An Interview with Poppy Tooker

Poppy Tooker is a native New Orleanian who has spent her life immersed in the vibrant colors and flavors of her state.

Poppy’s NPR-affiliated radio show and podcast, Louisiana Eats!, carries her message state-wide and beyond.

In April 2018 Louisiana Eats was named Best National AND Best Regional Radio Program in the Food and Beverage category by the Taste Awards in Los Angeles.

Louisiana Eats! was awarded first, second and third place in the Best Radio Show category by the New Orleans Press Club in 2015 and 2016.

In 2017, the national Taste Awards recognized Louisiana Eats! in the category of best beverage and drinks programming. In 2013, her radio show inspired the Louisiana Eats! book, which received the Literary Award of the Year from the Louisiana Library Association. Poppy will also be serving as the judge for 2018’s Ora King Salmon Awards out of New Zealand. In that capacity, she will be traveling across the U.S. in the late summer, judging the salmon dishes of the 6 American semi-finalists. New Zealand, Australian and Japanese chefs will be competing also. The award will be given out in Nelson, New Zealand, on October 16, 2018.

After being tapped to update one of the earliest Louisiana cookbooks, Madame Begue’s Creole Recipes of Old New Orleans Creole Cookery, which was first published in 1900, Poppy went on to continue the story of Begue’s with Tujague’s Cookbook, Creole Recipes, and Lore in the Grand New Orleans Tradition. The Pascal’s Manale Cookbook will chronicle the food and the story of New Orleans’s second-oldest, continuously operating a family-owned restaurant. The book will be published in the fall of 2018.