Roderick Richardson, known to many as Drigo, was remembered by friends and family as a chef, artist and entrepreneur, and a resourceful advocate for local foods. Richardson, 50, died Jan. 10 in Miami.
Born on St. Croix, USVI, Richardson was known for his skills as a chef in his business, The Culinary Alchemist, which focused on healthy dishes free from sugar and preservatives. He cooked at farmers markets, pop-ups and other events, often bringing his young daughters to help.
Well-versed in using local produce, Richardson was consulted on a story for Edible South Florida about cooking with the entire banana plant. “The plant is completely sustainable,” he said. “We use the leaves to make doucouna, pasteles or simply wrapping veggies, fish or meat,” he said. “We eat every part of the plant and compost the parts that are inedible. The heart, the fruit, the sprouts, the young leaves and even the trunk can be prepared as a delicacy, cooked down into a dhal with yellow split peas and served with Caribbean roti.”
Drigo was also an artist who dabbled in different media that appeared in galleries around Miami.
“Drigo was more fully alive than most people I have known. He gave of himself and took only what he needed to survive from the planet and from others,” says wine consultant and educator Carol Lopez-Bethel, who met Richardson at a farmers market about 10 years ago. “After tasting his incredible culinary alchemy with plant-based foods, I introduced him and his family to Slow Food Miami, where he earned ‘Snails of Approval’ awards for his use of local, indigenous and foraged ingredients from land and sea,” she says.
He provided tasting menus to pair with her “Women in Wine” and “Wines of Mediterranean Revivalist Architecture of Vizcaya” at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami. “He humbly orchestrated each plate with a symphonic blend of handcrafted vegan ingredients like his housemade, no-fish fish sauce and oyster sauce, and green jackfruit that tasted like salmon tartare,” she says.
Together, over the years, she and Richardson foraged for mangos, starfruit, avocados, jackfruit, seagrapes, acerola cherries, tamarind, moringa and hoja santa across the many verdant neighborhoods and shorelines of Miami. “His then-small daughters (now grown) ate vegan grilled cheese sandwiches and vegetables from my garden in my home after carrying back the fruits of our labor,” says Lopez-Bethel, who moved to Central Florida six years ago.
An accomplished artist and an ambassador for the depth of Caribbean culture and the African diaspora, Richardson spoke with Lopez-Bethel last year about the knowledge he gained about local ingredients in the Dutch and English countrysides. “Our last conversation just over a month ago was about the potential bounty of Central Florida and how he could get involved,” she says.
Richardson is survived by his wife, Coretta; daughters Alem, Samadhi and Ambessa;, mother Cheryl Richardson; brothers Alphonso Hadaway and Richard Richardson; sister, Henrietta Anglin; and nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.
