, inclusive of trips to Japan, China, Russia, and Italy.
But his contributions to the nearby Catholic groups in Louisiana have made a lasting impact. He is a speaker for several Catholic agencies and does a good deal writing and research on local Catholicism. “I do loads within the community of the Catholic nuns of the Mercedarian order, a teaching order,” he added. (Note: Chef Folse is President of The Sister Dulce Foundation, Inc. The Foundation Board of Directors oversees the finances, etc. Of Cypress Springs Mercedarian Prayer Center (CSMPC).
“I also have done television shows on the meals of the Ursuline nuns, who’re sincerely steeped inside the cooking way of life,” he stated. “I went to peer the Mother Superior, who requested me to come back go to. She advised me about my exquisite-grandfather building their convent.”
Not notably, Chef Folse’s regular day, he stated, involves handling his numerous enterprise interests. He praises his “excellent personnel” of 500 employees as he visits his diverse businesses, does tv shows, and trains chefs at Nicholls State University, the house of Chef Folse’s Culinary Institute. His institute gives a Bachelor of Science or an Associate of Science diploma in the culinary and meals-and-service industry.
Most importantly, but, in the course of his successful cooking existence, Chef Folse has been guided by means of his Catholic religion.