Touring Monticello Home and Gardens
Last summer we toured Monticello, happily in the sunshine, since our previous visit was during a hurricane.
From dining room to French-inspired kitchen to terraced vegetable garden and orchards, Monticello uniquely tells Jefferson’s culinary history.
Monticello Gift Shop Purchase
Then at the gift shop I learned more of Jefferson’s culinary story, through a beautifully illustrated book: Dining at Monticello.
Combining history and receipts (recipes), the book is a treasure trove of information, so I purchased that for my souvenir.
The next day we journeyed home after an amazing Virginia vacation.
Missing all the wonderful sites, I read this book cover to cover.
Having learned a lot, I decided this book would become central to our upcoming Becoming History presentation.
Jefferson’s European Tastes
Jefferson, the Virginia Renaissance man of the 18th century, enjoyed Roman architecture, English gardens, European wines, and French cuisine.
Although exposed to these grand tastes in America during his younger years, his time in Europe allowed a deep-dive education.
Bringing home many favorite European techniques, ideas, and products, Jefferson also happily promoted the best America, and especially Virginia, had to offer.
Monticello Vegetable Gardens and Orchards
Although the dining room and kitchen we tour today are staged, the vegetable gardens and orchards Jefferson produced literally team with life on a terraced hillside.
I had the grandest thrill walking through them, as Jefferson did daily.
Keeping copious notes in his Garden Book of the best of his plantings, Jefferson happily experimented with seeds from friends and from the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Most interesting, we discovered that Jefferson even grew spicy peppers from San Antonio, Texas that had been sent to him by a captain! (As San Antonians, we feel the need to further research that interesting story!)
Charles Wilson Peale wrote: Your gardens must be a Museum to you.
Measured at one thousand feet long, the terrace garden produced “70 different species and 330 varieties of vegetables.”
See more photos of the Monticello gardens at my Flickr set.
Monticello Kitchen
Unique to the Monticello kitchen were French-styled equipment that improved efficiency.
Largest of the equipment was the stove with eight openings with integrated kettle that constantly provided hot water and allowed the cooks to regulate the heat for various cooking styles.
Further, copper cookware regaled the kitchen.
Despite its expense, it was less heavy and more efficient, further maximizing heat regulation.
Monticello Dining Room
Thomas Jefferson’s table, “genteely and plentifully spread” with a great array of foods and his “immense and costly variety of French and Italian wines…”
The array of foods included produce from his terraced gardens: vegetables and fruits.
He ate heartily, and much vegetable food, preferring French cookery, because it made the meats more tender. -Thomas J. Randolph, grandson
He enjoys dinner well, taking with meat a large proportion of vegetables. -Daniel Webster
Martha Jefferson Randolph, Keeper of the Keys
Full of recipes and historical information, I built my own persona around Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, who helped her father after her mother and sister died.
Surrounded by her children at Monticello, Martha was the keeper of the keys, which meant that she was in charge of the pantry as well as the household.
Supervising meal planning was one of her many tasks, of which she was quite adept, despite being rather self-taught to run a household.
Cooking from Dining at Monticello for our Becoming History Presentation
Because of the amount of historical information and interesting recipes, I built our entire menu for our upcoming Becoming History Presentation around this book.
We had fun shopping for fruits and vegetables like the ones that Thomas Jefferson grew at Monticello.
We’ll be trying out lots of new vegetable recipes in the next week!
Spending all day Saturday cooking, my kids learned lots of French cooking techniques.
Thankful for my training in years past from watching French cook Jacques Pepin on tv, I understood some of the techniques.
The array of recipes are interesting, tasty, and easy enough for me to experiment throughout the year.
Stay tuned for our Becoming History presentation!
Epilogue 2024
I have recently read another book on Jefferson and French cuisine. Stay tuned for that and a deeper dive into this book.
