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Product Details
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Quirk Books; First edition (September 18, 2012)
There has been recent interest in Thomas Jefferson's food and wine interest and his influence on American viticulture and the culinary art. These topics are highly related to his time in Europe during the late 1780's, especially France where he served as a diplomat for the young nation. James Gabler's "Passoins: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson" was the first. It is a small book doing a very concise job of covering Jefferson's European travels in the and his experiences and comments about wines and wine countries. More detailed and with more original material excerpted is John Hailman's "Thomas Jefferson on Wine". This volume is more scholarly in its goal but it is more restricted to Jefferson's wine interest. More of a coffee table book is Damon Lee Fowler's "Dining at Monticello: In Good Taste and Abundance". This one has a lot of very good pictures in glossy paper and some recipes. It is more concentrated in the food interest of Jefferson. Now, I need to get back to the new Thomas Craughwell book, "Thomas Jefferson's Creme Brulee". This book despite covering the same area that the other three books I have mentioned, it has much to offer. First, there is a very good story-telling narrative that is the back bone of this book. It covers well the ambiance of Parisian society just before the French Revolution, and from the point of view of a new visitor from America. It does a better job of the "time and place" aspect that any of the books I have mentioned here. The background stories about Jefferson's slaves, friends and family are well presented as part of the back drop of his time in Paris. They are robust stories and very interesting too. It ends up being a more holistic approach to the subject. The book spends a lot of pages on James Hemings as it should.Read more ›
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Thomas J. Craughwell's new book, Thomas Jefferson's Creme Brulee: How a Founding Father and His Slave James Hemings Introduced French Cooking to America is a delightful story that is part biography and part culinary history of the United States and France in the late 1700s. Craughwell also provides us with a parallel history of France at that time.
Thomas Jefferson was a renaissance man and "documents reveal that Jefferson, whom many consider the most cerebral of founding fathers, was also a man of the senses, one who was governed by his taste buds." When Jefferson was appointed minister to France in 1785, and he saw a unique opportunity. He arranged for his slave, James Hemings, to accompany him to France. French laws would have made the slave a free man once he reached French soil. So Jefferson and Hemings came to an agreement. Jefferson would provide Hemings a salary while in France and send him to study as a French chef. Hemings agreed to return to the United States with Jefferson at the end of his term, and would be given his freedom once Hemings trained another slave in the art of French cooking. Hemings eventually trained his brother, Peter, and was freed by Jefferson six years after returning to the United States.
What I found especially interesting was the culinary history of both countries. In America, cooking tended to be plain with lots of meat, little fish, few vegetables and not much seasoning. In France, eating was an art-form, with lots of sauces, cream, butter, seasonings, and an array of fruits, vegetables, olives, pasta, and many foods that Jefferson had never before seen. Also, "savoring lengthy and elaborate meals was a national pastime.Read more ›
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
"Thomas Jeffer's Creme Brulee" is subtitle "How a Founding Father and his Slave James Hemings Introduced French Cuisine to America". It is unfortunate that James Heming's part in the story is known principally from what can be inferred from Jefferson's papers; the social realities of the era left little room for a slave, even a privileged one like James Hemings, to record his own experiences. James Jemings' youger sister Sally later became Jefferson's mistress, and various syblings and relatives held favored positions of responsibility in Jefferson's household establishment. When in 1784 Jefferson was sent to France as an official representative, he brought along young James with a promise that he would be eventually given his freedom if he learned the art of French cooking, then something almost unknown in America. We are able to follow Jefferson's experiences with French food (and wine) during this period in considerable detail, but of necessity we catch only glimpses of Hemings' role in all this. Part of the bargain was that James would be emancipated after his return to America and after he trained someone else in the Jefferson kitchen in what he had learned. Although Jefferson's appointment as Secretary of State delayed this proceedings, eventually James trained his younger brother Peter as a French cook and achieved his freedom. Some of the recipes that James studied in France, such as macaroni and cheese and French fries, became standard fare on American tables.
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Thomas Jefferson was, like his great friend Benjamin Franklin, quite a polymath. Besides his role as a politician, statesman, and President of the United States, he was an accomplished and influential architect, an inventor, a farmer (though not a terribly successful one), and one who took great pleasure in food and wine at a time when the new American nation still lagged far behind the European Continent in matters of cuisine and winemaking. But this all changed in 1784, when the new Congress sent Jefferson to France in the role of MInister. This was a time when the cuisine of pre-Revolutionary France was reaching its peak, with new dishes being invented and exotic new vegetables like the potato being introduced. Jefferson was aware enough of the reputation of the French when it came to food and drink that he brought along his own cook, a young slave by the name of James Hemings, and arranged for Hemings to be instructed in the methods of French cuisine. Hemings proved to be a good student, and through his efforts helped to change American tastes and win over a few political opponents to his side- (although not, as the author claims, Alexander Hamilton, who favored both rapprochement with England, and a more sound fiscal policy than Jefferson did.)
But then this book has no pretensions of being an academic reference. It's more of an amusing tour of some of the more interesting points of Jefferson's life, especially those having to do with food, wine, and (ahem) sex. It has been proven, with the help of genetic testing, that either Tomas Jefferson of one of his cousins fathered the children of his slave, Sally Hemings, and most historians assume that it was Thomas himself.Read more ›
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