21 July 2025
By Izzy Wollfarth
Contributing Writer
Edgar “Dook” Chase, Executive chef and operator of Dooky Chase restaurant, grew up in the kitchen. At home, the Chase family would connect through Southern dishes and fill dinner tables with family favorites.
“You always had just a buffet of food options laid out for you and you would just have a blast, man,” says Chase. He recalls changing out of church clothes to play and eat alongside his family on these occasions.
Many of Chase’s childhood memories are tied to food, which is something to which he says other people relate. “Each recipe tells its own story. It has its own food memory. That’s a beautiful thing about the connectivity of food.”
Actress Octavia Spencer, host of “Family Recipe Showdown” with New Orleans’ own, Chef Edgar “Dook” Chase.
To Chase, homemade meals and culinary creations are where community flourishes. He adds, “That’s why food plays a huge role in being communal and uniting people, because everybody, whether you’re a chef or whether you’re a person that just enjoys a great meal, everyone has a food memory. It brings back those memories.”
With this in mind when Hello Sunshine, an American media company and the producers of “Family Recipe Showdown,” approached Chase with the idea of a Southern-style cooking competition, he fell in love.
“Family Recipe Showdown” highlights generations of culinary traditions within families. Each episode features three teams of home cooks or family duos. The contestants’ task is to make a series of specialty dishes that recall their own food memories. Each team battles for the $10,000 prize.
Despite the competing, Chase says the show is an opportunity for home cooks to show the world who they are.
“My goal for the show is for people to really see the enjoyment of what food does. The enjoyment of what your family recipe does for your family, for your story, for your culture, for your tradition and to be able to showcase that we are so similar and really cherishing who we are.”
Viewers and judges get to dive into home cooks’ cooking journeys and Chase anticipates that it will be filled with fun.
As the contestants prepare their specialty dishes, the show’s host Octavia Spencer, an award-winning actress and producer, and Chase wait to be impressed.
The show also features special guest judges like Jessica Chastain, Tina Knowles and Reese Witherspoon, who challenge chefs to make their favorite Southern meals.
Spencer, originally from Montgomery, Alabama, brings her own Southern flair to the competition.
Chase says, “We had a lot of fun. I taught her how to cook some things in the kitchen. We played off each other. She is a great taster, and we hit it off.” In turn, Spencer helped Chase to be comfortable in front of a camera.
Being set in New Orleans, “Family Recipe Showdown” also embraces the vibrant community and food legacy that defines the city and its natives. From Antoine’s Oyster Rockefeller to Crawfish Monica at Jazz Fest, the flavors in New Orleans never miss. Behind each dish is a family tradition, a culinary secret and shared love for food.
“No other place in the country could have been a better fit than the New Orleans story. When you think about our story and the many different cultural influences that happened in New Orleans, the many different traditions that happen, the many different recipes that are passed down from generations to generations, that is exactly this show. It fits the identity of New Orleans, perfectly,” Chase gushed.
Bringing together home cooks, Chase and his family legacy, and putting it in the backdrop of New Orleans forecasts a riveting premiere to come.
“Family Recipe Showdown,” which premiered on July 17, airs on Thursday at 8 p.m. CST on the Food Network and streams the next day on HBO Max.
This article originally published in the July 21, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.