Bill Neal (chef)

Early life and La Résidence

Bill Neal was born in 1950.^[1] His parents, farmers, raised him near Gaffney, South Carolina, where they maintained fruit and vegetable gardens, reared dairy cattle, chickens, and pigs, and processed their own meats.^[2] After high-school, he studied at Duke University. On a visit to New Orleans in 1970, he attended restaurants serving Louisiana Creole cuisine. The experience was influential on Neal, particularly Antoine's, for the restaurant's fusions of ingredients and theatrical elements.^[3][2] In 1971, Neal graduated from Duke's, and began work as a high school English teacher which he continued for two years, and briefly spent a period in New York City pursuing postgraduate education.^[2]

Moreton Neal was Neal's wife. Together, they had a child, whom Neal stayed with during the night when his wife worked. On those nights, Neal worked through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, cooking each of its recipes; Moreton later credited this with Neal gaining the self-belief that he could become a professional chef.^[4] In the mid-1970s, R.B. Fitch of Fearrington Village, North Carolina, offered Moreton and Bill an opportunity to rent a house where they could open a restaurant.^[5] La Résidence opened on May 9, 1976, serving a mix of French and New Orleans fare, with the Neal's living upstairs. The menu changed often,^[6] and the restaurant served as the start of the career of the chef Bill Smith.^[7] It did not make a lot of money.^[8] In 1982, the Neals divorced, with Moreton staying on at La Résidence.^[2]

Crook's Corner

Neal opened a restaurant that year, Crook's Corner, with Gene Hamer, who he had worked with at La Résidence.^[9] It became known locally as Crook's, and Southern dishes such as Hoppin' John.^[10] In his cooking, Bill used cookbooks extensively as a reference, studying the origins of the dishes he cooked.^[11] The dishes he served were chosen for what Neal understood to be their historical significance in Southern cooking, such as the muddle, a fish soup that Neal stated "originated with the first settlers".^[2] The restaurant was part of a larger trend in 1980s American cuisine, where chefs highlighted regional cooking and the use of local ingredients.^[10]

He had high standards for the food he and his cooks prepared, and could at times be extremely angry and critical.^[12] Among the cooks Neal managed and mentored at Crook's included Robert Stehling, who later became known for his restaurant Hominy Grill, and John Currence, both recipients of James Beard Awards.^[13][10]

By 1985, Neal had a reputation as a talented young chef of Southern cuisine.^[14][15] That year, the influential restaurant critic Craig Claiborne visited Crook's Corner, and wrote his next two articles about Neal, establishing him as a major figure in southern cooking.^[14] At Crook's Corner, Neal put shrimp and grits to the menu, which were then unknown: they were immediately popular, and through Crook's became widely known.^[16]

Writing and death

Neal was disinterested in a long-term career working at Crook's. He began writing in an effort to establish that as an alternative career, and wrote a number of cookbooks, including Bill Neal's Southern Cooking (1985) and Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie.^[17] Southern Cooking, published through the University of North Carolina Press proved to be particularly influential, and it was reissued in 1989.^[15] His last book, Gardener's Latin was his unrelated to cooking, but made the most money of any of his writing.^[18] Bill was gay, and by around 1989 he knew he had contracted AIDS.^[19] He died in 1991 at the age of 41.^[1]