Justin Wilson

Justin Wilson built his renown on a dual gift for preparing robust Cajun fare and spinning droll tales drawn from life in Louisiana's bayou region. Born in Roseland, Louisiana, on April 24, 1914, he was the son of Harry D. Wilson, who served as the state's Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry from 1916 to 1948 and later won election to the Louisiana House of Representatives, and of Olivette Mintern Toadvin, a pianist and composer renowned for her culinary skill. From his mother, who carried Cajun ancestry unlike her Welsh husband, Wilson acquired his kitchen proficiency and came to describe himself as a "half-bleed Cajun."

He initially worked as a safety engineer, yet his presentations on workplace protocols struck listeners as overly bland until he began interspersing anecdotes gathered during his travels through Cajun country. The humorous interludes soon drew bigger crowds than the safety talks themselves, establishing Wilson across the South and Southwest through his thickened Cajun accent and recurring exclamation, "I Gawr-on-tee!" While some, including author Trent Angers, faulted him for depicting Cajuns as "barely literate and not very bright," others credited the performer with introducing the region's foodways and traditions to audiences far beyond the South.

Wilson's debut comedy album, The Humorous World of Justin Wilson, appeared on Ember Records in 1960 and was quickly picked up the following year by Tower Records, a Capitol subsidiary. From 1961 through 1985 he issued twenty-eight albums in all, ten of them on Tower and another ten on the Louisiana label Paula Records, while also reaching national viewers through guest spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Hollywood Squares, and Late Night with David Letterman.

His first cookbook, The Justin Wilson Cook Book, came out in 1965, followed by six additional volumes between 1979 and 1998. He brought his kitchen demonstrations to television in 1971 on a Mississippi Educational Television series that mixed recipes with jokes, then expanded his reach in the 1980s when Louisiana Cookin' aired coast to coast on PBS. In the 1990s, footage from the earlier programs resurfaced under the title Justin Wilson: Looking Back, occasionally augmented with segments that suggested lighter ingredient substitutions. Wilson died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on September 5, 2001, at the age of 87.