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The Founding Fathers’ Dinner Table Was a Lie: Food of The American Revolution · Family Tree Food Stories

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Nancy A. May: So Sylvia, if you picture a dinner party with George
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Washington or Thomas Jefferson,
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w Probably like massive silver platters, exotic roasts, crazy French stuff?
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Sylvia France: Oh, 100%.
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You know, powdered wigs, fancy wine, that whole deal
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Nancy A. May: Right, but here's the spoilers.
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The richest men in America literally lived on the simplest cornmeal
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pancake breakfast every single day.
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Sylvia France: Wait, really?
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George Washington would truly love IHOP if he lived today.
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You know, sticky, syrup, things and all
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Nancy A. May: Yes, but he'd probably have to endure the wait.
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every morning he ate hoe cakes, just cornmeal, water, swimming
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in honey, butter, and well, I guess that was his syrup.
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So on that note, folks, welcome to Family Tree Food and Stories, where
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every meal has a story, and yes, in this case, every story has a feast.
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I'm Nancy May, your host
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Sylvia France: And I'm Sylvia France, your co-host.
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Before we dig into why the guy on the dollar bill was obsessed with
1:02
pancakes, do us a quick favor.
1:04
Go to Podcast.FamilyTreeFoodStories.com.
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Hit like, subscribe, and share this with a friend.
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We're here every single Thursday, and every other day for downloads.
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Nancy A. May: You got it.
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We're glad that you're at our table today, especially for this episode, which is
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episode three of the Revolutionary series.
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Because today we are looking at what the ultra wealthy actually ate, or the
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gentry as they were called in that day.
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And it turns out it looked a lot like what was on everybody else's plate
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Sylvia France: But first, we're gonna start a new tradition.
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It's toast time, so grab your coffee, your mimosa, sourdough
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toast, whatever you've got.
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Now raise it up
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Nancy A. May: Woo-hoo.
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Let's go.
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Today we're pouring what they called liquid fuel in the
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entire revolution, the Madeira.
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described as drinking autumn, deep, sweet, I'll call it sticky,
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complex and savory flavors
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Sylvia France: So to Madeira, the ultimate 18th century tax dodge.
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Nancy A. May: got it.
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We'll get to that story later
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Sylvia France: Okay, let's get back to the pancakes.
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If Washington was eating hoecakes, isn't that like poor people food?
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Like, wasn't that exactly what the enslaved cooks in his kitchen were eating?
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Nancy A. May: Yes, exactly.
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They were, Sylvia.
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The base food wasn't rich.
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It was the stuff on top, the butter, the honey, and all the other goo,
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even the refined white sugar.
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That's what cost serious money back then
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Sylvia France: Ah, I get it now.
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It's the toppings, not the actual meal.
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So the colonial rich weren't eating a totally different food, they
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were just paying to customize it
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Nancy A. May: Bingo
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Sylvia France: So breakfast is basic, but dinner, dinner was pure theater.
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If you were wealthy in the late seventeen hundreds, a dinner party
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was basically an advertisement for how much you had in your bank account.
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Nancy A. May: Oh, and it was wild, they ate a la Francais, French style.
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I gotta do the tongue twirl for sure.
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Meaning every single dish came out at the exact same time.
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The entire table was completely covered.
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It was like this crazy Thanksgiving buffet, but you were
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sitting down the entire time.
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Thankfully, the plates were small, and you were not expected to eat everything.
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I can't imagine unbuttoning the belt back then.
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Sylvia France: Or the corset and we're talking 20 plus
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dishes for a single course.
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It was soup, fish, a mountain of roast, turkey, ham,
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venison and even calves' heads
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Nancy A. May: Yuck, my food's staring back at me.
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Sylvia France: No, thank you.
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Nancy A. May: right?
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No thank you for sure.
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And they also called that table the groaning board so that meant that
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the wooden table was supposed to groan under the weight of the food.
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If your furniture wasn't complaining, you were not trying hard enough
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Sylvia France: I just simply love that, and I love using fancy terms to sound
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fancy, like boeuf a la mode, which is literally pot roast, or fricassee,
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which is chicken in cream sauce.
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Nancy A. May: Yeah, a la Campbell's.
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Sylvia France: Is that how your mom made it?
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Nancy A. May: Absolutely.
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Don't forget my favorite piece of the elite drama, Potage de Tortue,
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which is really turtle soup.
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they'd ship live green turtles up from the Caribbean and if the host couldn't get
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one, they'd just boil a calf's head with spices on it and call it mock turtle soup.
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Although, I think we talked about, I know we talked about
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Cooter soup, which still gets me.
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Sylvia France: She can't make fun of that anymore.
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so it's actually was a luxury knockoff in 1776.
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, . That is absolutely hilarious.
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But the catch with that style of dining is that you could only reach
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what was right in front of you.
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It was just a visual weapon to intimidate
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Nancy A. May: Yes, no reaching over, bad manners.
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But speaking of visual weapons, sugar.
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Believe it or not it didn't come in a bag.
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It came as a rock hard cone the size of your forearm and it was wrapped
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in blue paper and it's a sugar loaf and I'm gonna guess those forearms
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back then were pretty big because they were lifting pounds of sugar
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Sylvia France: Right?
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And you need those giant iron pliers called sugar nippers, I like that,
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just to break off a chunk for your tea.
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And because it was so expensive, the host kept the sugar locked up
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in a chest with a literal padlock
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Nancy A. May: All right, so we've got a safe in our back, closet, but
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I can't imagine putting sugar in it,
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especially padlocking it, right?
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Sylvia France: Well, you told me about those, um, circus peanuts that
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you might need to put them for Bob
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Nancy A. May: right.
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but there's one more ultimate show-off item.
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You know what that was, Sylvia?
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Sylvia France: I have no idea.
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Nancy A. May: It was the pineapple.
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You always hear about the old New England story about sea captains spiking
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a pineapple on on their fence post just to show off that they were home
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and they were welcoming back visitors,
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Sylvia France: Oh, I t- I've heard it hundreds of times.
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It's everywhere.
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It's the ultimate symbol of hospitality
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Nancy A. May: Yes except there's a hook.
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It is completely and absolutely fake
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Sylvia France: Wait, seriously?
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Fake?
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Nancy A. May: Yes.
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Hard to believe this one caught me, 'cause I thought it was true for years.
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Well, it's zero historical record.
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one pineapple back then actually cost more than a servant's entire year's salary.
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People didn't eat them.
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The middle class families would rent a single pineapple for a night just to put
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it on the table and look la-la-di-da rich.
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then they would pass it on to the neighbors who rented it out for
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the next night until it rotted
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Sylvia France: Renting fruit?
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It sounds like a modern-day side hustle to me, like an Uber driver.
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Nancy A. May: Right.
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I'll try and rent a pineapple today.
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but I've got more forklaw, as we call it.
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The fence post story was actually invented in 1935 by a magazine ad
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trying to sell Hawaiian pineapples.
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It's just a great 20th century marketing scam
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Sylvia France: Since have both been in advertising, we know that firsthand.
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But it makes sense British lords and American founders were chasing
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the exact same French trends.
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The British elites were collecting French porcelain while Jefferson
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was importing every French thing he he could actually get his hands on
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Nancy A. May: Meanwhile, do you remember Amelia Simmons from last week?
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Sylvia France: I do
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Nancy A. May: while the rich guys were out ordering off the French menu,
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Amelia, the young orphan girl, wrote the first American cookbook using
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cornmeal, squash, and cranberries as some of the main ingredients.
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The elite imported their style, but she actually defined the country's
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food, and we just can't forget her
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Sylvia France: And we won't, which brings us right back to the Madeira wine.
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It loved the heat of the cargo ships.
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The weeks of rocking and swaying and sweating in the hold
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actually made it taste better.
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Sea captains would brag about how many times a barrel crossed the equator
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Nancy A. May: And the real reason the founders drank it like
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water, you know what that was?
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Sylvia France: No, I don't.
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Do tell.
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Nancy A. May: I will.
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Of course.
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It was a massive tax loophole because it came directly from Portugal and
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bypassed the British trade taxes.
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It sailed straight into Boston and completely tax-free.
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I guess that was our first duty-free tax shop.
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Anyway, it was basically giving King George the middle finger, liquid style
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Sylvia France: Spite and the tax loophole.
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God bless America.
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Nancy A. May: for sure.
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Sylvia France: Though we do have to talk about the dark side of that trade.
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Those same Madeira shipping routes were the exact ones
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trafficking enslaved people.
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The wealth in those glasses were completely tied to that system
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Nancy A. May: So that's the party side.
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Well, maybe not.
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But on a normal Thursday, even the wealthiest gentry ate simple, plain food.
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Old George called his daily dinner plain but substantial.
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It was just boiled pork, cabbage, and pickles
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Sylvia France: And Jefferson mostly ate vegetables from his garden.
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He literally wrote that he viewed meat as a condiment.
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The guy started a salad trend centuries long before it was a thing
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Nancy A. May: Yeah.
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He was our original foodie first Father Rabbit.
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Well, you know what I mean.
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but your region still totally dictated what was on your plate.
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Down South, it was the most lavish with tons of local ham, low
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country rice, and hours of drinking Madeira on the veranda, darling
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Sylvia France: And In the middle colonies like Philly and New York,
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it was super cosmopolitan because they were massive trading ports.
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you got the fresh turtle soup, ducks, and these crazy puddings
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Nancy A. May: Hmm.
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And in my area, New England, back home, we were restrained, the
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rocky soil and heavy Puritan vibes.
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Remember the Pilgrims?
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Sylvia France: Oh, yes
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, Nancy A. May: Showing off our wealth up north didn't mean fancy French dishes.
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It just meant serving massive quantities of high-quality cut meats.
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think four-inch steaks.
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in New England, we don't do flair.
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We just give you lots more of it
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Sylvia France: We don't show off, we just have more.
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Classic New England.
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But let's talk about summer dessert.
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This highlights the absolute massive gap in infrastructure back then
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Nancy A. May: This one got me and I found it rather interesting because
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in our research we found that ice houses, yep, ice houses in the
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South and ice houses in 1776 even.
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They built these deep underground pits lined with brick and straw.
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Washington had one and Jefferson had one, and they cut the ice from the frozen
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ponds in January and pack it underground, and it would keep all through August.
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But, you know, nobody thinks about Virginia getting that cold.
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It does
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Sylvia France: Doesn't get this cold in Florida
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Nancy A. May: No, it doesn't.
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Sylvia France: So they were eating fresh ice cream in July while
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the rest of the country didn't even have cool drinking water
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Nancy A. May: Yep.
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That's the case.
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And Jefferson's famous personalized ice cream recipe?
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The one written in his own handwriting that everyone talks about, it was actually
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mastered and prepared by a brilliant chef that he had named James Hemings.
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We're gonna talk about James after the break
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Sylvia France: But first, shout out to Abigail Adams.
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While John was away debating independence, Abigail single-handedly
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ran their entire farm in a war zone.
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Years later, she goes to Paris, sees the French aristocracy dining tables,
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and writes home about how absolutely scandaled she was by the ungodly waste.
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Nancy A. May: Gotta love Abby.
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I think we'll call her Abby for here but she is the ultimate reality Yankee chick
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Sylvia France: Yeah, totally.
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Before we hit the break, one more quick story.
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The American South became famous for its massive wealthy dining
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style, but the colony of Georgia actually tried to ban it.
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When it was founded in the 1730s, they outlawed slavery, banned hard liquor
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like rum, and put a legal cap on land ownership so lazy, ultrarich ultra-rich
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class elite class would never form
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Nancy A. May: and did it work?
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Sylvia France: Nope.
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Within 20 years the system collapsed under economic pressure.
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The bans were lifted, and Georgia became one of the wealthiest
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plantation economies in the world.
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The one place that tried to outlaw the rich became the, ultimate symbol of it
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Nancy A. May: Wow, that's quite a story.
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But speaking of those tables, who was actually back in the heat of
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those kitchens making all this stuff?
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it definitely wasn't those guys with their names on the plaques on
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the front doors of their houses.
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But before we get there, we're gonna take a quick break, and we'll get back to Who
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the real chefs were when we come back
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Sylvia France: and we're back.
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So Nancy, you ask who was actually in those kitchens
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Nancy A. May: I did.
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But before we name them, we have to realize that these dining
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tables weren't just to show off.
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They were actually war rooms or war zones for the revolution,
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kind of like we do today
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Sylvia France: Yes, I hear stories in Silicon Valley how
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many deals were done on a napkin.
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Nancy A. May: Right?
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Sylvia France: So Look at May 1781.
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. Washington and the French General Rochambeau sat down at a dining table at
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the Webb House in Connecticut for days fiercely arguing over the end of the war.
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Washington wanted to attack New York.
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Rochambeau said, "No, no, no. March on Virginia." Virginia won out.
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The dinner argument became the Battle of Yorktown, which literally won the war
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Nancy A. May: So the strategy that secured independence was hammered out over dinner.
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Hmm, pretty interesting, right?
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And even after the war, they were cutting deals over dessert.
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The famous dinner table bargain of 1790, hammered out by Jefferson, Hamilton, and
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Madison took place over a private dinner.
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That's what settled the massive fight or debate over where to put
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the capital of the United States
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Sylvia France: So the table decided everything, but here's the thing
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history - books love to leave out.
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The Founding Fathers didn't cook a single bite of this food.
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Nancy A. May: Nope, but they ate it.
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these kitchens were run by highly trained elite professional enslaved
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cooks like James Hemings, Jefferson took Hemings to Paris specifically to have
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him trained in French haute cuisine, kinda like haute couture, but in food.
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He spent three years apprenticing under the best chefs in the world at the time
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Sylvia France: Which means things like baked mac and cheese, vanilla ice
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cream, french fries or pommes frites.
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the stuff history books credit to Jefferson's brilliance were actually
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mastered and introduced by James Hemings.
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Jefferson took the bows, Hemings did the work
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Nancy A. May: Yes, he did.
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And in Washington's kitchen, Well, that was run by a man named Hercules Posey.
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I love that name.
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Hercules was an absolute culinary legend in Philly and in Mount Vernon.
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He was a perfectionist, highly celebrated, And he actually made his
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own fortune on the side, gotta have a side hustle, by selling kitchen
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gourmet leftovers to elite citizens.
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and on Washington's 65th birthday, get this, Sylvia,
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Sylvia France: Wait
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Nancy A. May: well, Hercules walked out of the estate, and
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he decided to self-emancipate.
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Sylvia France: Good for him.
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Nancy A. May: Talk about the ultimate quit, right?
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. Sylvia France: On the president's birthday?
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Wow, love the timing.
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but he did it on his terms, which was highly unusual those days.
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And it wasn't just men.
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Think about Edith Fossett.
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Everyone called her Edy.
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Jefferson sent her to train under a French chef when she was only 15.
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She ran the entire kitchen at Monticello for years along
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another enslaved chef, Fanny Hern
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Nancy A. May: there was a modern historian who said it best.
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These women were operating at the absolute peak of their craft, even at 15.
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Can you imagine?
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Sylvia France: No
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Nancy A. May: Right?
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today they'd be household names, like Julia Child's.
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But back then, the elite society just dismissed them in letters as, "The girls."
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Sylvia France: So when people say Founding Fathers were foodies what they actually
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mean is they legally owned brilliant professionals whom they refused to free
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Nancy A. May: That's rather greedy, but look at Martha
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Washington's recipe for great cakes.
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This is really interesting.
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it calls for 40 eggs, four pounds of butter, four pounds of
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sugar, and five pounds of flour.
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Talk about muscles,
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Sylvia France: I can't imagine the calories
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Nancy A. May: Oh, I know.
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it took a whole team of enslaved cooks a full day of brutal physical
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labor just to beat the batter by hand and manage stoking the wood ovens
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Sylvia France: The recipe survived because Martha's granddaughter wrote it down, but
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the actual cooks who made it year after year, their names weren't on the card.
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the cake got remembered, the people were erased
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Nancy A. May: That is so sad.
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But speaking of Washington and food, you know, Sylvia, there's a little
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thing I think we need to clear up, and that, well, maybe we, we should chomp
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on is probably the better word for it.
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That has to do with Washington's wooden teeth and the myth of that
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Sylvia France: Oh my goodness, yes.
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Did you know he didn't have a single splinter of wood in his mouth?
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Nancy A. May: No
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Sylvia France: His dentures were so painful.
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They were a horrific contraption of hippopotamus ivory, gold wire,
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and real human teeth purchased from impoverished people and enslaved workers
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Nancy A. May: I can't imagine.
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disat- Blah.
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And it was a medical disaster on top of being disgusting.
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He was in constant pain, and that is why his daily breakfast was
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soft, mushy cornmeal hoe cakes.
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He literally couldn't chew hard bread.
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And when you understand this reality, the history makes perfect sense
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Sylvia France: Right?
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And that ties directly to what we can actually do in
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our home kitchens this week.
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The whole history is about food outliving the names of the people who made it.
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So how do we stop that from happening in our own families?
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Nancy A. May: Well, it's a little easier than you might think, because we came up
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with a quick guide on how to save your family recipes and preserve the cook.
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Well, even American Revolution-style.
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Sylvia France: So rule one, write the name of the cook at the top
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of the card before the ingredients
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Nancy A. May: Yes, for sure.
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then ask them who taught them that recipe.
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Trace the lineage back as far as you can
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recipes have ancestors.
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Sylvia France: Rule three, keep their original words.
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If they wrote a handful of this or until it looks right, keep it.
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Don't sanitize it into cups and grams until a footnote later
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Nancy A. May: Everything takes place in the footnotes for sure, but take a
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picture of the original handwritten card.
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There's nothing nicer than seeing somebody's handwriting again,
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even though that's a dying art.
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But the grease stains and the vanilla splatters and yes, that handwriting,
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that's the vital historical record
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Sylvia France: And rule five, actually cook with them.
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The real recipe lives in the muscle memory of their hands, not the ink.
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And Nancy, this hits close to home for me
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Nancy A. May: So tell me about that, Sylvia
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Sylvia France: Yeah, my grandmother, Mrs. Knight, she did everything right.
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She wrote down her southern syrup cake recipe and actually
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named it after herself.
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But she left out half the instructions because she knew
20:22
just how to do it by heart.
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Sh- I know.
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I miss my grandma.
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She passed away when I was 11.
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Years later, I tried to make it, and I was guessing some of the baking steps.
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My mom still talks about how incredible that cake was, but I never stood
20:38
there and watched her hands mix it, the puzzle that is just gone.
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Nancy A. May: That's so sad
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Sylvia France: Well, it's, happy because she still lives with me in my cookbook.
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So she signed it, and there was still guesswork, which leads to
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our final and most important rule
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Nancy A. May: Yep.
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last rule, rule number six, Say their name out loud
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every time you cook that dish.
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And that's how the cook stays seated at the table.
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I say that with my mom's recipe.
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In fact, I actually call one of her favorites Mom's Special Chicken
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Sylvia France: Aw.
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Oh, you'll have to cook it for me sometime.
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Nancy A. May: will.
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Sylvia France: Food is the ultimate equalizer because at the end of the
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day, no matter how much money you have, you still have to sit down and eat.
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the rich just had the locked sugar cone and the tax-free wine, but the
21:24
same exact cornmeal mush underneath
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Nancy A. May: And the famous names on the documents get 100% of the credit.
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Very sad.
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We have to change that one here.
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But the footnotes are where the real human stories live.
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This week we want you to remember the people who did that heavy lifting for you.
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So what do you say, Sylvia?
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Sylvia France: Glasses up everyone.
21:45
Santé to their health and to their memory
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Nancy A. May: And of course, to the cooks.
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ching, ching.
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Sylvia France: So here's your assignment this week.
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Just one thing.
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Pick one recipe in your family collection.
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Write it down exactly who cooked it, where they learned it, and one specific
22:02
memory of them standing over the stove
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Nancy A. May: And if you don't know who the recipe came from, call your
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oldest living relative tonight, or maybe your sister, because
22:12
tomorrow, well, that's not promised
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Sylvia France: then come tell us about it in our Facebook group.
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Tell us whose recipe still carries a proud name, and whose got lost along the way.
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We're going to read our favorites live on the air next week
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Nancy A. May: and if you liked hanging out with us today and hearing
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these stories, Head on over to Podcast.FamilyTreeFoodStories.com.
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Leave a comment, Hit like and share it with somebody that you love, It's the
22:38
number one way we get new listeners and help you find an extra seat at the
22:42
table for those that you care about
22:44
Sylvia France: So next Thursday is our grand finale of the America 250 series.
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Nancy A. May: Woo-hoo!
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Sylvia France: we're stopping the talk and stepping into a modern kitchen
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to actually cook recipes from 1776.
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We're going to attempt George Washington's favorite peanut soup, fry some authentic
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hoecakes, and other authentic recipes
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Nancy A. May: recipes from 1776, for sure.
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And Sylvia, if your great-grandmother's syrup cake recipe is any kind of warning,
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it's going to be quite a challenge for us
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Sylvia France: I'm sure it will be.
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Okay, Happy cooking everyone
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Nancy A. May: And see you next Thursday or whenever you download
23:23
this 'cause every meal has a story and every story is a feast.
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Take care, be well, and happy birthday, America