James Hemings was born into slavery in 1765 at the forest a plantation in Virginia owned by his father. James’ mother was Betty Hemings who was the mixed-race daughter of an enslaved African mother and an English sea captain.

John Wayles was James’s father. He took Betty as a forced concubine after he was widowed three times. His abuse of James’s mother Betty lasted 12 years and she had six children including James with this man.

At just the young age of eight years old, he was purchased by Thomas Jefferson at his residence of Monticello.

Monticello was the primary plantation that Jefferson the future ambassador to France for the United States and of course the future third president of the United States.

Jefferson began designing Monticello at the age of 14 after inheriting the land from his father. It’s located just outside of Charleston in Virginia and is around 5,000 acres in size.

Hemings was the older brother of Sally Hemings, both Sally and James were half-siblings of Jefferson’s wife Martha. Upon the death of Martha, Sally traveled with Jefferson to France to look after Jefferson’s daughter also named Martha, and Sally’s niece of course.

In Paris, Sally became his lover. In France though Sally was considered a free woman but agreed to return to Virginia with Jefferson as a slave and lover as long as any of their children they would have would be freed persons.

Hemings in his teen years worked as the riding valet to Jefferson. In 1781 James and his brother Robert took Jeffersons’ wife and children to safety when British troops invaded Richmond.

When Jefferson was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Versailles he took James Hemings with him as his personal valet. James was 19 years old at the time. As Jefferson became a lover of French food and cuisine and of course, this was a time of much change in Paris and France relating to food.

After the revolutions chefs who had worked exclusively for the rich and nobility were out of work and so set up restaurants in major cities, especially Paris. This is where the restaurant culture we know today started.

Hemings was to be trained to be a French chef there because of Jeffersons’ newfound love of French cuisine. This would mean that James would become the first recorded American to be trained as a French chef.

During this time Hemings studied cooking and apprenticed to pastry chefs and other specialists in the kitchen.

He worked for the chef of Prince de Conde who was the last Prince of Condé, who had no heir since the execution of his son the Duke of Enghien in 1804 by Napoleon. Hemings worked at the Chateau Chantilly. He is credited with bringing whipped cream to the US and in France this would have been known as Chantilly cream and probably was the inspiration for him. During his time at Chantilly it was noted that the table of Chateau de Chantilly was even better than that of Versailles the royal residence.

After this training, Hemings would finally earn the role of chef de cuisine in Jeffersons kitchen on the Champs-Elysees. As was the custom at the time, the chef has the chance to sell the kitchen offal for his own financial gain. This is how Hemings managed to profit from his position.

Chef de cuisine is the French term for the head of the kitchen. The chef de cuisine is in charge of all activities related to the kitchen, which usually includes creating menus, managing kitchen staff, ordering and purchasing stock and equipment, plating design, enforcing nutrition, safety, and sanitation, and ensuring the quality of the meals that are served. James became Chef de cuisine within three years of training.

Hemings would serve his creations to many European aristocrats, writers, scientists, and dignitaries that Jefferson would invite for dinner.

Hemings of course brought back to America upon his return to the USA many French dishes and also inspired many new recipes that came from his experience in France and by French cuisine. Some of the recipes he brought back to the US were creme brûlées, meringues, French fries, snow eggs, or Isle Flotantes as we know them here in France and the one he invented most would say is not really French at all but Macaroni and Cheese.

During his time in France, he learned a French dish of pasta and cheese that he called at the time macaroni pie. This is the dish that would then evolve into what we around the world would call Macaroni and cheese and many of us would wrongly mistake it as an Italian originating dish rather than one created by a slave in France inspired by French cuisine for a future American president.

One of many would say injustices to Heming’s career and life is that Mac and Cheese were incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson's cousin Mary Randolph as she included the recipe in her housekeeping book the Virginia House Wife. Thankfully this has been corrected now and people know that it was Hemings and his hard work that created this dish.

Even though he was a free man in France he returned with Jefferson to the US. Many think this is because of his family relationship with Jefferson and the many relatives still back at the Monticello plantation.

In France, though he was a paid servant, not a slave, he was paid four dollars a month and upon his return to the US when he worked for Jefferson in Philadelphia Jefferson continued to pay Hemings wages for his work as a chef.

A note to Hemings’ nature is that during his time in France, he was considered a free person in France at the time and paid as a servant, not a slave. Hemings independently with his own money was finally earning money and could pay for his lessons to learn how to speak French.

During Hemings's time as chef for Jefferson when he was back in the US he would be the chef for what is considered one of America’s most famous dinners. As Secretary of State Jefferson had a dinner on the 20th of June 1790 dubbed a meal to save the union. The guest list included Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and they agreed along with Jefferson to establish Washington DC as the permanent capital in exchange for the federal government assuming the debt of the states.

They drank French wine, Hermitage to be exact, ate Capon and chestnuts simmered in cream, root vegetables roasted in olive oil, beef braised in red wine, and herbs the aroma of which infused the room.

No servants were used for this meal instead the four-course menu was served via dumb waiters which Jefferson was attributed to bringing to the US from France.

The first course was a green salad that was dressed with a wine jelly that was made from Madeira, milk, lemon juice, sugar, and gelatine which was served with a white wine from Bordeaux. The second course was the Chapon which was stuffed with Virginia ham, a chestnut puree, artichokes, and truffles that had been soaked in chicken broth, white wine, and cream. This was served with a reduction of calvados and a flambeed brandy for a bit of persaze.

The third course prepared by Hemings was a beef a la mode. A rich beef roast braised in wine, brandy, tomatoes, and herbs. This was served with a bottle of Chambertin, a dark, complex Grand Cru Burgundy known as “the King of Wines.”

**Macarons one of the palate cleansers for the dinner**

Then they had a palate cleanser of meringues and macarons and the final dessert course was vanilla ice cream encased in warm puff pastry in the style of what we know now as a baked Alaska. This dessert Jefferson would request Hemings to make on special occasions to impress his guests. This was served with a glass of champagne.

Over Brandy, these men would as you can imagine have sat back in a parlor working on finalising what had been negotiated and discussed over dinner with Jefferson being haled for this evening’s success. But it would be said possibly that the meal itself would not have been such a success and America if not the world a different place if it wasn’t for the food cooked, the menu planned, and the talent of Hemings and his love of French food and skill in making it.

In 1796 at the age of 31, Hemings gained his freedom from Jefferson as a slave. The downside to this freedom though was that Hemings had to train his brother Peter as a chef to replace him in serving Jefferson as his chef. This was a three-year process. He left Monticello with his freedom and for five years worked $30 in his pocket.

Jefferson wrote in 1793 regarding Hemings requesting and negotiating his freedom. Having been at great expense 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 hereby do promise & declare, that if the said Hemings should 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 thereupon be made free.

At the time of his freedom, Hemings was literate, his handwritten note of inventory of kitchen supplies before he left Monticello is in the Library of Congress along with recipes and other writings. Hemings was also fluent in French.

After some travel around Europe Hemings eventually returned to the US and worked in Philadelphia as a cook. Jefferson tried several times upon Hemings's return to the US to get him to work for him at the White House. Hemings declined each time. On one occasion Hemings requested Jefferson put his invitation for work and conditions in writing and he would agree but Jefferson never did this.

Hemings never married nor did he have any children. He moved to Baltimore In Baltimore where he was working in a kitchen at the age of 36, James Hemings passed away, and it is recorded that he died at his own hands in a suicide attempt. A tragic end to life is thought to have been brought on by alcohol.

James Hemings's culinary legacy was unacknowledged for over two centuries until research from modern-day chefs and culinary historians revealed his role in blending Virginian, French, and African recipes which we would now think of as American cuisine.

Not knowing when he died or possibly even throughout his life how much of his skill talent and life would contribute to not only American cuisine but also how important a figure he would be in French cuisine and French food history. James Hemings is the chef who bought so much to us all and will always be an essential figure in the history of French chefs and cooks. A head chef or Chef de Cuisine.

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