Boston chef and food stylist Elle Simone Scott has passed away. Her family announced that she died on Jan. 5 at 49 years old.
Scott joined the PBS program “America’s Test Kitchen” in 2016 and was the first Black woman to be a regular member of the show. Beyond her work as a test cook and host, Scott also served as an executive editor.
Born in 1976 in Detroit to a religious family, Scott was inspired by the power of food at a young age. Her great-grandmother Ann was an accomplished cook whose prowess in the kitchen taught Scott that food could be more than sustenance. “I know that it was not just an experience of putting food on the table for her but it was emotional and political,” Scott said in a 2020 interview with WBUR.
Though she always loved to cook, it wasn’t until Scott lost her home and her job as a social worker during the 2008 recession that she made a serious pivot to food. “The thought occurred to me, if I have to do something for the next 25 years of my life, it better be something I love,” said Scott in another WBUR interview. “The only thing I could think of was cooking. It was the one thing that brought me peace and joy.”
After she worked in a cruise ship kitchen, Scott moved to New York City in 2009 and went to the Culinary Institute of New York. She eventually began an internship at the Food Network and went on to produce work for a number of outlets like Bravo and the Cooking Channel. But Scott noticed people of color lacked visibility, especially women of color. “It’s important for us to see ourselves represented in this industry. That’s how we know we can do it,” Scott told WTOP News in 2019.
She founded SheChef, a culinary networking group, in 2013 to help others like her navigate the inequities of working in food. “I thought it would be a great way to create a network to bring those underrepresented people together to see how we could support each other,” said Scott. “SheChef is meant to be a glass window for all of us to look through and see ourselves being successful on the other side.”
Scott was also passionate about access to food, particularly for Black and brown communities. As a former recipient of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Scott was outspoken about her support for SNAP and school lunch programs. “I didn’t grow up in a food desert but I grew up around food deserts,” she explained in an interview with WBUR. “Thinking about the way Black people eat is very important to me.”
In 2016, shortly after moving to Boston to work at America’s Test Kitchen, Scott was diagnosed with stage 1 ovarian cancer. She became a cancer advocate and was vocal about living with the disease. “Having cancer, or just having a terminal disease in general, really makes you think about your life and how you want to live it for whatever time you have left,” Scott told WBUR. “I promised the Creator that if I survived cancer, I would utilize the rest of my life to make a change and be impactful.”
As one of the most visible Black women in food television, Scott did have an impact through her dedication to her work. “No more Black and brown girls — or any girls of color — will have to search for an image that makes them feel encouraged toward their cooking or TV dreams,” Scott said in an interview with Food & Wine. “There’s no work if you’re not leaving a legacy. Otherwise it’s self-serving, and once you’re gone, it’s gone.”
