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From Monticello's garden: at Thomas Jefferson's historic estate, culinary wisdom lives on

Vegetarian Times, July, 2002 by Alan Pell Crawford

"I have lived temperately," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1819, "eating little animal food, and that as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet," Standing among the cabbages, artichokes and strawberries in Jefferson's 1,000-foot-long kitchen garden, it is easy to imagine how the man who may have been America's most inspiring statesman--and clearly the most influential gourmand of his time--could live so "temperately" yet eat so well.

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In the garden, a pleasant stroll from the third president's Monticello mansion, nature bursts forth in all its abundance, just as Jefferson had intended. Tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, eggplants, beets, peas, strawberries, raspberries and melons--a mere handful of the nearly 350 varieties of fruits and vegetables he grew on this Blue Ridge mountaintop--are ready to be picked, prepared and brought to the dinner table. Chives, thyme, French lavender and other culinary herbs compete with the fruits and vegetables for soil and sunshine.

The orchards that surround the garden on three sides will produce peaches, apples and figs soon. The vineyards--one arbor for wine, the other for table grapes--will be ready for picking.

In the early 1800s, after Jefferson had retired to Monticello, just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, he enclosed the terraced garden with a 10-foot-high fence designed "as not to let even a young hare in." This fence did not, however, obscure the majestic view to the southeast, no less breathtaking today than it was when Jefferson lived. Direct your gaze past the garden and the grape arbors and, on a sunny day, you can see forests and rolling hills for 50 miles. When the sun isn't shining, the mist that rolls through the Blue Ridge Mountains lends its own haunting beauty.

There may be no more pleasantly enriching way to spend a summer day than to visit Monticello, where the spirit of Jefferson the gardener and the gourmand is as ever-present as the smoky mist that gave the Blue Ridge its name. The Italian villa that Jefferson designed for his mountain aerie is itself worth the trip. The history played out in its entry hall and the convivial conversation that flowed freely in its elegant dining room can only be imagined.

What we do know for certain is that family and friends dined well, mostly from foods grown on the 5,000-acre plantation itself. It was not unusual at Monticello for 15 to 20 people--diplomats, statesmen, scientists, merchants, planters and family members--to assemble for dinner, which was served in the dining room but often overflowed into the tea room, family sitting room and other parts of the mansion.

After 1784, when Jefferson returned from his duties as U.S. Minister to France, he made certain that all of his cooks were either French or had been trained in France. So they could prepare his favorite dishes, Jefferson brought back from Europea supply of continental kitchen utensils generally unavailable in America. "Although none of the original kitchen implements survive, household records indicate Jefferson even owned some kind of pasta maker," says Susan R. Stein, Monticello's curator. "He also owned 28 lidded copper saucepans and a French daubiere, a double-brazier vessel mounted on a tripod in whose lid coals could be placed.

Although meat was served at Monticello, Stein believes Jefferson ate very little of it. "I think he was a vegetarian to a large degree," Stein says. "Judging from his clothing as well as from descriptions left by contemporaries, we know he was an extremely lean man. He was built like a marathoner, which suggests he ate mostly vegetables and fruits, as he claimed."

The bell for dinner, which could last two or three hours, rang as early as four o'clock. Guests either served themselves, "family style," or were served by Jefferson, who liked to keep the number of servants to a minimum. No matter how many guests there were, they had plenty to drink. Jefferson made his own beer and cider, and he also experimented with wines. His wine cellar was stocked with bottles from France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. On special occasions, it seems, he served experimental wines from his own mini-vineyards.

Salads were an important feature of the evening meal, and of ten included spinach, pepper-grass, endive, sprouts and French sorrel. The search for the perfect salad oil never ceased. Jefferson used domestic olive oil--he found imported olive oil too costly--but also experimented with oil from sesame seeds, which he grew from 1809 to 1824. In his eagerness to achieve culinary perfection, he designed three sesame-oil presses of his own.

A gracious host, Jefferson was not one to skimp on desserts either. Credited with introducing ice cream to America, he was also partial to pastries and puddings and transcribed in his own hand his favorite recipes for biscuit de savoye, a madeleine-like cake, and oeufs a la neige--"snow eggs"--a meringue in creme anglaise. Two hours after guests had finished their dinner, they would reassemble at the table. Tea, wine and fruit would be served, and at about nine o'clock Jefferson would retire for the night. The next day he would rise at dawn, correspond with statesmen, botanists, men of letters and friends from all over the world, and--climbing onto his favorite horse--he would oversee his farms, orchards and gardens. When absorbed with horticultural concerns, he would retreat to his Garden Pavilion, with double-sash windows and pyramidal roof. "Jefferson, who pioneered the growing of tomatoes in this country, may have been the most important American horticulturist of his time," says Peter J. Hatch, Monticello's director of gardens and grounds. As early as 1809, Jefferson grew tomatoes, which were almost unknown in America at that time.

From Monticello's garden: at Thomas Jefferson's historic estate, culinary wisdom lives on

Vegetarian Times, July, 2002 by Alan Pell Crawford

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