As head pastry chef for Husk Nashville, a much-ballyhooed restaurant helmed by James Beard Award-winning chef Sean Brock, Lisa Donovan finally found a place where her elegant renditions of traditional Southern desserts could shine: bourbon butterscotch pudding, chocolate crunch cake, rice pudding with spiced peaches, and her signature buttermilk pie.
She was there from the beginning, working part time at first, because she had children at home. But, she soon was working beyond the typical 40 hours a week. Then, she was traveling back and forth to Charleston, South Carolina, overseeing the pastry operation at the original Husk, too.
Her requests for a pay increase to compensate for the additional responsibilities were met with pleas to be patient. Eventually, she was told she could have a raise if she fired someone on her staff. She refused to sacrifice someone else for her gain, so she quit.
When Donovan walked out of Husk for the last time, she was making the exact same wage she made when she started: $15 an hour.
It is a startling revelation, among many, in her memoir, “Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger” (Penguin Random House, $28). The book chronicles Donovan’s scrappy childhood growing up on or near Army bases, her young adulthood as a struggling single mother, and her apprenticeship at some of Nashville’s finest restaurants. It also exposes her experience with sexism in the restaurant industry.
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
“I never made a salary as a pastry chef,” said Donovan, 42, speaking last week from her sunny front porch in Nashville. “I never had health insurance.”
Anyone expecting “Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger” to be a takedown of the reputedly temperamental Brock, or the bro culture and misogyny that permeate many high-profile restaurants, will be disappointed. This is a more nuanced book than that, written by an author who won a James Beard Award not for cooking, but for her food writing.
“A lot of people have been surprised at how lovingly I portray Sean,” Donovan said. “I will be the first one to tell you that, while I can see all the ways in which he can be problematic, or definitely was back in those days, he was one of the first people to give me a space to 100% use my voice.”
She saves her ire, instead, for restaurant investors.
“I do have very strong bones to pick with restaurant groups that exploit their workers. I will indict them all the livelong day until the day I die.”
Donovan also uses the book to explore her own history of acquiescing to male authority figures, beginning with the men in her personal life.
“I was really interested in trying to figure out what was conditioned in me that I was so willing to work around things that were causing me direct harm. I had to go past this toxic culture of the restaurant that I worked in, all the way back to an eagerness to please men … an eagerness to be accepted … even though I knew it was wrong, and even though I knew it was not good for me. ... I was just trying to do a lot personal unlearning. I was trying to get the (expletive) patriarchy out my bones.”
Donovan accomplishes that by using the book to champion the influential women in her life, including her Mexican grandmother and the women restaurateurs who mentored her. She also recognizes the women who created those spiral-bound cookbooks of homespun recipes compiled by Junior Leagues and churches, which inspired many of Donovan’s dessert creations. And, she pays tribute to the uncredited domestic workers and enslaved women who originated many of those recipes.
The momentum to recognize the significant contributions Blacks have made to the origins of Southern cuisine has gained traction during the Black Lives Matter era. It is at the center of a mutiny of sorts brewing within the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi that documents and celebrates Southern food. Some are calling for the resignation of founding Director John T. Edge, and a restructuring of the organization that would make way for more racial and gender diversity.
“I think the mistake the SFA made is not rising to the current — and I mean like the last decade — racial climate,” Donovan said. “They’ve done an exemplary job of building something that has been really important in the United States … (but) I think they have to reckon with the fact that they have dropped the ball.”
She believes the SFA’s association with the University of Mississippi, which has historical ties to slavery and racism, is the bigger issue.
“I want to know where the money’s coming from,” she said. “I want to know how much SFA is tied up in the University of Mississippi and why. How do we get SFA out of the University of Mississippi? Is that a real conversation? Is removing John T. actually even the answer?”
It is an issue Donovan feels passionate about, but her stake is purely personal now. She’s no longer cooking professionally, and she’s put her food writing on hold.
Instead, Donovan is working on a screenplay.
“I’ve always wanted to write for film,” she said. “This quarantine time has been really impactful for me, by reminding me of some early intentions that I’d never let go of.”
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MEMOIR
“Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger”
By Lisa Donovan
Penguin Random House
304 pages, $28
About the Author
