FOOD FOR FOOD'S SAKE: DAMARIS PHILLIPS AND THE ART OF KENTUCKY COOKING

LOUISVILLE – Damaris Phillips’ success as a culinary trailblazer and celebrity chef is built on a foundation of biscuits. When anyone asks her what she’s known for or what her claim to fame is, her response is as consistent as it is blunt: “I make a mean biscuit.” 

She gives this some more context, stating that “growing up, my grandmother made biscuits, and my mom made biscuits.” Biscuits were a kind of love language, a unifier, and an opportunity for members of the family to hash things out. And with biscuits being served more days of the week than not, Phillips dove head first into her family biscuit-making tradition. 

Of course, her aspirations didn’t stop with mastering the biscuit. Phillips would eventually rise to global fame in the culinary world, always keeping Kentucky as the backdrop to her clever and intricate dishes.

Illustration by August Northcut

Lessons Learned In and Out of the Kitchen

Damaris' success came from lessons she learned way before she ever set foot in front of a stove. Before she would hone her cooking talents fully, Phillips would learn first-hand the value of hard work from her parents. Whether she was responsible for cooking for her parents and four siblings or handling other chores, she would work hard to complete whatever task she faced. “It's my value system,” she told Kentucky to the World, that she inherited from her parents.

When she began to grow and mature in the kitchen, the flavors she created were inspired by her roots across the South. She says her primary familial influences come from “this Louisville/Northern Georgia/West Virginia kind of all rolled into one action,” culminating in a style that was distinctly Southern, but with a twist.

Because her father “would bread and fry and put some gravy on” practically everything and her “mother was like way ahead of the health food craze,” causing her family's meals to be “a hippie mix between like Kentucky, Georgia and healthy cooking.” Healthy interpretations of traditional Southern dishes may be the norm now, but when Damaris was steadily making a name for herself, it was her signature because it was her story.

The Vibrant Cuisine of Kentucky

Culinary tradition means a lot to Phillips, because she believes that tradition breeds invention. Her constant push to update and play on historic Southern dishes can be traced to a lifelong obsession with the unique ways that Kentucky homemakers fed their families. For Phillips, there are two major actors at play that result in the Commonwealth’s particularly eclectic culinary makeup. 

One aspect that makes Kentucky’s edible identity unique compared to the rest of the South is “a lot of influence from Appalachia.” She stated that the traditions of “real necessity based cooking in the winter, and in the spring before you get new harvest” still shape the culinary landscape of Kentucky. Rustic preservation processes like pickling and canning, which have always been a crucial part of maximizing the yield of a harvest, are beginning to work their way into professional kitchens around the world.  

She says the other contributor to Kentucky’s unique culinary landscape is its location along the shores of the once major shipping artery, the Ohio River. Specifically because of Louisville’s importance as a trade port, many different people from many different countries with many different ways of cooking would eventually settle in Kentucky. As a result, she said,

“It really is a modge podge of what rural Kentucky looks like versus the cities of Kentucky. And that together makes Kentucky cuisine, which is exciting and fun and different. And, you know, Kentucky.”

For these reasons, Phillips believes that Kentucky cuisine is a trend-setter. The state’s focus on preserved food, seasonal produce, and heavy use of vegetables on the plate have all influenced the ways chefs around the world approach constructing their menus. “That's always been a part of the Kentucky dinner table, that now, you're starting to see that everywhere else.”

Getting to Work

It’s from this “Kentucky work ethic” provided by her family coupled with her passion for culinary heritage that Phillips has been able to find success in the kitchen and on the screen. Before she appeared on TV, she worked a number of jobs in her hometown of Louisville. According to a Food Network bio, she considered a number of other careers like writing, communication, advertising, and even nursing before she realized her future as a chef. 

Eventually, at age 26, she would go to culinary school and land the internship opportunity of a lifetime at 610 Magnolia under Chef Edward Lee. It was her first experience as a professional cook outside of baking and she remembers her nervousness fondly, with the kind of laugh that hinted at a tender moment of reflection about how far she had come since that day. “I felt a little behind and I was a young female so I felt like I had to work harder than everybody else, stay as long as possible, [and] never complain.”

Always relying on the firm backbone provided by her tireless work ethic, she practiced her knife skills after hours, her mind still reeling from a busy dinner service but sharply focused on mastering her craft. After completing culinary school, she went right back into the classroom to teach courses at Jefferson County Community and Technical College, a decision that would further shape her ethos as an aspiring chef. She told the Courier Journal in 2014 that “I'm a better chef because I'm a teacher. You never get stale because you constantly have people who are coming in who are excited about this field.” 

In 2013, she competed on and eventually won the ninth season of Food Network Star, which granted her a slot on the network schedule. She called her show Southern at Heart. It would go on to run for 5 seasons between 2013 and 2016, earning Phillips a dedicated fanbase. Since then, she’s starred on the shows The Bobby and Damaris Show and Southern and Hungry and published her first cookbook, Southern Girl Meets Vegetarian Boy: Down Home Classics for Vegetarians (And the Meat Eaters Who Love Them).

Elevating Kentucky’s Culinary Reputation

As a chef, educator, and celebrity, Phillips has maintained an unrelenting drive to confront and dismantle the prevailing misconceptions that bog down her beloved Bluegrass State. “The most heartbreaking for me,” she told us, “is that we're small and closed-minded. That one's the one that hurts me the most because there's a lot of beautiful people living in this state that are openhearted and accepting of all people.”

Part of Phillips’ work is to give Kentuckians a future to be proud of: “I want us to be able to create an environment where people don't leave, where they stay in Kentucky because it's good living. But also because we're going to recognize and take care of the talent that we grow here.”

On March 2, Kentucky to the World will partner with the LEE Initiative to begin International Women’s Month with an unforgettable event: The Future of Food Is Female. Chef Damaris Phillips will sit down and have a conversation with Chefs Samantha Fore, Kristen Smith, and Nikkia Rhodes about the thriving and expanding culinary arts architecture in Kentucky. Find out how the landscape of food is evolving and how Kentucky women are at the center of that progress.