Tag: Thomas Jefferson

Florida Oranges, and Other White House Desserts

Categories American Cooking, Chefs, Cookbooks, Cooking, Desserts, Florida, French Cooking, White House1 Comment on Florida Oranges, and Other White House Desserts

Desserts and sweets served in the White House reflect the culinary history of the United States. The patterns of cooking, eating, and serving food in the White House originally relied heavily on the British heritage of the Thirteen Colonies, a pattern that generally continues until the present day.  Although wars and economic depressions plagued the…

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Day 5: Tomatoes – Celebrate American Food History

Categories American Cooking, Cookbooks, Cooking, England, English Cooking, Tomatoes, Virginia11 Comments on Day 5: Tomatoes – Celebrate American Food History

Tomatoes, poisonous or aphrodisiac? That was the question lurking in the pot for quite some time after the Spanish and the Portuguese began their voyages to the New World beginning around the late fifteenth century and likely introduced the tomato (and other New World foods) to Europe and Africa. John Gerard, a renown herbalist and…

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Doing What’s Necessary: The Logical Outcome of Haute Cuisine, or, An Extremely Brief Meditation on the History of Privies and Toilets

Categories Africa, Burkina Faso, Cooking, Food writing, France, Oral History, Photography4 Comments on Doing What’s Necessary: The Logical Outcome of Haute Cuisine, or, An Extremely Brief Meditation on the History of Privies and Toilets

I came face to face with the truth about outhouses on my first day in my Peace Corps village. Not that I’d never seen (or used) an outhouse before; I became intimately acquainted with the concept during the summer I worked as the assistant cook on an archaeological dig in Ozette, Washington. There, the pit…

Continue reading ➞ Doing What’s Necessary: The Logical Outcome of Haute Cuisine, or, An Extremely Brief Meditation on the History of Privies and Toilets

Thomas Jefferson: The Francophile Who Became the First U.S. “Foodie”

Categories American Cooking, Desserts, French Cooking, Recipes, Southern Food, White House7 Comments on Thomas Jefferson: The Francophile Who Became the First U.S. “Foodie”

Thomas Jefferson. President. Scientist. Writer. Man of many passions, some hidden, some not. In his writings and in his actions, food clearly revealed itself as one of those passions. Above all, Jefferson was a Francophile. From the design of his dining room in his house, Monticello, to the gardens surrounding him in the foothills of the…

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The Potager of Thomas Jefferson: A Kitchen Garden in Photos

Categories African Cooking, American Cooking, Cooking, French Cooking, Gardens, United States, Virginia5 Comments on The Potager of Thomas Jefferson: A Kitchen Garden in Photos

Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, that amazing genius and inventor, and --- according to the late food writer, Karen Hess --- probably America's first real gourmet. Any lover of books, art, architecture, wine, and food should dream of visiting this place at least once. [Note: It's the only house declared a UNESCO World Heritage…

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Thomas Jefferson and His Magic “Maccaroni” Machine

Categories American Cooking, Cooking, Italian Cooking, Pasta, United States, Virginia4 Comments on Thomas Jefferson and His Magic “Maccaroni” Machine

Thomas Jefferson, rightly or wrongly credited with first bringing pasta to the tables of Americans, drew a picture of  a pasta-making machine. This drawing, now in the Library of Congress, resulted from a trip to Italy taken by Jefferson in 1787. Don't forget that "macaroni" served as a generic name for pasta and doesn't necessarily…

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