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Ted Lee
James Beard Award winner
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
Ted Lee built his practice from the home kitchen and from Charleston, South Carolina, where he grew up and where his voice as a writer, teacher, and commentator first took shape. As co-founder of The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, he helped turn regional affection into a working food platform, treating Southern food not as a fixed relic but as something lived in family kitchens and daily habits. In his own words, “We are home cooks, pure and simple; that is how we got into the kitchen and that is our perspective on Charleston, a place with a very deep and longstanding home-cooking tradition.”
The Climb
Ted Lee is co-founder of The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, a food journalist and cookbook author, and an on-air commentator for the Cooking Channel show Unique Eats. That range places him across reporting, book work, and broadcast, with each format asking for the same discipline: to describe food plainly, shape it clearly, and speak about it with authority. Since 2012, he has also served as a cookbook consultant and chef boot camp teacher for Cookbook Boot Camp, carrying that same grounded approach into the classroom. The work moves between page, screen, and classroom without losing its center. Ted Lee’s career shows how Southern cooking can be translated for readers, viewers, and students through clear observation rather than performance.
Today
He remains co-founder of The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue. Ted Lee’s perspective stays rooted in Charleston and in home cooking, with attention to the domestic traditions that give a cuisine its shape and emotional weight. That grounding continues to define how he talks about food: intimate, specific, and attentive to what is made at home.
Signature
Ted's signature dishes include Lee Bros. Southern Cookbooks, The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern, The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen, boiled peanut ice cream, and kumquat sparklers. Read together, they show two modes of practice: books that organize Southern cooking with clarity, and playful items that extend that vocabulary without leaving it behind. The boiled peanut ice cream and kumquat sparklers sit alongside the books as proof that his work can hold tradition and surprise in the same frame.
In Their Words “We are home cooks, pure and simple; that is how we got into the kitchen and that is our perspective on Charleston, a place with a very deep and longstanding home-cooking tradition.” “I would start with kumquat sparklers, with the flavor of backyard kumquats, which are like tangerines.”
Recognition
Ted's honors include James Beard Award and IACP cookbook award. These awards mark a career that has carried Charleston foodways into broader circulation while staying close to the home-cooking tradition that shaped the work in the first place.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Ted
What is Ted Lee's current role?
As of 2026, Ted Lee is Contributing editor.
What recognition has Ted Lee received?
James Beard Award.
