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Thomas Jefferson's Table Thomas Jefferson’s Table Gina N. Falaschi May 6, 2013 Senior Honors Thesis I grant permission for the Lauinger Library to make this thesis available to the public through the library website. Table of Contents Author’s Preface and Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... 1 Chapter I: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter II: Foundations ............................................................................................................... 12 Chapter III: An Apprentice in Paris ............................................................................................. 24 Chapter IV: The Jeffersonian Exchange ...................................................................................... 39 Chapter V: A Master Adrift ........................................................................................................ 52 Chapter VI: The President’s Table ............................................................................................. 64 Chapter VII: A Contented Statesman in Retirement .................................................................... 80 Chapter VIII: Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 94 Endnotes ....................................................................................................................................... 98 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 109 Author’s Preface As Joseph Ellis states in the preface to his biography of Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, anyone who chooses to write yet another work about the Virginian must include “a formal declaration of the causes that have impelled the author to undertake the effort.”1 I, too, will explain the principle reason for my addition to this historical conversation. This project began as a semester paper in Georgetown University Professor Susan Pinkard’s Food in Western History seminar in the Fall of 2011. I presented “The Culinary Interests of Thomas Jefferson: Francophilic or Cosmopolitan” at the Phi Alpha Theta Biennial Convention in January 2012 and the Phi Alpha Theta Mid-Atlantic region conference the following March. The discussion inspired at these panels made me realize that my research was not even close to being finished. To satisfy my own curiosity, I would need to revisit my own argument and claims in the interest of scholarship and good historiography. The Senior Honors Thesis program has given me this opportunity. My work has fallen into the midst of an ongoing conversation about food and the Founding Fathers, demonstrating that despite the scholarship of generations of historians, the topic is still relevant. For the most part, however, this examination tends to fall more into the realm of popular history. Myths surrounding the Founding Fathers proliferate and become more firmly entrenched in the minds of Americans as decades pass. Jefferson is no exception, and as interest in Jefferson’s culinary curiosity increases, so to do the fables concerning his garden and kitchen. Jefferson probably did not introduce ice cream to the United States, though he did bring back a recipe from France. Similarly, Thomas Jefferson did not make macaroni and cheese popular in America just because he served it at the President’s House. 2 Jefferson’s interests in cuisine and entertaining deserve a place in scholarly academic conversation. Researchers and historians at Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation have worked tirelessly over the last few decades to restore and preserve Jefferson’s legacy. To them, and especially to Peter Hatch, Director of Garden and Grounds at Monticello, historians of Jefferson owe a great debt. Works such as Hatch’s “A Rich Spot of Earth”: Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden at Monticello and John Hailman’s Thomas Jefferson on Wine contribute invaluable research to the field, though the works generally highlight only one of Thomas Jefferson’s specific interests. With this approach, however, historians have missed a distinct opportunity to study the confluence of Jefferson’s many interests – gardening, farming, architecture, design, the intellectual pursuit of knowledge, philosophy, Virginia and international cuisine, wine, dining atmosphere, service, presentation, and conversation – in the setting in which they coalesced – his “Table.” Jefferson’s Table is not simply the most prominent piece of furniture in his dining room. I coin the term, hereafter capitalized, to explain Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy that inspired an experience of dining in a space dedicated to an artful display of excellent food and wine enjoyed by a group of equals engaged in enlightened conversation. His Table developed over the course of his lifetime and changed as circumstances allowed or dictated. Though the aspects of the Table evolved with experience and exposure as time passed, entertaining and cultivating his interests remained anchoring activities in Jefferson’s life, providing distraction and escape from the world around him. No matter his age, Jefferson enjoyed his Table, deriving greater delight from sharing this experience with others, and his infectious enthusiasm is passed to those to undertake a study of it. 3 In writing, I chose not to include a full biography of Thomas Jefferson. Shelves in libraries groan under the weight of those volumes already undertaken by historians for almost two centuries. I suggest Jon Meacham’s new Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Joseph Ellis’ American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, or Dumas Malone’s four-volume classic, Jefferson and His Time, for further reading. Acknowledgements Like the mountain of debts that Thomas Jefferson incurred throughout his life, I, too, am deeply indebted to a great number of people whom I will never be able to repay for their patience, their kindness, and their support. First, I would like to thank the AP United States History teacher to whom this thesis is dedicated. Mr. Gary Okey taught me to love history, but he taught me much more than that. More importantly, he taught me to teach myself and how to write, and I came to Georgetown prepared for college because he, and many other teachers at Carondelet High School, demanded nothing less than my best. For that, I will be forever grateful. Every professor who has taught me here at Georgetown has contributed to the success of this project in some way. There are some, however, that I must name specifically for their constant help, advice, and support in the last four years. Professor Susan Pinkard agreed to advise me on this project, but her lecture on foodways in Europe in the fall of 2009 inspired my interest in culinary history and convinced me to be a history major on the spot. Professor Alison Games showed her support for this project in more ways than I can count, sharing not only her expertise in early American history, but giving advice on running and even cheering me on at Mile 7 as I ran the Marine Corps Marathon. 4 Someone once described Professor Chandra Manning as the calm, reassuring “voice of reason.” I have found this description perfectly accurate day in and day out over the last two semesters, but especially in those moments when all thesis writers need a bit of reassurance. She went above and beyond to advise her students, commenting on each person’s work with the utmost care and attention. Her contribution this year, along with Professors Spendelow and Astarita’s years of dedication to the Honors Thesis Program, make the program the enriching experience that it is. The greatest debt I will never be able to repay is to my parents. I would like to thank them for their unending love and support and for the greatest gift they have given me, my education. For my final note of gratitude, I can only quote the genius of historian Peter Gay when he wrote, “Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats[.]”2 On some days, this thesis project was smooth sailing, but most of the time it was an absolute shipwreck. I need to thank all of my fellow thesis writers who sang with me in the lifeboats as we rowed our way through this last year. The laughs and snacks we shared together made those hours we spent writing, critiquing, and commiserating all the more memorable. 5 Chapter I: Introduction [U]nder total want to demand except for our family table I am still devoted to the garden. but tho’ an old man, I am but a young gardener.1 – Thomas Jefferson to Charles Wilson Peale, Monticello, August 20, 1811 The hot summer sun begins to set over a Virginia plantation. As the shadows lengthen, more than a dozen figures emerge from a Palladian villa of brick set atop a little mountain. Leaving the dining room where they had long lingered, talking of Paris, travels, wine, and philosophy, they walk towards the South Terrace. Children run ahead of the mingling adults, always returning to one standing out among the group. The tall elderly man, over six feet in height with broad shoulders and a bony frame, walks with a stick. As the group nears the kitchen garden, a patch of earth nearly one thousand feet long, and strolls a dirt path called Mulberry Lane, the old man points to his favorite plants with his cane, explaining their origins, when they were sown, and
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