RUFUS ESTES



Rufus Estes was born a slave in Maury County in the year 1857. He is widely considered to be the first African-American chef in this country to publish his own cookbook. Good things to Eat, originally published in 1911, has now been republished by Dover Publications and is available from sources such as Amazon, with 591 recipes developed from Estes’s years preparing food for a broad range of patrons.

Some of what we know about the life of Rufus Estes comes from his own writings, a short opening in the book entitled, “A Sketch of My Life.” His mother was the property of D.J. Estes, with Rufus born as the youngest of nine children, seven boys, and two girls.

When the war started, Estes remembers male slaves all across the region running away to join the Union Army, including his two older brothers. “This left us little folks to carry the burdens. At the age of five I had to carry water from a spring about a quarter mile from the house, drive cows to and from the pastures, mind the calves…”

Both of his brothers were killed during the war, “a fact that wrecked my mother’s health,” Estes remembered. When the war was over they moved to Nashville to live with his grandmother, and Estes began working at a variety of jobs to support the family, receiving $2 a month for milking the cows of a neighbor, another twenty-five cents a month for delivering hot meals to laborers in the fields.

At the age of sixteen, Estes found work as a cook’s assistant at the prestigious Hemphill Restaurant in Nashville, known for its European-style gourmet cuisine.

In 1881, he moved to Chicago, becoming the chief line cook for a respected French restaurant. This expanded the breadth of his recipes to include all manner of sauces, to which an entire chapter of the book is dedicated.

When he turned twenty-six in 1883, Estes took employment with the Pullman Company, known for its luxury dining cars. Those with extreme wealth would purchase a Pullman “palace car,” a private lounge representing the state of the art in travel at the time. During his tenure, Estes personally attended to U.S Presidents, a Spanish princess, and a variety of celebrities. 

In 1897, Estes became in charge of the private car for the owner of one of the largest railroads, staying with the car as it changed hands over 10 years.

After many years of constant travel, he returned to work in Chicago as the corporate chef at the Illinois Steel Company. Then, tired of the cold winters, Estes joined a number of former Pullman employees moving to Los Angeles, where he continued to work as a chef until retirement in 1937, followed by his subsequent death in 1938.

Encouraged to preserve and share his recipes, Estes published Good Things to Eat, a unique collection of southern cooking, French flavor, tempered by the influence of railcar kitchens, where space and ingredients were often limited. Rather than an exact and measured list of ingredients, the recipes are taught as if to a cook who brings their experience and knowledge to the task of preparation. From soups to soufflés, traditional meats and wild game, pies, pastries, frozen desserts, and much more, Good Things to Eat offers a glimpse of the past, with flavors that stand the test of time.

“One of the pleasures in life to the normal man is good eating,” Estes wrote in Good Things to Eat, “and if it be true that real happiness consists in making others happy, the author can at least feel a sense of gratification in the thought that his attempts to satisfy the cravings of the inner man have not been wholly unappreciated by the many that he has had the pleasure of serving — some of whom are now his staunchest friends.”