Why hello there, and welcome to Kitchen Catastrophe. This week’s post is going to continue the themes of this Monday’s post, in a continued honoring of Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, and the impact and efforts Black Americans have made to our nation. As such, it will be rather somber, which, if you are new to the site, isn’t our normal style. I wanted to make all of that clear, here at the beginning, so those who are coming to this on high emotions (for it has been an emotional week) or those feeling like they’re rather avoid some rather dark topics such as suicide, slavery, and other topics, can walk away, and return if and when they’re ready. For those who are prepared, let’s dig in, and discuss an important culinary milestone for America…and the not-so-savory elements of it.

What Tangled Webs We Weave

James Hemings was born in 1765, the son of Betty Hemings and John Wayles. He had numerous siblings, as was common at the time, from his oldest half-sister Martha Wayles, born 17 years before he was, to his youngest sister Sally, born 8 years after him. Shortly after his youngest sister’s birth, James and the rest of his family moved into his half-sister’s new home, Monticello. Because by the time Sally was born, James’ oldest half-sister had married her third cousin, Thomas Jefferson. And when I say “moved in”, I mean “was inherited by”, since the Hemings were slaves.

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As you might have guessed, this was not a man free to make his employment choices in 1773.

Yes, as you may have already guessed or assumed, this is a story about slavery. And not-slavery. And more slavery. It’s a…VERY weird story. But I wanted to start on the beginning to highlight just how little we reflect on some of the details of the founding of our country, and the way slavery worked in reality. James Hemings, and several of his siblings were 3/4s white: their mother, Elizabeth Hemings, herself the daughter of a slave and a white man, was bought by John Wayles, who, after his THIRD wife died, took her as his mistress, and the two had 6 children together. When Wayles passed away, Martha ensured that all the Hemings were taken in by herself and her husband, supposedly out of a sense of filial duty: without her intervention, the family might have been split up and sold away from each other. They also inherited a portion of John Wayles’ debt, roughly 4,000 pounds at the time. (By a very rough estimate, roughly $900,000 in 2020)

8 years later, Martha Jefferson passed away, after numerous health issues, the strain of the American Revolution, and a particularly harsh pregnancy. Three years later, Jefferson left America for France, to serve as the “Minister to France” (essentially our ambassador, though there’s some complicated political and linguistic history to that distinction). James was brought with him, for James had been working as a cook at the estate, and Jefferson wanted James to be taught as a chef. I apologize for the somewhat tortured phrasing of that last sentence, but it’s very hard to make a slave the subject of a sentence, without then implicitly giving them more agency. James did not “go with” Thomas, he was ‘brought with’.

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In the same way that his older brother Robert didn’t ‘choose’ to finish building Monticello.

While in France, James was paid by Jefferson, who also paid for his education in French culinary schools, with James becoming chef de cuisine within a few years. At the same time, another…interesting development occurred. The now 15-year old Sally arrived, as a maid for one of Jefferson’s daughters. And if you’re suddenly remembering that you KNOW the name Sally Hemings, yes, this is where that arc of the story begins. For those who have forgotten, or never knew, the 44 year-old Minister to France shortly thereafter began a sexual relationship with the teenage slave who was half-sister to his deceased wife.

James was CERTAINLY aware of this, and things became even more complicated a year later, when France abolished Slavery: James and Sally could, if they wished, claim protection under French law, and be freed from Jefferson. But they would have to choose quickly: the United States had just formed its Constitution, and elected George Washington, who was appointing Jefferson Secretary of State. The two would have to choose between staying free in Paris…but likely never seeing their families again, or returning to America as slaves. Jefferson notably wrote to another American in France at the time, trying to determine what he should do to convince them to return, partly out of a general fear of losing the two, whom he had come to rely on…and also out of a frustration of the lost funds of their training and pay. (Jefferson had not, and indeed, never WOULD, fully rid himself of the debts he inherited, or others he built up.) He swore to continue paying James when they returned to America, and supposedly promised to Sally that, if she returned, he would free her children when they came of age.

James would go on to work for Thomas Jefferson in America for several years while Jefferson served as Secretary of State, since in Pennsylvania, slavery was also illegal. When Jefferson expressed his desire to return to Virginia, however, he balked. He had little desire to return to a state where he would be property, not a person, and agreed to do so only under the condition that, in repayment for Jefferson paying to train him, he would train a replacement, and then be freed. Jefferson (begrudgingly) acceded, and James returned, and trained his brother Peter in French cooking techniques and dishes that Jefferson had come to enjoy. James was freed in 1796.

“I swear to God, Peter, you better get this meunière right. My FREEDOM depends on it.”

And in a just world, there would then be a rousing story of his rise, as the first “real” American chef trained in French technique. But…James was a Black man, and a former slave. His story did not go all that well. Freed, he was able to travel and see Europe once more, before returning to America and finding work in northern taverns, for a time in Philadelphia, and then in Baltimore. When Jefferson was elected President, he actually wrote to James, asking him to come and serve as the White House chef, which James suggested he was interested in, but he didn’t want to leave his current job without more information: a message from an intermediary reads that James states he would be “more willing to serve [Jefferson] than any man in the Union”, but wanted the details of his contract before agreeing such as his wage, and how long he’d be working for Jefferson…and he wanted it in writing. Jefferson, figuring that such a request meant that James wasn’t into the idea, let it drop, but James did come to Monticello that summer and cook for a month and a half for Jefferson, for which Jefferson paid him $30.

However, something then occurred. History isn’t sure what, but two months after their last interaction, James was dead. The story, as confirmed to Jefferson by his friends, was that James had been struggling with drink for some time, and that, either through drink, exposure, or some other means, James had killed himself. Some historians suggest he may have been ill, or simply turned to drink as a man in a world that had no space for him. Think of it: the man was half-brother and full-brother to BOTH of the women that bore Thomas Jefferson children, but he, as a ¼ Black man, had few rights, fewer protections, and almost none of the connections that pedigree should imply.

For context: There is an entire song in Hamilton about Aaron Burr wanting to be in THIS room.. James made that meal. He was IN THAT ROOM.

James’ brother, Peter, would go on to outlive Jefferson, who, in his will, did free all of Sally’s children, as he promised, though he did not technically free Sally herself: She was bought by Jefferson’s daughter, who then freed her. Peter was bought by one of Sally’s children, his own nephew, and then freed. (Sally’s children were, as the math of her own lineage would suggest, 1/8th Black, and were mostly able to live as White Americans after their freedom.)

As to James…we have one document in his hand, an inventory of supplies from that 2 month window of time in 1801, and one record of his technique: a recipe for “Snow Eggs” (a dish of meringues floating in custard) written by Jefferson’s granddaughter, attributed as his.

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I’m not an aficionado of handwriting, but I will note that James’ handwriting straight up seems BETTER than Jefferson’s. Some sources claim he also spoke French better.

These are the crumbs we are left with. Well, that, and the fact that, as Jefferson’s chef, it’s kind of obvious that when people talk of Jefferson ‘bringing back’ various foods from his trip to France, it’s almost certainly James who did the actual cooking: Macaroni and Cheese, French Fries, Crème Brulee…all potentially first made in America by James. And if not first made, then certainly the first to serve the dishes to the high and mighty of the new nation, since, during Jefferson’s stint as Secretary of State, he had numerous dinners with senators and representatives, the other Founding Fathers, foreign dignitaries, and wealthy businessmen and landowners. Some have argued that a dish of his was essentially the first “Baked Alaska”: while Ice cream was still a very new dish for American palates, James served a dish of it encased in baked pie crust. According to Ashbell McElveen, founder of the James Hemings Foundation, a foundation that seeks to uncover the missing past of chefs like Hemings and the millions of other slaves whose contributions to culinary history were erased along with their humanity, James may have been the first to serve Crème Chantilly, what you and I would call “Whipped Cream”, in America.

Which really is the cherry on top of his accomplishments. Or, rather, the element right under the cherry on top.

James, and other chefs like him, have been labeled as “the ghosts” of American culinary history, invisible and silent. A man who stood beside the founding fathers, made the meals they hatched out the rules of their new nation over, a man nigh-on a double in-law to the third President…and one almost forgotten. Luckily, I am by no means the first to make these revelations, as the existence of the James Hemings Foundation implies. These voices and figures are being brought back to light today. Too late, in most cases, as the harm to James Hemings was already long done. But better that we remember it, and do better the next time.

MONDAY: JON MAKES SOME VEGGIE TACOS, BECAUSE HE’S ON A DIET. WILL THAT BE INTERESTING? IT WILL AT LEAST BE MORE JOVIAL.

THURSDAY: OH LOOK AT THE TIME, GOT TO GO, I’LL TELL YOU LATER.