Please Raise Your Fork For James Hemings, Founding Father Of Mac And Cheese
When you think comfort food, tell me gooey, piping hot macaroni and cheese doesn’t top the list, whether you’re a personal fan or not. We know it’s been around since humans discovered the hell yeah genius of combining pasta and melted cheese; the 13th century Italian cookbook Liber de Coquina includes a dish called de lasanis, which food historians cite as the first written macaroni and cheese recipe. Homemade, out of that nostalgic Kraft box, or given the pricey restaurant upgrade, it’s hard to hate on mac n’cheese. Hell, even the lactose intolerant are no longer exempt from indulging and that’s just progress plain and simple.
Progress throughout much of human history has been plain in its glaring necessity but simple? Never. You may already know about James Hemings — which is a good thing — but in case you’re unacquainted or need a refresher, here’s my contribution to the founding father of mac and cheese.
James Hemings was born in Virginia in 1765 and enslaved to Thomas Jefferson at the age of eight as part of the latter’s inheritance. James was the half-sibling of Martha Jefferson, Thomas’s wife, and older brother of Sally Hemings, Jefferson’s enslaved (read: nonconsensual) mistress.
Of his 600 slaves, Jefferson freed two — James and Peter Hemings — in his lifetime and five in his will; three slaves escaped and were not pursued.
James and Sally accompanied Jefferson to Paris when he was appointed Minster to France in 1784. James quickly excelled at French cuisine, training with caterer & restaurateur Monsieur Combeaux as well as the Prince de Condé’s chef. In 1787 James was made head chef of the Hôtel de Langeac, Jefferson’s Parisian residence that doubled as the American Embassy.
James’s boss was a particular dork for a dish called macaroni pie, a baked concoction then-prepared with a generous bumper of bourbon. A tour of Northern Italy purportedly inspired Jefferson to design his own “mould for making macaroni,” with his secretary William Short able to procure a magic machine from Naples. While Jefferson is often credited for introducing macaroni and cheese to the newly independent colonies, it was James who streamlined the European original into the contemporary dish Jefferson popularized stateside. Macaroni and cheese would go on to become a household mainstay, with Jefferson’s daughter Mary Rudloph including James’s recipe in her 1824 cookbook titled The Virginia Housewife.
Bourbon was axed from American mac n’ cheese pretty early on, with some owing the intervention to Mary Randolph while others insist it was none other than the discerning Chef James himself. Reminds me of the old adage we’ve similarly dropped the second part from: “The customer is always right — in matters of taste.”
Macaroni fixation aside, the increasingly indebted Jefferson had other problems in Paris. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 had been passed, and French law granted any enslaved person the right to petition the courts for emancipation. Both James and Sally could legally demand wages for their services or walk, and Jefferson begrudgingly consented. James was paid 24 livres a month — half of what Jefferson paid his previous chef cuisinier — and used a portion of his salary to hire a French tutor, which Jefferson did not provide (though this didn’t stop him from big bragging about all the money he splashed out on James’s training).
James and Sally returned to America with Jefferson in the autumn of 1789, where the latter set up temporary digs in New York before relocating with the government seat to Philadelphia in early 1790. James remained in Pennsylvania under Jefferson’s paid employment, and much has been made of this decision. By that time Philadelphia law stated that “if a slave is brought into the State and continues therein for the space of six months, he may claim his freedom,” which meant James could challenge Jefferson in court. While researching for this piece I found a variety of conflicting theories as to why James might choose to remain with Jefferson, from an agreement previously struck in Paris to the security of a paid salary with a familiar (if problematic) employer, as well as concerns for his family’s well-being should there be a fall-out between himself and Jefferson. All and none are possible as no document — let alone in James’s own words — exists to answer that question.
By 1793 James had successfully negotiated his freedom, and if you’re game for some eloquently penned self-pity a’la the “I did so much for you waaah” abuser rhetoric, here’s Jefferson’s manumission:
Having been at great expence in having James Hemings taught the art of cookery, desiring to befriend him, and to require from him as little in return as possible, I do hereby promise and declare, that if the said James shall go with me to Monticello in the course of the ensuing winter, when I go to reside there myself, and shall there continue until he shall have taught such person as I shall place under him for that purpose to be a good cook, this previous condition being performed, he shall be thereupon made free, and I will thereupon execute all proper instruments to make him free. Given under my hand and seal in the county of Philadelphia and state of Pennsylvania this 15th. day of September one thousand seven hundred and ninety three.
Per the terms of the agreement, James was to train a replacement of Jefferson’s choice to take over his position at Monticello. Peter Hemings, younger brother of James, was selected and would act as head chef (along with brewer, weaver, tailor, and tanner) for the Jefferson family from 1796 to 1809, after which he retired a free man.
Jefferson was eager to hire James as White House Chef when he was appointed President in the spring of 1801, and sent out a series of requests through his intermediary William Evans. James politely refused, expressing his desire to hear from Jefferson directly on the matter. When no such correspondence was forthcoming, James sent word through a second intermediary that he wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving his present job in Baltimore on such short notice, nor living among a staff of strangers.
Later that year James worked a brief six-week stint at Monticello before returning to Baltimore, where he would ultimately take his life at the age of 36. When Jefferson sent William Evans to investigate, Evans confirmed on November 5, 1801 that:
“The report respecting James Hemings having committed an act of suicide is true. I made every inquiry at the time this melancholy circumstance took place. The result of which was, that he had been delirious for some days prior to committing the act, and it was the general opinion that drinking too freely was the cause.”
I wrote several conclusions and none of them felt right. Time and again while putting this piece together I referred to the indispensable Monticello website for documents, facts, and insights, the latter expressed no more poignantly than in these words concluding James’s biography:
Two hundred years ago, scientific understandings of mental health challenges, disorders, and diseases like depression and alcoholism were rudimentary at best, and we will likely never understand the full measure of Hemings’s trials. But for a Black man negotiating freedom and slavery in a drastically unequal world, we can imagine some of the horrors he faced. Hemings’s life was cut tragically short and was beset by tribulation, but he negotiated, resisted, and reasserted his agency time and time again, and ultimately he left an important legacy in culinary history. James Hemings — along with many other highly trained enslaved individuals who succeeded him in Washington and at Monticello — serves as inspiration to modern-day chefs and culinary historians alike, and these early African American chefs helped created and define American cuisine as we know it today.
