The Creole Praying Pots of Chef Leah Chase

The Conjure, or “hoodoo,” as it is often called, may be the “reorganized remnants” of what was once a more formal religion. Conjure, in African and Afro-American folklore, is far more than spellwork or superstition - it's a rich spiritual technology rooted in ancestral wisdom, resistance, and survival.

Conjure refers to a set of spiritual practices that blend African cosmologies with elements from Indigenous American, European, and Christian traditions.

Hark, be still! For I hear...Conjure’s echoes ringing loudly in the Creole kitchen.

It's the 1940s emerging again, when Creole chef Leah Chase turned a sandwich shop in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans into a sit-down restaurant called Dooky Chase.

Dooky Chase, a fortunate place. One of the few places that openly allowed interracial gatherings under Jim Crow.

Chef Chase prayed while she prepared the food, believing that a person had to “love that pot” in order to cook well.

A habit of the West African Dogon people, who believed that cooking vessels contained spirits.

Some say that enslaved people could be heard crying into their cooking pots in despair, which may have been a way of asking the pot’s spirit to intercede: to plead to God on the weeper’s behalf.

So, lets all join in and pray while we cook.

For the many needed modern blessings to be endowed upon our stress filled, tired and aching souls.