This year, as millions of households across the United States gather for Thanksgiving, many will serve one of the country’s most quintessential comfort foods: macaroni and cheese. Although the dish’s European roots are often traced to Italy or Switzerland, the version familiar to Americans today may owe its widespread popularity to an unexpected figure — an enslaved chef named James Hemings.
In 1784, before Thomas Jefferson ascended to the presidency, he was appointed U.S. minister to France. He brought Hemings with him, intending for the young man to train in French culinary arts and eventually oversee the kitchen at Monticello, Jefferson’s Virginia plantation. Hemings, however, was far more than a prospective cook. He was Jefferson’s enslaved relative — the half-brother of Jefferson’s late wife, Martha, and the brother of Sally Hemings, who cared for Jefferson’s daughter and later bore six of his children.
“[Hemings’] relationship with Jefferson is very interesting,” said Nicole Brown, a historian at Monticello. Their shared family ties, she noted, afforded Hemings certain opportunities that most enslaved people were denied. “He [was] constantly negotiating and renegotiating with Jefferson in ways that you might not traditionally think of an enslaved person being able to do.” In Paris, Hemings received formal training as both a chef de cuisine and a pastry chef. “He was not only one of the first French-trained chefs from the United States, but certainly one of the first Black French-trained chefs,” Brown added.
After five years in France, Hemings returned to the United States and served as Jefferson’s head chef at Monticello, as well as in New York and Philadelphia. In 1796, he successfully negotiated his freedom. Using French techniques such as braising, poaching and sautéing, he introduced sophisticated dishes that were virtually unknown in 18th-century America, including the “snow egg”—a poached meringue floating in crème anglaise. Macaroni baked with cheese, already popular in France at the time, was likely another dish he carried back across the Atlantic.
As Hemings cooked for diplomats, social elites and prominent tastemakers along the East Coast, his dishes — and the methods required to produce them — began influencing culinary trends across the new nation. Most Americans still cooked over open hearths, but Hemings relied on a stew stove, an early precursor to the modern range, which offered greater control over heat. Wealthy guests who dined with Jefferson often sought to replicate Hemings’ refined style, thereby accelerating his impact on American food culture.
“The way that we eat in America — the way that we cook, the foods we celebrate — all these things come through that one moment when Jefferson brought this person to Paris,” said chef Omar Tate, whose new Philadelphia restaurant, Honeysuckle, draws on culinary traditions from the African diaspora. “He technically was a celebrity chef because everyone knew the slave that Thomas Jefferson had in his kitchen.”
The baked dish then known as “macaroni pie” was one of Jefferson’s favourites and a regular feature at his table. Hemings prepared it by boiling macaroni in a mixture of milk and water, then layering the pasta with cheese and butter before baking it.
It remains unclear whether Hemings’ “macaroni pie” closely resembled what he encountered in late-18th-century Paris or whether he adapted it to suit his own tastes — or more likely, Jefferson’s. What is clear is that variations of Hemings’ dish gained traction across the United States over the following century, propelled by several broader developments.
The arrival of Italian immigrants in the 1880s increased the availability of pasta, while industrialisation revolutionised the production of both pasta and cheese. These changes made the ingredients affordable and accessible to many more households. In 1937, Kraft introduced its boxed macaroni and cheese as an inexpensive, quick meal during the Great Depression — advertised as “Make a meal for four in nine minutes.” During the Second World War, rationing policies allowed shoppers to purchase two boxes for a single ration point, cementing the dish’s status in American home cooking.
Today, mac and cheese is a $2.9bn industry, and some estimates suggest that the average American eats it 22 times a year, second only to pizza. Yet the man who may have helped introduce it to American diners is only now receiving broad recognition.
Visitors to Monticello can learn about Hemings through the museum’s From Slavery to Freedom walking tour, which honours the more than 600 people enslaved at the plantation from 1770 until Jefferson’s death in 1826. The Monticello website also highlights key aspects of Hemings’ life — including the fact that he earned modest wages while in Paris, enabling him to hire a French tutor despite his enslaved status. His story has also been chronicled in books and documentaries, including an episode of Stephen Satterfield’s Netflix series High on the Hog and the film James Hemings: Ghost in America’s Kitchen.
