Mourners, including chefs in white coats, gather at funeral for celebrity chef Paul Prudhomme

NEW ORLEANS – Scores of mourners have paid respects to the man who brought Louisiana’s rural Cajun cooking to the forefront of American cuisine and kept it there for decades.

Chefs in white coats escorted the casket of celebrity chef Paul Prudhomme (proo-DOHM’) into St. Louis Cathedral early Monday.

Upon leaving the church, chefs in dark suits who worked at his highly successful K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen brought the casket to Jackson Square, where a brass band played a dirge.

The Rev. Robert Cooper euologized him as a determined man of faith who didn’t let the failure of his first restaurant, a hamburger stand that closed after nine months in 1957, get him down.

The largely self-taught Prudhomme — known in particular for his signature blackened redfish — died Thursday after a brief illness.