Sara Roahen is a writer and oral historian whose work usually involves food, cooking, memory, and/or place. Not necessarily in that order. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, Chile Pepper, Food & Wine, Wine & Spirits, Gourmet, and Oxford American magazines, as well as Best Food Writing 2003,  Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue, and Food and Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast.

Sara’s oral history work can be found here: SFA | Oral History Initiative.

And as of February 5, 2008 (Mardi Gras), she has a book: Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table, published by W. W. Norton.

Sara was born in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. She spent a year abroad as a foreign exchange student in The Netherlands before earning a BA in the History of Science and Philosophy from St. John’s College (attending both campuses, in Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM). She did time in several other cities and states, working her way from waitress to barista to line cook, before finally moving to New Orleans for the love of a man. Sara married Mathieu de Schutter in 2000, in no small part because he had brought her to New Orleans. 

The hurricanes of 2005 shook loose Sara and Matt’s corporeal ties to the city. They resided for a time in Philadelphia, where Matt pursued a medical career and Sara ate tomato pie. On April 20, 2008, they moved back to New Orleans. Just in time for crawfish season and Jazz Fest.

Sara serves on the Board of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and on the Ark-Presidia Committee of Slow Food USA.