07/20/2026
The first ice cream recipe ever recorded by an American survives in Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting. But Jefferson wasn’t the one in the kitchen. His chef was James Hemings.
July is National Ice Cream Month, so this is a Virginia story worth knowing.
Born enslaved in 1765 and brought to Monticello at nine years old, Hemings was taken to Paris in 1784 and trained under French chefs. He became the first American to formally train as a French chef de cuisine, running Jefferson’s Paris kitchen and supervising white staff there.
When he came home, that French training came with him. The ice cream, the meringues, the crème brûlée, the macaroni and cheese served at Jefferson’s table all came out of a kitchen James Hemings ran.
In 1796, after training his brother Peter to take his place, Hemings negotiated his own freedom and walked away with $30.
Jeffersonian got the credit. Hemings got left off the recipes, and so we are saying his name now! James Hemings was a Black Virginian whose hands shaped the way America eats.
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