In the summer of 1801, Elder John Leland persuaded the ladies of his Baptist congregation in Cheshire, Massachusetts, to manufacture a "mammoth cheese."[1] He intended to present it to President Jefferson in honor of his republicanism and his support of religious liberty.
Guests to Monticello noted that the first dinner bell customarily rang at three o'clock, and the second called them to the table at four. When they arrived in the Dining Room, they quite likely found Thomas Jefferson reading. Having a self-described "canine appetite for reading" and hating to waste even a moment waiting for others to gather, he kept books on the fireplace mantel.
c. 1781. (Notes on the State of Virginia) "Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth." [1]
Ice cream frequently appears in visitors' accounts of meals with Thomas Jefferson. One visitor commented: "Among other things, ice-creams were produced in the form of balls of the frozen material inclosed in covers of warm pastry, exhibiting a curious contrast, as if the ice had just been taken from the oven."
Time for the September installment of our monthly series in which we post a recipe from The Virginia House-wife, a recipe book published in 1824 by Mary Randolph, kinswoman to Thomas Jefferson. Leni Sorensen, our African American Research Historian and a culinary historian of national repute, has once again made this month's dish and here we include her notes and pictures.
Time for the October installment of our monthly series in which we post a recipe from The Virginia House-wife, a recipe book published in 1824 by Mary Randolph, kinswoman to Thomas Jefferson. Leni Sorensen, our African American Research Historian and a culinary historian of national repute, has once again made this month's dish and here we include her notes and pictures.
Thomas Jefferson cannot be called a vegetarian as we understand the term today. In his own time, however, he was unusually moderate in his consumption of meat and was notable for the variety as well as the quantity of vegetables he ate.
The documentary record includes several descriptions, including Jefferson's own, of his eating habits:
