Possibly America’s first foodie, Thomas Jefferson was an adventurous eater; Gourmet Magazine named him one of the nation’s 25 most influential food figures citing his “abiding appreciation of French food, his promotion of fine dining and his experiments in growing new, sometimes exotic, crops.”  Jefferson wrote that he ate meat “as a condiment to the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.” His garden offered more than 250 varieties of herbs and vegetables, including some, like the tomato, that others feared were poisonous (it was little understood in Jefferson’s time that, while tomatoes are part of the nightshade family and their leaves are, indeed, poisonous, their fruit is perfectly safe.)

Jefferson was appointed American Minister to the French Court of Louis XVI in Paris in 1784 and chose James Hemings, a young enslaved man at Monticello, Jefferson’s Virginia estate, to travel with him to France and receive training in “the art of cookery.” James was brought to Monticello as a child, along with his mother, Elizabeth Hemings, and several siblings.  The family came to Jefferson as part of his wife’s inheritance, the Wayles estate.  Six of Elizabeth Hemings children were fathered by the family patriarch, lawyer and slave trader John Wayles, making James a younger half brother to Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson.  His father never acknowledged him.

After three years of training Hemings became head chef at the Hotel de Langeac, Jefferson’s Paris residence on the Champs Elysees, which also served as the American Embassy.  His salary was half what Jefferson paid his previous chef cuisinier.  James spent part of that salary to engage a tutor to instruct him in French and, when combined with the immersion of working in a French kitchen, he gained a good command of the language.  French law allowed a slave, even if brought from another country, to petition the courts for freedom, but there is no record that James pursued that opportunity.  He left Paris with Jefferson in 1789, at the onset of the French Revolution, and returned to the United States an enslaved man.

Jefferson became the first American Secretary of State in 1790 and established a new residence in New York City, the temporary American capital.  He relocated when the capital moved to Philadelphia.  Accompanying him, Hemings prepared dinners for presidents, European diplomats, cabinet members, congressmen and many national and international visitors for the princely wage of $7. a month, the same wage Jefferson paid his free staff.  Founded by Quakers, Pennsylvania was the first colony to pass a law abolishing slavery.  James likely knew that the law allowed any slave brought to the state to claim freedom after six months in residence but, once again, no evidence exists that he pursued that possibility.

In 1793, as Jefferson prepared to leave the office of secretary of state and retire to Monticello, he drew up a manumission agreement that discharged Hemings of all duties and claims of servitude, rendering him a free man the age of 30. Before departing in 1796, two years after his return to Monticello, Hemings completed Jefferson’s requirement that he train his younger brother, Peter, to replace him. Hemings traveled after gaining his freedom, possibly back to France, which by then was in the full throes of Revolution.  When Jefferson was elected president James was working at a tavern in Baltimore.   Jefferson approached him through an intermediary to ask if he would be willing to return to his employ as a free man and James replied asking for a letter, written in Jefferson’s own hand, detailing the terms of engagement and wages.  Jefferson never responded.  In 1801 Jefferson, now in Washington D.C., learned that Hemings had taken his own life at the age of 36.

Monticello is now open to the public as a National Historic Site.  It’s website notes that Jefferson enslaved over 600 human beings at Monticello and his other properties during his lifetime.  While his soft voice rendered him an ineffective public speaker, he could write: Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.  He led the United States in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon and authorized the Louis and Clark Expedition to explore the North American West.  As his presidency aged him, he suffered migraines and he did not include the presidency among the accomplishments listed on his tombstone.

On the subject of macaroni (the colonial moniker for all forms of pasta), Monticello offers the following on its website:

“Jefferson was not the first to introduce macaroni (with or without cheese) to America, nor did he invent the recipe as some have claimed.  A recipe for macaroni in Jefferson’s own hand survives, although it was most likely dictated to him by one of his enslaved chefs or butlers.

6 eggs, yolks and whites

2 wine glasses of milk

2 pounds of flour

a little salt

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1.  Work them together without water, and very well.  Roll it then with a roller to a paper thickness.

2.  Cut it into small pieces which roll again with the hand into long slips, and then cut them to a proper length.

3.  Put them into warm water a quarter of an hour.  Drain them, but if they are intended for soups they are to be put in the soup and not into warm water.”